hello and welcome to my easy to understand guide to the war of the worlds radio broadcast with a focus on industry this video is going to be particularly relevant for you if you are studying aqa a-level media studies as this broadcast is currently one of the set texts on that specification newspapers had always been a very popular way of receiving news in the home but radio was starting to become increasingly popular for audiences there had been several decades of conflict and uh tensions rising in europe um hitler was coming into power there was discussions of war being imminent at some point soon um and so a lot of people turned to radio away from newspapers because they felt that radio was giving them the opportunity to hear news that was more up to date than a newspaper they would hear um what was going on around the world so that kind of explains the growing popularity of the radio industry at the time so this particular radio broadcast was broadcast on a radio station called the columbia broadcasting company cbc they were an american radio station very big part of a commercial channel so um you know the need for ratings was very high if you're a commercial station and you're running adverts you want to get as many people listening as possible and that clearly influences the kind of content that you're going to run on your station that need for high revenue and high numbers of audiences high ratings means that they are likely to perhaps broadcast shows that are going to be a little bit controversial because they know it will gain audiences and listeners so this was part of the mercury theater on the air segment on cbc so it's a good way of targeting audiences who perhaps were interested um in kind of fictional radio theater or radio drama war of the worlds was uh directed by orson welles now orson welles is a really quite well-known um auteur auto is a kind of word we use to describe a kind of director that's got a real particular style so he you know he was reasonably successful and reasonably well known at the time he was kind of known as a young prodigy he'd had lots of success in theater and in radio um and although he was very young um you know he'd clearly made um several other media products that um had gathered a lot of um success and praise from audiences and critics like most directors he borrowed a lot of his ideas from other people so orson welles actually looked at ronald knox's broadcasting the barricades in 1926. so he got some real inspiration from that and how they were kind of reported and and commented on issues of of war and conflict the writer howard koch again had had some really good successes um so you know around the world in 80 days hell on ice and he'd have particularly success with sci-fi products so the use of and employing these people who'd had success with other similar products is a great way of trying to lower the risk for your product and trying to maximize the potential success of war of the worlds it was also based on an existing book and basing your product on something that already exists mean that it has an existing fan base a pre-sold audience of people who may listen because they're aware of the book and that helps to reduce risk even further one of the things that howard koch did in order to make the um radio play about war of the worlds feel more relatable to an audience was um he changed the setting in the book it was a kind of more historical setting he changed and modernized the setting to modern day new york at the time and so that was a change they made in order to make the radio play feel more marketable and up-to-date for an audience obviously the way that a radio drama is put together is quite unusual and quite different to the way that for example a modern tv drama is made so they had lots of actors and voice over artists within the radio studio all are performing live they had an orchestra in the studio creating the music and they had a number of people creating the sound effects which were really key in creating the atmosphere and tension for the show i think because the creators and the radio station knew in advance it might be seen as controversial they tried to self-regulate they tried to control a little bit of that content so cbs who were kind of the company behind this um they actually made um the writer and director change some of the real names um and the real companies referenced in the show to fictional ones because they didn't want to get sued by the real companies that had previously been mentioned in the script so there was a little bit of self-regulation going on there they also um kind of had later reminders that evening on the radio station that that broadcast was fiction um obviously that depends on whether the audience were listening to that part of it but certainly um you know they did have some reminders there i think because they knew there might be some confusion so there was some kind of control and self-regulation by the companies involved it's also important to know that this was broadcast on october the 30th um so just a day before halloween and orson welles actually um came onto the radio i'm shortly after war of the worlds had been broadcast and said that he considered this to be a kind of halloween special and therefore that's why it had been designed to kind of feel quite horrific and terrifying so the scheduling and the date on which this happened is quite important to consider in terms of you know why they designed the show this way of course there were audience complaints the fcc which is the kind of american organization that regulated radio um they got lots of complaints and they investigated they chose not to issue any punishments to orson welles or cbs um and they but what they did do as a result of this was they actually banned news reports uh that were kind of fictionalized news reports so um people as a result of war of the worlds could no longer broadcast uh what was seen to be real news but was actually fiction so this show did actually have an impact on regulations in the future obviously cbs was uh quietly pleased about all this publicity they were getting there's no such thing as bad publicity and they were quite enjoying all of the newspaper reports about how terrifying their radio broadcast had been um they actually played up on this quite a lot themselves um although they did kind of quietly drop the story as did a lot of newspapers when hitler actually referenced uh the war of the world's broadcast in one of his speeches and at that point cbs decided they didn't really want to keep promoting and talking about that show just because they didn't want to be linked to hitler in any way so that was my very simple easy to understand guide to the radio industry and war of the worlds don't forget to check out my channel for other relevant videos including more about war of the worlds and if you would like a video that i don't already have please just leave a 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