"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...

That's because radio is so common now. In the 1920s, when radio was just
being born as a commercial medium, most people lived in small towns
which were very unlikely to have their own broadcast stations.

True. There were less than 1000 US stations in 1940; there are now 13,500

The
nearest station was likely to be in the nearest "city" (more like a
medium sized town by today's standards) which could be a couple hundred
miles away. The broadcast band was wide open for what stations did
exist. "Clear channels" were exactly as the name implies-stations that
had to be in the clear to serve dozens of little farm towns within a
radius of several hundred miles. in the 1940s this situation still
applied.

Although there were well over 2,000 AMs and 700 FMs by 1950. The reign of
the clears ended with the lifting of the TV freeze in the early 50's.

But as people moved off the farm and into the city after WW2,
the need for clear channel stations disappeared. Stations which once
broadcast news and entertainment to farms refocused on their local
markets. And then came TV in the 50s which took away AM's traditional
news and entertainment schedule, and then FM in the late 60s which took
away the music market, and you have today's AM band-right wing talk,
sports, and ethnic programs.

Actually, after information, country music is the #2 format on AM, not
sports or ethnic.

The same thing is happening to SW in
Latinoamerica and Africa-FM is taking over SW's traditional functions as
people are being forced out of the jungles and deserts and into the
cities.

In most of Latin America, local or national SW died in the 60's and early
70's as local AMs moved into the smaller markets and SW enabled radios
became harder to find and more expensive. And the larger stations increased
power: in 1960, no Ecuadorian commercial AM had over 5 kw. By 1970, several
dozen did.

FM in Latin America, through the 90's, was mostly upper-income appeal and
metropolitan. For example, in 1985, Lima had 22 FMs of which 17 plaed
English langauge music. In the 90's, satellite networking of unmanned FM
relays on mountains and hills made FM nets viable.

Africa is a different story, as radio was severely controlled by
"governments" in most nations, and still is to some extent today.