Already between 1917 and 1920, in the United States, numerous experiments transmitting music and spoken dialogue at a distance were being carried out. In 1920 regular broadcasting began. The first to produce a radio transmission was Pittsburgh's KDKA, a station owned by Westinghouse, leader in consumer electronics retail. In the beginning, broadcasting of the first “programs” (music and brief audio entertainment) was promoted mostly by radio manufacturers and retailers, to trigger a market that was still substantially inexistent. Then, once the radio became more popular, advertising revenue began to finance the new form of communication.

In Europe, regular broadcasting began in the early Twenties, usually under the direct control of the State and in a government monopoly. It was in the United Kingdom where, during the Great War, the technique of broadcasting was most perfected (thanks also to Marconi's active role), and the first national system of radiocommunication established, the British Broadcasting Company, later called the British Broadcasting Corporation or B.B.C. (1922).

In Italy the first experimental broadcasts began in 1924, at first on the initiative of some private companies, then in October of that same year, under conditions of monopoly on public service concession, with the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI) progenitor of EIAR (1927-44) and thus of RAI. During the same years in which broadcasting was taking root, the first television (or what was then called) “radiovision” experiments were being carried out in the USA and in the United Kingdom. With the introduction of circular diffusion, not only was a new kind of entertainment beginning to develop, but a completely new model of communication was coming to life.