"While much of the focus of present-day media praise and damnation seems focused on video sources (including those online), radio "was there first." Many complaints about present-day television and cable were first directed at radio, such as a fear that violent or suspenseful programs would overly excite children's imaginations with untold effects over time. Radio also established many elements of present-day electronic media industry structure. Much of what we both enjoy and bemoan today, in other words, was accomplished (or inflicted) by radio long before television or more recent digital options became a reality. For example, that American broadcasting would depend on advertising was pretty much decided by the late 1920s, despite several concerted efforts (before and after passage of the benchmark 1934 Communications Act) to open up greater opportunities for other funding options. In turn, advertising support meant that American radio would be primarily a medium of entertainment (to attract the largest possible audience for that advertising) rather than the public or cultural service that developed in nations with other approaches to financial support. That national networks would dominate radio news and entertainment in the years before the coming of television (which would later and very quickly adopt the same patterns) was a fact by the early 1930s with only minor modifications at the margins over the years. The government would have to selectively license broadcaster access to limited spectrum space was obvious by the early 1920s; such a process only became fully effective in 1927. And that government would have little to do with American radio program content, though this has again varied over time, was made clear in the laws of 1927 and 1934, reinforced by numerous court decisions in the years that followed."