[BC] Early FM Growth. Its Cause

[Rich Wood]

------ At 05:12 PM 2/12/2007, WFIFeng at aol.com wrote: -------

>Although I don't know what was going on among broadcasters back then, I can
>give the perspective of an avid listener, growing up in the 70's! FM 
>used to be
>mostly just "elevator music" stations... lots of them. Is it any wonder so
>few people noticed it, or even cared?

Someone must have cared. It was one of the dominant formats on the 
air.A lot of people made a lot of money in that format. The fact that 
most markets had as many as four Easy Listening stations, most making money.

>It wasn't until they moved "POP" music and
>rock to the FM dial, that the younger ears perked-up, and radios started
>flying off the shelves. Word-of-mouth began to spread like wildfire, as young
>people were now able to hear their favorite tunes in crystal-clear FM STEREO,
>instead of the freq-limited, static-prone, mono signals they were so 
>accustomed to
>on AM.

Willie, you're beginning to sound like one of those Ogilvy IBUZ press 
releases. Radios didn't "fly off the shelves." It took years for FMs 
to take listeners from the dominant Top 40 AMs. Broadening the 
variety of formats sure helped but the FCC's prohibition against 
simulcasting threw things into high gear. Prior to that there were 
many AM formats simulcast and listeners stayed with AM for many years 
when the same format was available on FM. Remember, AM sounded much 
better back then than it does today. Just like today, quality wasn't 
the driving force. In Boston, WBCN had a free form format that was 
almost a cult. Couldn't get that on AM. It was imaginative 
programming and lower spot loads on FM that drew listeners. At WJIB, 
Boston, our spot load was 8 units an hour. It was a very different 
Easy Listening station.

Rich

Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-454-3258