It’s National Radio Day! 10 Things You Don’t (Or Do) Know About Radio

Okay, no making fun of us today. Today is our day: National Radio Day!

While we come in here and bust our ass, saving people's lives, keeping people from being bored, we're going to give you some interesting facts about the radio biz.

First off, the first commercial radio broadcast took place November 2nd, 1920 with KDKA in Pittsburgh. Nearly a year later, the same station's Harold Arlin took to the airwaves to deliver play-by-play coverage of a Pirates vs. Phillies. The rest, is history.

10 Radio Facts:

• 1 in 5 Americans say listening to the radio is one of the top "little things" they look forward to each day. A poll in June found it was the #1 thing people missed about commuting to work.

The good news, is if you still are working from home, you can catch us on your fancy station app every day while you plug away from the kitchen table.

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• About half of us love singing along to the radio. Women are more likely to admit they do it than men are.
• FM stands for "frequency modulation," and AM stands for "amplitude modulation." When you change channels on AM radio, you're changing the amplitude of the signal. On FM, you're changing the frequency.
• A study by Tinder back in 2016 found "radio personality" was one of the sexiest jobs you could have, and they were right. We ranked fifth, but in 2018 we didn't make the list at all. It's like you don't appreciate us or something.
• A station's call letters can tell you where they're at. If the call letters start with a W, they're on the east side of the Mississippi River. If it's a K, the station is on the west side of the river. For example, 97X's transmitter is licensed in Moline, IL, so the call letters are WXLP. Our friends in Cedar Rapids are listening on KRNA.
• According to another poll that came out in October, respondents said the 11th most important invention of all time.
• 9% of people wouldn't mind it if radio stations played more ads, 9% also think we should be allowed to play Christmas music all year. No thanks, I can barely take the Christmas music at Christmas.
• 31% of dog owners have used the radio to keep their dog company.
• 28% of radio hosts agree they "have a face for radio."