[BC] Early FM Growth. Its Cause

[Steve Newman]

However Donna, AM Top-40 was still on the top of the heap as far as the 
ratings were concerned way into the 70's. The Drake-Chenault, Buzz Bennett, 
Abrams/Burkhart, etc., stations were still doing well. The overtaking of the 
big numbers for AM music stations happened in the late 70's early 80's if I 
recall. Even I was amazed they held on that long and I was in San Francisco 
the very hotbed for underground radio. Fragmentation was starting to rear 
its ugly head as well as format permutations.

Steve

Steve Newman
Steve Walker Productions
Opp, Alabama


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: [BC] Early FM Growth. Its Cause



> 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?