Radio broadcasting emerged dramatically between 1920 and 1922 in the United States, capturing the popular imagination in a manner that was rare, if not unprecedented. By the end of the decade the modern networkdominated, advertising-supported system of radio broadcasting had come into existence. By 1935 the system was entrenched economically, politically, and ideologically, and it would provide the basis for the eventual development of television in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1928 and 1935, however, some elements of American society actively opposed the emerging commercial set-up and attempted to have a significant portion of the ether set aside for noncommercial and nonprofit utilization. Elements of education, labor, religion, the press, civic groups, and the intelligentsia created the opposition and reflected a general social dissatisfaction with the contours of the emerging commercial system. This opposition coalesced, more or less, into a broadcast reform movement that generated a significant critique of the limitations of network-dominated, advertising-supported broadcasting for the communication requirements of a democratic society. It also struggled to rouse public opinion to support federal legislation that would markedly recast U.S. broadcasting. The passage of the Communications Act of 1934, which still remains the reigning statute for radio and television, effectively ended whatever opportunity for legitimate opposition to commercial broadcasting had existed during these years.