"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
IBOCcrock wrote:



What's not acknowledged is that FM failed. Twice.

It's a little more complicated. The first time FM started, it was just
months before W.W. II, and stations with licences for the old 46 mHz band
could not get gear due to wartime rationing. The few that got ont he air ran
into the issue that being a non-network independent station meant playing
recordings, and running afoul of Petrillo and the AFM thugs who tried for
decades to keep recorded music off the radio.

After the War, the band changed to the current frequencies. By 1950, there
were 1000 stations on the air. By 1960, nearly half had been surrendered to
the FCC. The issue was the crisis in AM in the 50's, when TV forced radio to
drop the drama and entertainment mode and change to music, leaving very
little for FM to do to set itself apart.

The 1960 introduction of stereo was a flop... it took 3 years to get 100
stations on in stereo.

Before it didn't. FCC mandates were in part responsible.

That was part. The 1967 drop dead date on discontinuing of simulcasting was
a catalyst but not the cause of a new opportunity for FM. What really made
the difference was the polarizing of Top 40 audiences into fragments or
segments, hard rock, pop and AC... even oldies. This allowed some FMs to
take the new fragments and parlay them into a format. The first oldies
stations happened the next year, and progressive or free form rock stations
sprung up all over. "Chicken Rock" or AC came shortly after, and pop
oriented CHR started in the 1971-1972 period with WMYQ, WDRQ, KSLQ and
others like WERC-FM being among the first 4 or 5 FM only CHRs.

There's been a huge investment in this technology. There's been an FCC
mandate that all new modulation schemes be digital. And there's been a
half a billion dollars spent in promotion.

Actually, there has been less than $5 million spent on promotion. The rest
of the HD Alliance "spending" is in spots on the Alliance members' own
stations. In essence, this is a very low cost opportunity.

The point is not that
HD's success is assured, but rather that HD's demise is not assured
either. This is not going away anytime soon. It may go away, but it's far
from over.

This we agree on. And its success is not needed for FM in the short term,
but it could have had some effect on saving FM from death.