Improvements in communications technology played an important role in the development of New York City contributing to the city’s emergence as the nation’s commercial, financial and intellectual center.

The telegraph and telephone, two of the 19th century’s most significant developments in telecommunications allowed New Yorkers to rapidly collect and transmit information over great distances. The city’s newspapers relied on the telegraph to gather and publish news from across the U.S. and around the world. The telegraph and telephone were especially valuable to New York’s financial and commercial institutions, enabling them to monitor and control economic activities spread out over large areas.

Thomas Edison’s phonograph and motion picture camera introduced two new forms of communications in the late 19th century. For the first time, people could record the human voice and capture movement on film. By the early 20th century New York became an important hub for the recording and film industries.

New York’s status as a media center was enhanced by the development of radio and television in the 20th century. In the 1920s the National Broadcasting Co. and Columbia Broadcasting System established radio networks in New York, transmitting news, music, sports and information across the country. The city was also the setting for early television research during the 1920s and 1930s. Although World War II briefly interrupted television’s growth, by the late 1940s four networks broadcast from New York and New Yorkers owned about two-thirds of the nation’s TV sets.