If you think about it, if you've seen pictures of them,
they're usually large pieces of furniture, really.
They're made out of wood and
were meant to be something that was important in the room,
usually a family or a sitting or a living room, we call them in English.
A place that family members would gather and
enjoy this entertainment in the comfort of their home.
And the piece of furniture, as I'm describing it, was meant to be pleasing
to the eye because it was going to be seen by everyone, and it was rather large.
One of the reasons it was rather large is because vacuum tube technology
involved a pretty big footprint.
It required some space.
And so televisions and
radios were both quite large compared to what we have today.
And where did you buy a TV or radio in the 1920s, 30s, or 40s, or even the 50s?
Well if you're familiar with that period of time, you'll probably be aware that
at the beginning, there were specialized TV and radio stores, electronic stores.
They were considered special equipment that required some training.
You couldn't just walk and with no help serve yourself,
so to speak, and just pick it up and leave.
You needed help.
You understanding the product.
You needed help in having someone describe how it worked, the purpose of it.
It was a brand new product.
You probably needed someone to deliver it to your home and install it, and
you certainly needed help in repairing it.
And so these specialty stores, they were involved in maintenance.
If the vacuum tube itself needed to be replaced,
they came to your home, and they performed that.
Or you had to have it taken in for them to do that.
And so owning a TV or radio was not quite as simple as it was today, and
the industry itself involved a particular distribution channel system behind it.
Now today, in today's world TV and
radio stores don't exist in the same way to the degree that they did in the past.
Now we have these, what we call big box stores in a lot of parts of the world,
electronics specialty stores.
We have online retailers.
And so, self service is a major part of our society in a way
that didn't exist in previous generations.
And so, the radio, in particular, is much larger than what we have today.
And when people first had the opportunity to listen to radio, they gathered around
this piece of furniture, and they enjoyed a dramatic narration of some story.
And they look to that time that they can enjoy together.
But you all had to come to the place that this large object sat.