Radio disc jockey

The history of radio disc jockeys covers the time when gramophone records were first transmitted by experimental radio broadcasters to present day radio personalities who host shows featuring a variety of recorded music.

For a number of decades beginning in the 1930s, the term "disc jockey", "DJ", "deejay", or "jock" was exclusively used to describe on-air personalities who played selections of popular recorded music on radio broadcasting stations.

The term "disc jockey" first appeared in print in a 1941 issue of Variety magazine, although the origin of the term is generally attributed to American radio news commentator Walter Winchell who used it to describe radio presenter Martin Block's practice of introducing phonograph recordings to create a "Make Believe Ballroom" experience for radio listeners. The term combined "disc", referring to phonograph disc records, and "jockey", denoting the DJs practice of riding the audio gain, or alternately, riding a song to success and popularity.

Culminating in the "golden age" of Top 40 radio, from approximately 1955 to 1975, radio DJs established a style of fast talking patter to bookend three minute pop songs. Unlike the modern club DJ who mixes transitions between songs to create a continuous flow of music, radio DJs played individual songs or music tracks while voicing announcements, introductions, comments, jokes, and commercials in between each song or short series of songs.

During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, radio DJs exerted considerable influence on popular music, especially during the Top 40 radio era, because of their ability to introduce new music to the radio audience and promote or control which songs would be given airplay.

In 1892, Emile Berliner began commercial production of his gramophone records, the first disc records to be offered to the public. The earliest broadcasts of recorded music were made by radio engineers and experimenters. On Christmas Eve 1906, American Reginald A. Fessenden broadcast both live and recorded music from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. In 1907, American inventor Lee DeForest broadcast a recording of the William Tell Overture from his laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City, claiming "Of course, there weren't many receivers in those days, but I was the first disc jockey".

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