Broadcast Delay - Early Use

Early Use

The radio station WKAP in Allentown, Pennsylvania, introduced a tape delay system consisting of an external playback head, which was spaced far enough away from the record head to allow for a five-second delay. A system of rollers guided the tape over the playback head before it wound up on the take up reel. This system was introduced in 1952 when WKAP started a talk show called "Open Mic". It is believed that this was the first time a telephone call-in show was broadcast with the telephone conversation "live" on the air. The FCC rules at the time prohibited the broadcasting of a live phone conversation. However, there was no rule prohibiting a taped playback of a phone call, provided that a "beep" tone was heard by the caller every 15 seconds so that the caller knew he was being recorded. The five-second delay constituted a "taped" phone conversation, thus complying with FCC regulations, that being a legal fiction.

The broadcast profanity delay was invented by C. Frank Cordaro (July 13, 1919 - February 20, 1997) who was Chief Engineer of WKAP, originally on AM 1320, in Allentown, Pennsylvania during the 1950s and early 1960s. Ogden Davies, then General Manager of WKAP, assigned Cordaro the task to develop a device whereby profanity during a "live" conversation could be deleted by the radio talk show host before it was broadcast. This new device was to be used on the "Open Mic" radio talk show. The device Cordaro developed was the first tape delay system. WKAP was one of several stations owned by the Rahal brothers of West Virginia (later Rahal Communications). First tested and used at WKAP, this tape system for broadcast profanity delay was then installed at the other Rahal-owned radio stations. From the Rahal brothers stations, the broadcast profanity delay went into common usage throughout the US.

John Nebel, who began a pioneering radio talk show in New York city in 1954, was one of the early users of a tape delay system.