Chapter 7
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. NPR is growing its audience among young people by ______.
a. carrying more hip-hop and other urban oriented programming
b. making its popular shows available as downloadable podcasts
c. adding more radio stations in urban areas
d. you can’t fool me; NPR listenership is declining among young people
2. Emile Berliner is famous for which of the following?
a. He developed the gramophone.
b. He invented the compact disc.
c. He was the star of the movie The Jazz Singer.
d. He founded MTV.
3. What medium did Guglielmo Marconi help invent?
a. television
b. motion pictures
c. recording industry
d. radio
4. Which of the following developments occurred during World War I?
a. Amateurs helped decipher German radio signals.
b. The military took over radio broadcasting.
c. David Sarnoff translated radio signals for codes.
d. KDKA broadcast the results of the 1916 elections.
5. All of the following except ______ were part of RCA.
a. United Fruit Company
b. General Electric
c. Westinghouse
d. Columbia Broadcasting System
6. The most popular radio drama of the late 1920s was ______.
a. The Guiding Light
b. The Shadow
c. Amos ’n’ Andy
d. Focus on Africa
7. As of 2014, the longest-running soap opera on radio and television was ______.
a. General Hospital
b. The Guiding Light
c. The Young and the Restless
d. Days of our Lives
8. Social music is which of the following?
a. music that people perform for each other in a social setting
b. music that is performed for a large group of people
c. music that is recorded for mass-market distribution
d. music that comments on social concerns
9. Which of these is Akio Morita famous for?
a. inventing the MP3 process
b. creating the compact disc
c. inventing the Walkman
d. inventing the iPod
10. Before 1948, recordings of popular black music were referred to as which of the following?
a. race records
b. R&B records
c. soul records
d. jazz records
11. What is Barry Gordy Jr. best known for?
a. being the radio operator who received the initial distress call from the Titanic
b. starring in the first kinetoscope film
c. founding Motown Records
d. discovering Bob Dylan
12. Which of these was the producer who worked on recordings for Johnny Cash, the Dixie
Chicks, Kanye West, and Adele?
a. Alan Freed
b. Rick Rubin
c. George Martin
d. Babyface
13. The method of recording sound that involves storing it in a series of numbers is called which
of the following?
a. long-playing recording
b. analog recording
c. social recording
d. digital recording
14. Alternative country star Lyle Lovett says that he makes almost all of his income from
______.
a. digital downloads
b. suing musical “pirates”
c. sales of CDs from big box retailers like Walmart
d. performing and touring
15. Which of the following is the federal agency charged with regulating telecommunications,
including radio and television broadcasting?
a. FTC
b. FCC
c. IRS
d. FAA
16. A podcast is which of the following?
a. an MP3 compressed audio file that can be listened to online or downloaded
b. a group or radio commercials that lasts about five minutes
c. a song recorded by someone other than the original artist
d. Thomas Edison’s original encoding technique for recording sound and music
17. In 2015, the most popular radio format in the United States was ______.
a. adult contemporary
b. news/talk
c. rhythmic contemporary hits radio
d. country/new country
18. Which of the following statements is true about radio as we know it?
a. It was invented by Heinrich Hertz.
b. It was initially invented as a way of carrying advertising.
c. It first went on the air in 1939.
d. It depended on a series of inventions and discoveries over a forty- to sixty-year period.
19. William S. Paley, the first president of the CBS network, saw radio as which of the
following?
a. an exciting new medium that should not be polluted by commercial advertising
b. a novelty that people would soon tire of
c. an excellent tool for advertising products and services
d. a powerful communication tool that should be controlled by the U.S. Navy
20. The continent that has the biggest BBC audio audience is ______.
a. Africa
b. Europe
c. Asia
d. South America
21. The statement that radio became a companion medium means which of the following?
a. Radios and televisions were being sold together as a package deal.
b. Radio became less focused.
c. Radio tried to be all things to all people.
d. Radio became the medium listened to while doing something else.
22. Which of the following describes the biggest influence of the Sony Walkman?
a. People started buying music on tapes instead of LPs.
b. People could start creating their own personal soundtrack instead of listening to music
programmed by other people.
c. People started pirating recording onto their own mix tapes instead of paying to purchase
music.
d. People stopped buying expensive stereo equipment.
23. If you are listening to a song with lyrics that deal with heartbreak, kids, and adult
relationships, you are likely listening to ______ music.
a. classic rock
b. hip-hop
c. country
d. adult contemporary
24. Digital recordings, such as CDs, frighten recording companies for which of the following
reasons?
a. They don’t wear out as fast as tapes or vinyl recordings did.
b. Consumers can potentially make perfect digital copies of the music without paying for them.
c. They can contain more music than old analog LP discs, so consumers expect to receive more
songs to fill that space.
d. The sound quality of digital recordings is different from that of analog recordings.
25. Which of these statements about radio following the growth of television in the late 1940s
and early 1950s is true?
a. Radio reinvented itself to become a companion medium, serving narrow niche audiences with
specialized formats.
b. A majority of radio stations went bankrupt as people stopped listening to radio.
c. Most radio stations kept playing the same kinds of programs that they had prior to television.
d. You can’t fool me; television didn’t become popular until 1962.
26. If you are listening to music that involves a DJ speaking over musical sample loops, you are
likely listening to ______ music.
a. classic rock
b. hip-hop
c. country
d. adult contemporary
27. Which of the following was the major effect of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 on
radio?
a. Fewer stations played urban contemporary music.
b. Many conservative talk radio hosts were forced off the air.
c. Radio programs started having content ratings similar to that used by movie studios.
d. Today more than 50 percent of the radio stations are owned by major media corporations.
True/False
1. A popular podcast, like the documentary series Serial, can attract a bigger audience than some
cable television shows.
2. Popular radio host Howard Stern has transformed from being a shock jock to doing
exclusively sports talk.
3. As shock jock Howard Stern has gotten older, he has gained a reputation as a serious and
insightful interviewer.