I think this list item was first posted in 1937 when RateItAll.com was still The California Monthly Opinion Almanac published by Frisco Coburn and was mailed out to subscribers in all 48 states. Back then the business model was a classified section on the back page that consisted mainly of mail order canning supplies and rubber tyre repair kits.

Update:

By Neddy Jingo, this is fulsome invention, egad! To think the masterful inventors, reaching out into the ether to capture the spoken word, could provide us with such wonder. By Jehosaphat, the first decade of the 20th Century is truly the decade of miracles.


Original review:

First of all, radio was invented a lot longer than 50 years ago. Technically therefore, it doesn't belong on this list.
It may be a sign of my age, but I love radio. I particularly love putting my car radio on search as I drive across country, hearing the local nuances that seem to exist only on radio.

Five stars normally- but the radio was invented far earlier than 50 years ago. Ask John McCain.

Radios are a really good invention. They seem to have been phased out with the invention of the iPod and Youtube. Car radios are still good because it allows you to preview music before you buy it.

Gotta have my music

Obsolete.

Ipod is really better now

Definitely 5.

I'm reminded of the great New Yorker cartoon (ca. 1974) in which a teenage boy is handing a portable radio over the counter to a department store returns clerk whilst saying, "I'd like to return this. Everything that comes out of it sucks!"

I'm not a regular listener (I've taken to bringing along music CD's when I drive now), as radio these days seems to primarily consist of bad music (or a few songs of good music played over and over and over again) or a plethora of Rush Limbaugh wanna-be's all disseminating the same Republican talking points in varying degrees of frenzy and rage. Then again, there is quality radio programming out there if you look hard enough, and sometimes I will stash the CD's and give it a go. Local stations can often be intriguing, as can college radio stations (sometimes). In my geographic area, one can hear jazz stations, classical music stations (as in Beethoven and Bach, not Led Zep or Foreigner), dance music stations (not my cup of tea, but to each their own), ethnic music, independent music, and even some talk-radio stations run by informed intellectuals rather than seemingly rabid right-wing madmen and clowns. I've heard Irish music, Arab music, Asian music, Italian music (on a show hosted by Uncle Floyd Vivino), Russian music, punk music, heavy metal music, blues. And, as Irish mentions, regional stations can be a fascinating introduction to the culture of a particular area. Sometimes, driving home late at night (or early in the morning, depending on your point of view), I've been able to pick up stations from as far away as Chicago, Baltimore, and Canada. In cases like that, just listening to local commercials can be hypnotic. Or hearing a weather report about snowstorms in Illinois when it's fair in NJ. As a hobby, I've enjoyed collecting CD's of old-time radio shows, particularly the horror ones like "Lights Out" or "The Mysterious Traveler". Some of them are corny as hell, but some of them are quite good, and they were the blueprint for such future creative efforts as "Tales From the Crypt", "Twilight Zone", etc. The potential for radio has been squandered (as has the potential for TV), but, if you look hard enough, you can find material there that is both enlightening and entertaining. Sometimes the search is what it's all about.

I don't really listen to the radio. I listen to CDs or tapes. That way I have my choice of what I want to listen to.

Perhaps great upon inception, but utterly worthless now for me.

We got internet radio now. Who listens to the radio.

Like it. A lot.

It may have been around a bit longer than the list advertises...

I listen to radio all the time, but radio has been around a lot longer than 50 years.