Broadcast

The idea of a broadcast is to reach as many people as possible. Ratings tell us how successful radio and TV stations have been in finding that audience. But the word “broadcast” has a much more down-to-earth beginning than the worlds of radio and television. It is an agricultural term – to broadcast was to sow seeds by hand, as opposed to planting crops in rows or furrows. The word was used in that sense from the late 1700s and didn’t make the shift to the more modern electronic meaning until the 1920s when radio started to take off.