No real trend has emerged in the interviews with regard to the control of the dial. In some cases, if a crystal set was used in the home, the person who assembled it used it most and then others took turns. Women home during the day sometimes felt too busy to sit down to listen to radio and others tuned it on for company all day long. Usually parents decided when the family would listen to radio, how long it would be on, and to which program it would be tuned. Some families shared it all around.
Frequently the selection of the programs was left to one family member, usually one of the parents. However in some homes, especially later in the decade older children had a chance to choose some of the programs. In the case of the homes where the father controlled program choices news was more frequently offered as a preferred programming choice.
Image source: Wikipedia, A 1930s Zenith Cube Radio
