Early radio networks funded programming by combining licensed sustaining shows with advertiser-sponsored content

Evidence

But Paley was easy to underestimate, as he soon showed. In the late 1920s, the business worked this way: network shows were produced either by the networks themselves—so-called public interest, or “sustaining” shows—or by other businesses that “sponsored” a show, the way Pepsodent sponsored Amos ’n’ Andy. The broadcast schedule at most affiliated stations was therefore a combination of these sustaining programs, for which they paid the network a licensing fee, and the sponsored shows, plus whatever fare the local station itself might put on. NBC and CBS lost money producing the sustaining shows, but the idea was to make up the difference with the substantial advertising proceeds from the sponsored shows, of which a small portion went to the affiliates. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 339

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the sustaining-vs-sponsored show distinction that structures early network radio economics.
• XREF: connects to: Early search engines monetized through licensing and paid ranking listings — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 221; Early radio advertising worked indirectly through sponsored content — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 292; CBS gave free programming to stations in exchange for carrying its sponsored ads — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 340