The story is a sad one. Edwin Armstrong developed FM back in the 1930's. His chief rival was David Sarnoff of RCA which also built radios, owned stations and the NBC network. David Sarnoff apparentlly was concerned that FM radio might eventually take listeners away from his own stations and NBC. Television was being developed at the time and RCA lobbied the FCC to reassign the then FM band so that they could use it for TV stations. The FM band was moved from the old band 42-50 MHz to its current 88-108 MHz which made every Sarnoff radio obsolite. To make matters worse, Sarnoff was the one that hired Edwin Armstrong to work for RCA. When Armstrong invented FM, RCA claimed the patent belonged to them and Armstrong spent the rest of his life fighting RCA and David Sarnoff. Armstrong eventually lost his patent and most of his money. FM was a flop and Edwin Armstrong jumped out of his apartment window and killed himself in 1954. Most FM stations in the 60's made very little money and often simulcast their AM sister stations. Some would run religous ,easy listening or classical music. Most cars and cheap portables didn't have FM so the audience was small. In the late 60's the FCC began requiring FM stations to offer seperate programming from that of their AM counterparts and many FM stations began what was called "underground" rock. which later evolved into Album Oriented Rock or Progressive Rock. AM stations mainly played the hits, which would included mostly rock and roll with some crossovers from country or R&B thrown in. Basically whatever the top selling records were at the time.
By the late 70's more cars had FM radios and would soon become standard equipment. More FM stations began to be programmed like AM stations and many of the top-40 and country formats began to move to FM. Which eventually led to most AM stations switching to new/talk, oldies, ethnic or other formats. So basically, when you listen to modern FM radio. Your'e hearing something similar to what used to be on AM, just not as good as old AM radio. Live DJs are being replaced with "robo-jocks" that are pre-recorded and run by computers. Old AM radio mostly had live jocks 24 hours a day. You just don't see that anymore.
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Tobey
12 years ago
What a great story, but sad as you mentioned.
If I'm not mistaken Stereo was available on FM long before it was launched on the AM band. FM also didn't suffer from some of the same signal issues AM did with buildings and other obstructions, although at night when the conditions were right AM signals could really reach out there.
The FM band has a certain area reserved only for non-profit broadcasters to license. Public radio, college stations and religious stations are all in the lower range, I don't know if there were ever similar restrictions on the AM band.
In my home town we had a AM/FM station that used the same call letters. The FM station usually broadcast pre-recorded all the time while the AM was a typical small town station with news, farm reports, weather, music and call in shows (but not like today). They used to run the Bargain Counter where you could call in if you had something to sell or wanted to buy something.
Most of the time we listened to 59.9, WOW out of Omaha (Wolfman Jack was one of the shows). It was one of the only stations west of the Mississippi that had call letters that started with W instead of K. Woodman of the World Insurance started it and a TV station as well. The TV station is still broadcasting as WOWT Channel 6 as an NBC affiliate. Sadly the corporate owners of WOW radio gave up that call sign a while back so it's no longer active.
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cabal24
12 years ago
Its amazing how teh radio industry has changed in teh past 30-40 years. I remember growing up that AM was where most of the good stuff was until the mid 80s when FM started to take over.
To put it in perspective, Howard Stern was on AM radio for the longest time.
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baran_erik
9 years ago
In addition to WOW, there was KOIL, the low power daytimer across the river in Council Bluffs, KRCB and, on good nights, KLMS in Lincoln, at least for us in SW Omaha. KRCB-FM was the first FM station in the Omaha metro area that I remember broadcasting rock 'n' roll, at first just a simulcast of the AM signal. Remember when the Nebraska games were broadcast on both KFAB and WOW?
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pt100
10 years ago
As I mentioned in another thread, FM had been around since after WWII, and we had an FM radio in the early 1960s. By the end of the 1970s, 50.1% of radio listeners were tuned to FM, ending AM's historical prevalence. By 1982, FM commanded 70% of the global audience and 84% among the 12-24 year old demographic.
It is better to be kind than to be clever or good looking. -- Derek
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