Ernest Fisk

Empire State: Ernest Fisk and the World Wide Wireless

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"Empire State: Ernest Fisk and the World Wide Wireless"

To commemorate World Radio Day on Monday 13th February, 2012 the ABC broadcast the following program which celebrates the life and times of Ernest Fisk and the role he played in the development of AWA and broadcasting in Australia.

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Image: E.T. Fisk, c. 1911, when he came from England to represent the London-based Marconi companies in Australia and New Zealand.
Original held by J. Fisk, Canberra.


In the 1930s and 40s, wireless ‘was what television, the internet and the iPhone, all rolled into one, are today’. Empire State tells the story of Ernest Fisk, the man who led the Australian wireless company AWA in those extraordinary decades and was managing director of the music giant EMI in London after the World War II. Fisk considered wireless ‘the greatest gift of science to Australia’. Its' possibilities were ‘as great as the future of Australia itself. His story is about a technology that helped change the world, and the great global political shifts that turned this son of the British Empire into a citizen of Australia.



To listen to the ABC Radio National programme about Ernest Fisk, click on the button below. It will open a new page. When you are finished, close that page and you will be returned here.

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