D Peter Maus wrote:
clifto wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:

Market drive in broadcast is a hit or miss affair. FM had been
languishing on the edges of extinction since Amstrong took his
beating from Sarnoff. It wasn't until FCC mandated in the 60's that
all new radios produced were to have both AM and FM stages, that FM
listening began to take off.




I never heard of this. Further, from the sixties on, AM-only radios have
been available all over the USA.


Actually, for a while, they weren't.


What made FM take off was underground

radio.



What made FM take off was the popularity of mass appeal programming
found by listeners migrating to FM as FM radios became more widely
available. FM had been around for more than 20 years by the time the
general market discovered it, with programming limited to classical
music, because ASCAP royalties did not have to be paid, and beautiful
music formats because of it's cost effectiveness. Most FM stations had
short lifespans until the 60's, because there was just no one in any
numbers listening. Primarily because of the limited value of making the
investment in an FM capable radio for what little was actually on the
bands. Even as late as the 60's, FM capable radios were expensive.
Portables often running $50 or more. My first FM was a Raleigh 9
transistor, in the late 60's, after FM radios became manufactured in
numbers, and it still cost almost $30, a lot of money then, when AM
radios had been available for half that.

Underground radio went dark for the same reasons most FMs went dark in
the late 40's and 50's: there weren't enough listeners to support it. At
the same time, Top 40 and AOR radio were stealing listeners from AM in
droves, dwarfing the size of underground audiences.



Let me make a clarification to that. I'm not suggesting that AOR and
Top 40 were around in the late 40's and 50's. But they, were, in fact,
latecomers to the FM band around the time that underground radio was in
it's final days. Stations like KDNA, ST Louis lost their asses to KSHE
(AOR), KADI (AOR) and KSLQ (Top 40.)

KDNA never pulled appreciable numbers out of a few high school and
college kids, and was replaced with Schulke Beautiful Music as KEZK. In
fact, KDNA's audience was dwarfed by KXOK (AM Top 40), and even among
the high school FM afficionados of the time, didn't make a strong
showing against KSLQ. College kids were listening more to KSHE than KDNA.

What KDNA did do well, was introduce non mainstream music to an
audience that was already hungering for something that was out of the
popular tide. John McLaughlin, Robbie Basho, Ravi Shankar, and Leo
Kottke were staples of KDNA programming. I heard my first Firesign
Theatre on KDNA. But the numbers tuning in, like most alternative
formats, were very small.

KACO, also licensed in St Louis attempted undeground radio, but the
guy who owned it couldn't affort the upkeep, eventually running only 12
hours a day, and spinning the tunes himself. Ask anyone how many times a
day he played the theme from "Mannix." By the time KACO went away, me
and the guy who owned it were the only ones who knew it was there.

Some underground stations made a bit of noise. Some actually did
reasonably well. But they are dark today for the same reasons as any of
the stations who ever went dark: Lack of interest.

Shame, really. Some of them, even KDNA, were actually quite good and
well executed.

Underground radio was an interesting historical moment in
broadcasting's colourful history, but it was hardly the impetus claimed
for it.