[BC] Early FM Growth. Its Cause

[Donna Halper]

>it was said--
>I really don't think anyone especially overly horny teens thought 
>about sound quality. If you listened to FM it was for different 
>content or because it extended the hours of daytime AM stations.

My recollection is that AM had become boooooring.  18 minutes of 
commercials, too much talk, too many of the same songs over and 
over.  The country was changing-- the women's movement, civil rights 
movement, Viet Nam, and there were lots of baby boomers who were no 
longer teeny boppers-- they were now in college.... yet AM top 40 was 
stuck in the 50s, which was great for the 50s, but not so great for 
the changes taking place in the mid to late 60s.  Also, the music 
scene was changing too-- album cuts by a lot of new bands who were 
not interested in top 40, songs that were like poetry (early Dylan, 
Simon & Garfunkel, etc), songs that were not 2 minutes and 52 second 
long, movements like folk/rock and psychedelia... songs that 
protested the escalating war...  and top-40 didn't know what to do 
with any of it.  When the FCC had ruled that AM stations could no 
longer simulcast on their FMs and they had to come up with original 
programming, a lot of young adults with a desire to hear new music 
and a frustration at the restrictions of AM top-40 started trying to 
get all the new music heard on FM, where long songs were just fine 
and controversial lyrics were too (as long as you didn't drop the F 
bomb).  There was already a fledgeling experiment with "free form 
progressive" (later re-named Album rock) in New York and San 
Francisco on FM, and it was just a matter of time before that new 
format (and later, others like urban/dance music) spread to other 
cities.  FM provided something new and interesting.  Who knew that 
eventually it would lose its uniqueness and no longer be cutting edge?