First, while NBC might have originally considered itself a way to demonstrate the excellence of RCA's radios, after Amos 'n' Andy it was now clearly and irresistibly in the business of selling the attention of enormous audiences to those who could pay for and use it. The broadcaster thus definitively became an attention merchant, in the model pioneered by Benjamin Day at the New York Sun. Some ironies would be papered over: never mind that a sponsor had had to beg to buy the airtime (at a premium) in order to show NBC just how much attention radio could theoretically capture and sell the next time; the attention was now and ever after the broadcaster's product to develop and to resell to the highest bidder. Needless to say, there would never be a backward glance to the days when the network existed to sell the hardware!

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 323