Ken Burns' America: Empire of the Air - The Men Who Made Radio (Full Frame)

VHS, 120 minutes, PBS

Empire Of The Air: The Men Who Radio, A Film By Ken Burns For 50 years radio dominated the air-waves and the American consciousness as the first "mass medium." This film by Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman's flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a harddriving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth. Against the backdrop of radio's "Golden Age," this fascinating back-stage drama tells the history of radio through archival photographs, newsreels of period, and interviews with such well-known radio personalities as Garrison Keillor, sports commentator Red Barber, radio dramatist Norman Corwin and broadcast historian Erik Barnouw.