Rating: 
Summary: Everyone who owns a radio or TV should see this film.
Review: A wonderful look at the early history of broadcasting with just the right amount of technical description and science salted in. Explores the fascinating relationship between the lone genius Armstrong, the litigation loving promoter De Forest, and the calculating, self-made tycoon David Sarnoff. Better than a movie! This story contains love, hate, greed, jealosy, big money and big inventions that changed the world forever, and it is all true! One of those films that satisfies our need to be entertained and enlightened at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Social history at its best.
Review: Although Marconi may have invented the technology for radio, three men made it a force for change. "Empire of the Air" examines the lives of those men, Lee de Forest, Edwin Armstrong and David Sarnoff. All three would contribute some necessary component to radio's development, but could never agree or acknowledge the work of the other. Today we take radio's constant presence and role for granted, but this documentary proves what a struggle it was to bring it into being. Burns uses personal interviews with the key players in radio's development and their contemporaries, as well as archival footage and historical commentary to illustrate how radio has impacted us as a society. The story of radio's three primary "fathers" plays like a radio drama full of struggle, triumph and tragedy. This is an outstanding documentary.
Rating:
Summary: Social history at its best.
Review: Although Marconi may have invented the technology for radio, three men made it a force for change. "Empire of the Air" examines the lives of those men, Lee de Forest, Edwin Armstrong and David Sarnoff. All three would contribute some necessary component to radio's development, but could never agree or acknowledge the work of the other. Today we take radio's constant presence and role for granted, but this documentary proves what a struggle it was to bring it into being. Burns uses personal interviews with the key players in radio's development and their contemporaries, as well as archival footage and historical commentary to illustrate how radio has impacted us as a society. The story of radio's three primary "fathers" plays like a radio drama full of struggle, triumph and tragedy. This is an outstanding documentary.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Program
Review: I first saw "Empire of the Air" on PBS when it debuted in 1991. At the time, I was a junior in high school and I had heard that there was going to be a program about Radio on PBS. All I can say is this is a great program for anyone who loves Radio and Television, and it really captures not only the history behind Broadcasting and Broadcast engineering, but it also examines the lives of the great men who built the legacy of the Broadcast industry into what it is today. I also have the book that this program is based on, and it is excellent too. Ken Burns has a unique way of telling a story and taking a viewer into another place and time that few documentary filmakers today are really able to do. The late actor Jason Robards narrates this film, and he was the right guy to have as a narrator for this production. Ken Burns proved with the Civil War series that he is a master storyteller, and I will also be buying "The Civil War" DVD set in the near future. I have a degree in Broadcasting from Eastern Kentucky University and we watched this program in a couple of my classes. One professor I had told us that the film could tell us more about the history of Radio and Television in two hours than he could ever hope to. That is saying a lot, because it was coming from a professor with a PhD. who had been teaching Broadcasting for probably 20 years. I am also an amateur radio operator, and there is a little of the history that ham radio operators played in the role of Broadcasting depicted in this film as well. I have been waiting for about 4 years for PBS to finally release "Empire of the Air" on DVD, and I will be buying this title shortly. I highly recommend this video, it is able to take the viewer to another place and time before the age of entertainment that we know today when families would gather around the radio for their news and entertainment. It is really a shame in some ways that we have lost a lot of the kind of closeness that Radio brought to families so many years ago. All I can say is Ken Burns is a genius!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Program
Review: I first saw "Empire of the Air" on PBS when it debuted in 1991. At the time, I was a junior in high school and I had heard that there was going to be a program about Radio on PBS. All I can say is this is a great program for anyone who loves Radio and Television, and it really captures not only the history behind Broadcasting and Broadcast engineering, but it also examines the lives of the great men who built the legacy of the Broadcast industry into what it is today. I also have the book that this program is based on, and it is excellent too. Ken Burns has a unique way of telling a story and taking a viewer into another place and time that few documentary filmakers today are really able to do. The late actor Jason Robards narrates this film, and he was the right guy to have as a narrator for this production. Ken Burns proved with the Civil War series that he is a master storyteller, and I will also be buying "The Civil War" DVD set in the near future. I have a degree in Broadcasting from Eastern Kentucky University and we watched this program in a couple of my classes. One professor I had told us that the film could tell us more about the history of Radio and Television in two hours than he could ever hope to. That is saying a lot, because it was coming from a professor with a PhD. who had been teaching Broadcasting for probably 20 years. I am also an amateur radio operator, and there is a little of the history that ham radio operators played in the role of Broadcasting depicted in this film as well. I have been waiting for about 4 years for PBS to finally release "Empire of the Air" on DVD, and I will be buying this title shortly. I highly recommend this video, it is able to take the viewer to another place and time before the age of entertainment that we know today when families would gather around the radio for their news and entertainment. It is really a shame in some ways that we have lost a lot of the kind of closeness that Radio brought to families so many years ago. All I can say is Ken Burns is a genius!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Documentary
Review: I've had mixed feelings about what I've seen from Ken Burns before; in both "Baseball" and "Jazz" he spends too much time cutting from the story to a shot of a person staring off into the distance with a glint in their eye and talking in the most maddeningly vague and meaningless terms about "Gee, how wonderful and thoroughly *American* baseball is," and "Man, jazz is just something you have to *feel.*" I have no problem with reflection and emotion in a documentary, but Burns has a fatal weakness for it that ends up inflating what could have been an 8 hour documentary into a 12 hour "epic."
"Empire of the Air" is the first thing by Burns I've seen that has gotten it right. Above all, he is telling us a story here, and it is surely a great one. Lee de Forest, David Sarnoff, and Harold Armstrong are each fascinating figures, and their trials and tribulations, loves and jealousies and even deaths are fascinatingly presented. Burns shows his usual talent for directing and editing, skillfully and seemlessly mixing fascinating archival footage and sound. And we do get the poetic reminescences here that I complained of earlier, though in an appropriate degree, and from unusually eloquent talking heads: Garrison Keillor and in particular the great Norman Corwin. These two artists are able to clearly and articulately impart the magic of radio without some of the repetitiveness and cliches that plagued some of the commentators in "Baseball" and "Jazz."
A little more on some of the characters who inhabited the airwaves -- Jack Benny, Orson Welles, and Fred Allen, to name but a few -- would have been welcome, but perhaps Burns was wise in mostly skimming over them -- they deserve another documentary all their own. What we have in "Empire of the Air" is enough, and the best that I've seen yet from Ken Burns. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: If You're Interested In Radio - This Is A Must
Review: This documentary is something very special. Whatever your interest in communications, you'll never look at radio/TV the same after viewing this tape. This is one of my most treasured vidoes.
Rating:
Summary: Empire of the Air=Empire of the Documentary
Review: This documentary skillfully tells the story of the three men most responsible for what radio has become today. It is also the story of radio. Burns portrays brilliant yet egocentric FM radio inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong as the centerpiece of his film. Armstrong's friendship with RCA Chairman David Sarnoff and his personal and legal troubles with Lee DeForest and later Sarnoff are really the center of the documentary. While Armstrong's story is somewhat heartbreaking, Sarnoff's story is alternately despicable and inspiring. It shows his rise from a Russian immigrant selling papers on the street to become, at his death, one of the most cutthroat and powerful people in entertainment. Then, there's Lee deForest. He's portrayed as a flamboyant self promoter that built his life and career on the backs of others including Armstrong. With the stories of these three men is also the story of radio from its early days. Burns weaves together old-time broadcasts and many interviews with popular public figures, people who knew Armstrong, deForest, and Sarnoff, and individuals associated with early radio. I acknowledge the earlier review that says the movie slights Tesla...it does. The documentary probably should have mentioned Tesla in some way, but the focus of the movie is more on the lines of the three men that made radio what it is today. You will laugh at Lee Deforest, and you will feel deep sorrow in your heart for Edwin Armstrong. You may even hate David Sarnoff a bit. Ken Burns is a great filmmaker, and he's working with great material here. He clearly has a message in this movie. I wish Hollywood would get ahold of this book and make it into a feature-length movie. The documentary based on the book is really and truly a masterpiece. I recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the medium of radio or television. I also recommend this film to anyone interested in inventing or the history of inventing in general.
Rating:
Summary: Empire of the Air=Empire of the Documentary
Review: This documentary skillfully tells the story of the three men most responsible for what radio has become today. It is also the story of radio. Burns portrays brilliant yet egocentric FM radio inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong as the centerpiece of his film. Armstrong's friendship with RCA Chairman David Sarnoff and his personal and legal troubles with Lee DeForest and later Sarnoff are really the center of the documentary. While Armstrong's story is somewhat heartbreaking, Sarnoff's story is alternately despicable and inspiring. It shows his rise from a Russian immigrant selling papers on the street to become, at his death, one of the most cutthroat and powerful people in entertainment. Then, there's Lee deForest. He's portrayed as a flamboyant self promoter that built his life and career on the backs of others including Armstrong. With the stories of these three men is also the story of radio from its early days. Burns weaves together old-time broadcasts and many interviews with popular public figures, people who knew Armstrong, deForest, and Sarnoff, and individuals associated with early radio. I acknowledge the earlier review that says the movie slights Tesla...it does. The documentary probably should have mentioned Tesla in some way, but the focus of the movie is more on the lines of the three men that made radio what it is today. You will laugh at Lee Deforest, and you will feel deep sorrow in your heart for Edwin Armstrong. You may even hate David Sarnoff a bit. Ken Burns is a great filmmaker, and he's working with great material here. He clearly has a message in this movie. I wish Hollywood would get ahold of this book and make it into a feature-length movie. The documentary based on the book is really and truly a masterpiece. I recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the medium of radio or television. I also recommend this film to anyone interested in inventing or the history of inventing in general.
Rating: 
Summary: Yes, but where's Tesla?
Review: This film was a very good in-depth look at the people who were most responsible for bringing radio to the masses. However, I find it distressing that Nikola Tesla was never mentioned once in this documentary. Everyone remembers Marconi as the "father" of radio, but it was actually Tesla, in his experiments with the wireless transmission of power, who invented radio and who was the true father. Ken Burns would have done good to at least mention that fact. Other than this discrepancy, the documentary is a very good look into the early history of radio.
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