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Roosevelt gave a series of thirty such "fireside chats", evening radio conversations with his listening audience between 1933 and 1944. He spoke in a conversational and familiar tone and his messages were listened to by millions of Americans. Each such address had a specific topic, ranging from the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. Roosevelt was able to use the radio to quash rumors and to better explain his policies, without the message being filtered by news reporters. His tone and demeanor communicated confidence and self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Although Ronald Reagan was referred to by this title, Roosevelt really was the first "great communicator" and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency.
All of the fireside chats can be found at this link. Roosevelt understood that these addresses were an important component of assuring his administration's success. He saw that the true power of the presidency was the ability to take the initiative. The use of radio for direct appeals was perhaps the most important of FDR's innovations in political communication. At the time, Roosevelt's opponents had control of most of the major newspapers in the 1930s and press reports were under the control of those with editorial commentary that could be molded in an unfavorable manner to him. He was afraid that newspapers' biases would affect the news columns, so he used this method to reach the voters directly and first.
Roosevelt had first used this method in 1929 as Governor of New York, when he faced a conservative Republican legislature. During each legislative session he would sometimes address the residents of New York directly.
In these speeches, Roosevelt asked his radio listeners for help in getting his agenda passed.The tactic worked. Letters would pour in following each of these addresses, which helped pressure legislators to pass measures Roosevelt had proposed.
As President, Roosevelt's first radio addresses was made on March 12, 1933, eight days after his inauguration. He had spent his first week coping with a large number of bank closings. He closed the entire American banking system on March 6 in what was called a "bank holiday". On March 9 Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act, which Roosevelt used to effectively create federal deposit insurance when the banks reopened. At 10 p.m. ET that Sunday night, on the eve of the end of the bank holiday, Roosevelt spoke to a radio audience of more than 60 million people, to tell them what he had done, why, and what the next steps would be. This seemed to calm public fears. Within two weeks people returned more than half of the cash that they had withdrawn and the first stock-trading day after the bank holiday marked the largest-ever one-day percentage price increase.
The term "fireside chat" was inspired by Roosevelt's press secretary, Stephen Early, who said that the president liked to think of the audience as a few people seated around his fireside. Listeners were able to picture FDR in his study, in front of the fireplace, and could imagine they were sitting beside him. The term was coined by CBS broadcast executive Harry C. Butcher of the network's Washington, D.C., office, in a press release before the address of May 7, 1933. CBS journalist Robert Trout was the first person to use the term on the air. The term was later used by Roosevelt himself.
Roosevelt customarily made his address from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. He would arrive 15 minutes before air time and greet members of the media. NBC White House announcer Carleton E. Smith gave him a simple introduction: "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States." Roosevelt most often began his talks with the words, "My friends" or "My fellow Americans". According to his speechwriter Samuel Rosenman, Roosevelt "looked for words that he would use in an informal conversation with one or two of his friends". He avoided terms not in most person's vocabulary. Each radio address went through about a dozen drafts. Roosevelt practiced his delivery.
Roosevelt's radio audiences averaged 18 percent of the population with radio access during peacetime, and 58 percent during the war. The fireside chats attracted more listeners than the most popular radio shows, which were heard by 30–35 percent of the radio audience. Roosevelt's fireside chat of December 29, 1940, was heard by 59 percent of radio listeners. His address of May 27, 1941, was heard by 70 percent of the radio audience. An estimated 62,100,000 people heard Roosevelt's fireside chat December 9, 1941. At 79% it is believed to be the record high for a Presidential address. Approximately 61,365,000 adults tuned in February 23, 1942, for FDR's first fireside chat since the attack on Pearl Harbor, in which he outlined the principal purposes of the war. In advance of the address Roosevelt asked citizens to have a world map in front of them as they listened to him speak. Sales of new maps and atlases were unprecedented.
Every U.S. president since Roosevelt has delivered periodic addresses to the American people, first on radio, and later on television and the Internet. The practice of regularly scheduled addresses began in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan started delivering a radio broadcast every Saturday.