Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, 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of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

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  Ken Burns

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  Jason Robards
  Narrator (voice)
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  Red Barber
  Self - Radio Announcer
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  Erik Barnouw
  Self - Historian
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  Ken Bilby
  Self - Biographer of David Sarnoff
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  Norman Corwin
  Self - Writer
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  Susan Douglas
  Self - Historian
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  Frank Günther
  Self - Engineer
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  Jeanne Hammond
  Self - Niece of Edwin H. Armstrong
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  Loren Jones
  Self - Engineer
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  Garrison Keillor
  Self - Writer
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  Helen Kelley
  Self - Radio Broadcaster
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  Robert Morris
  Self - Engineer
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  Dana Raymond
  Self - Friend of Edwin H. Armstrong
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  Gertrude Tyne
  Self - Engineer
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  Fred Allen
  Self - Predicts Demise of Radio (archive footage)
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  Gene Autry
  Self - Sings (archive sound)
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  John Barrymore
  Hamlet (archive sound)
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  Winston Churchill
  Self - Finest Hour Speech (archive sound)
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  Charles J. Correll
  Self - Prepares for Amos 'n' Andy Broadcast (archive footage)
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  Lee De Forest
  Self - Objects to Quality of Radio Programming (archive footage)