To be clear, the state being the gatekeeper of tv and radio was a thing in France directly after the war, with the French government literally having the monopoly over the airwaves, but in the latter half of the 20th century they opened up the airwaves to private/independent entities. Basically, we also had a pirate radio movement that managed to turn public sentiment towards being in favor of a certain liberalization of tv and radio.

Nowadays we've come full circle; billionaire-owned media dominates tv and radio, with a handful of more independent stations eaking out a living and meagre audience on the periphery. In a very real sense, advertising and chasing views got to us just like it got the USA.

Re: gatekeepers, I guess I was more thinking about "hard" forms of it (in contrast to "soft"). You're certainly correct in stating that they've always been around in some way. Still, I think there is a meaningful difference in the case of television, as there were no "pirate broadcasters" to my knowledge even when here in France there were only 1, then 2, then 3 public channels (with about 10 year's wait between each of their creations).

Maybe a better phrasing for my question would have been, did Hitler's radio propaganda more closely resemble todays's facebook and telegram groups in their unfiltered direct access to people's eyes and ears?