When did people start moving to FM?

[michael hagerty]

Probably the best way to answer the original question is to look at the ratings.

In Los Angeles, the market I grew up with, there was not an FM station in the top ten in the ratings until the fall, 1969 book. It wasn't until fall of 1972 that there were more than one---in that book, there were three. But in the fall of '73, it fell back to one, then two in the fall of '74.

Three in fall '75, four in fall '76, and five---half of the top ten--- in fall of 1977, which was also the first book where an FM station was number one (beautiful music KBIG).

 

[michael hagerty]

Another good measurement is the combined share of all rated FMs in L.A.

1966: 5.0
1967: 4.0
1968: 6.0
1969: 13.6
1970: 14.5
1971: 13.9
1972: 26.2

I can do the later years in a bit, but this paints a good picture of where the explosion (at least in L.A.) happened---FM shares more than doubled from 1968 to 1969 and almost doubled again by 1972.

 

[b-turner]

I understand Dallas/Fort Worth was the first market to reach a greater number of FM listeners than AM listeners. As I recall that was 1975. That may have been just rated stations and the margins were not by much (ie: 52% vs. 48%).

 

[michael hagerty]

(FM total shares in Los Angeles, continued from above--fall books)

1973: 19.9
1974: 26.8
1975: 34.3
1976: 39.6
1977: 39.1
1978: 44.5
1979: 44.5
1980: 47.5
(we switch from fall books to spring books here)
1981: 47.0
1982: 47.1

More later.

 

[gr8oldies]

I'll just give my personal story. My home town, near Celina, Ohio, was very early on FM. WMER, Celina, Ohio, signed on in 1960. It was 740 watts ERP, located on top of the Celina Music Store, with an antenna beside the store. The owners of the music store sold to Lee Rutherford and Ron Rumley and flipped to Hit Parade '68 (67, 70 and maybe 71). Before that it was a hodgepodge of beautiful music, top 40 and Big Band. My Junior High principal did a weekend shift when I was in 7th grade. The same family owns the Music Store, which is in the same location as 1960, and still outfitting high school bands and rock bands. The radio station, although with several ownership changes, is still on top of the music store as WKKI. Strong AM stations would have been WOWO, WLW, WJR and CKLW, which was where the teens went, especially starting in 1967.
Celina's first AM, a 4-tower daytimer on 1350 (WCSM) came on the air in 1963. 2 years later, an FM joined the AM which was simulcast. FMs that came in included WPTH and WKJG from Fort Wayne, WHIO-FM, Dayton (previous all beautiful music and WIMA, Lima.
Getting to popular tastes---WDAO, Dayton, was one of the first Urban FMs in the country. It got people in the habit of listening to contemporary music on FM, earlier than a lot of markets. This likely helped WONE-FM to flip to top 40 in 1969. It later became WTUE. I don't know the year but in the early 70s, The University of Dayton's WVUD would pick up an AOR format. All the jocks were students, but there was professional management as a commercial station. Several broadcasters went on to bigger things.
The first time I heard the AOR format was when WRIF, Detroit drifted in. Detroit wasn't local to me but it would come in with almost any tropo. I could catch WDRQ aping CKLW's format without the Can-con.
In Fort Wayne, WPTH flipped to top 40 as Rock 95, WPTH, using TM Stereo Rock. I also listened to WLBC-FM, Muncie IN with Drake-Chenault "Solid Gold". In 1979, top 40 WMEE flipped from 1380 AM to 97.3 FM. A year later, WPTH went live under Mark Elliot. 1979 was a big year for top 40 AMs flipping to Fm.

 

[boombox4]

The rockers, jazz fans and the beautiful music fans went to FM early on, during the 70s.. The pop music people followed later on, during the early 80s. Same with country.

 

[Mediafrog+]

I understand Dallas/Fort Worth was the first market to reach a greater number of FM listeners than AM listeners. As I recall that was 1975. That may have been just rated stations and the margins were not by much (ie: 52% vs. 48%).

Dallas and Fort Worth were combined into a single ratings market around 1974. The Metroplex had only three AM stations that fully covered the entire market day and night, while most of the FMs (especially those that had moved to the tall Cedar Hill sticks) covered the entire market with a good signal. And there were a lot of FMs to choose from, with a great deal of variety, so the audience quickly moved over. The effect was rather dramatic, with a large number of AMs flipping longstanding formats in the mid to late 70s--a prime example of the demise of that band as the primary destination for radio listeners.

 

[seatownmedia]

Earlier someone mentioned a “first phone” which is something I never attained. Most jocks in the 70’s had a “third phone” which was easy to attain. It was all about operating the Transmitter. Third phone just meant you knew some general basics as in how to turn the transmitter on or off, lol. But as I recall back in that era there needed to be a First phone on site during certain hours. What a completely different world in radio as late as the early 80’s. Sometimes a first phone would help dj’s get jobs when other talents who were better would be left out. I’m not sure when this all started to change but it seems by the mid 80’s this requirement was greatly relaxed.

 

[kfbkfb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KRNA

I moved to Iowa City IA in 1972-08, it's too far away to receive WHB AM and KXIC AM didn't broadcast popular music so I listened to KIIK FM from the Quad Cities on a mono clock radio. My friends in high school listened to WLS AM on their car radios.

KRNA came on the air in 1974Q4, I don't have any ratings, but the above link says KRNA had ~50% of the listeners by 1975 (IIRC, they had 6kW so they were mostly an Iowa City/Johnson Co. IA station until the 100kW/93.5->93.9 in the spring of 1979).

I don't know how quickly KBEQ FM outrated WHB AM.


Kirk Bayne

 

[michael hagerty]

Los Angeles combined FM shares, fall ratings books:

1966: 5.0
1967: 4.0
1968: 6.0
1969: 13.6
1970: 14.5
1971: 13.9
1972: 26.2
1973: 19.9
1974: 26.8
1975: 34.3
1976: 39.6
1977: 39.1
1978: 44.5
1979: 44.5
1980: 47.5

In the previous post, I was working with numbers I had on hand, forgetting the stash of ratings books at worldradiohistory.com---so there's no need to switch to spring book ratings , which were inflated by baseball on two AMs---KABC and KMPC. So we'll stick with fall books:

1981: 48.3
1982: 49.3
1983: 55.1

So, in fall of '83, the final leap to more than 50% of shares being FM occurs.

As to what stations and formats scored earliest in FM, the first FM to score more than a 1.0 share was Beautiful Music KOST, with a 3.0 in the fall of 1968, good enough for a tie for 12th place.

The following year, fall of '69 Jazz KBCA was the first FM to break into the Top 10 with a 3.8. KBCA was also the only FM in the Top 10 in fall of 1970, with a 3.3.

Beautiful Music KJOI was the first FM to score top 5, with a 4.5 in the fall of 1971.

KRTH's oldies format wound up tied for 4th in fall '72 with a 4.3. In that same book, KJOI and album rock KLOS tied for 9th place with a 3.8.

The next breakthrough station was Beautiful Music KBIG in 4th place in fall 1975 with a 5.1. After that, Mellow Rock KNX-FM, which tied KLOS in the fall of '76 with a 3.8 for 7th place. And the next breakthrough following that was KMET, which did a 4.9 for 4th place in the fall of 1978.

The thing to note is that, apart from Beautiful Music (which had KPOL-AM and XETRA-AM), none of these stations were beating an AM competitor. They were formats unique to FM.

It was only after that, in the fall of 1979, that Adult Contemporary KRTH outperformed ACs on AM, in 1981 that Top 40 KIIS-FM beat KFI, 1982 that Country KZLA beat KLAC and 1986 that KPWR beat KDAY. The rest of the AM formats (Talk, Standards, News and various Spanish-language formats) would take a few more years to migrate to FM or never would.

 

[davideduardo]

I understand Dallas/Fort Worth was the first market to reach a greater number of FM listeners than AM listeners. As I recall that was 1975. That may have been just rated stations and the margins were not by much (ie: 52% vs. 48%).

Dallas was early in reaching or exceeding FM listening parity, but by 1977 the national average gave the majority to FM. After that, the gains were much smaller as MOR / Adult AMs and news, talk and sports features were still predominantly on AM and the pre-boomers still listened to them. Think KMPC and WOR and WGN.

 

[davideduardo]

Earlier someone mentioned a “first phone” which is something I never attained. Most jocks in the 70’s had a “third phone” which was easy to attain. It was all about operating the Transmitter. Third phone just meant you knew some general basics as in how to turn the transmitter on or off, lol. But as I recall back in that era there needed to be a First phone on site during certain hours. What a completely different world in radio as late as the early 80’s. Sometimes a first phone would help dj’s get jobs when other talents who were better would be left out. I’m not sure when this all started to change but it seems by the mid 80’s this requirement was greatly relaxed.

Up until around the mid-70s directional AMs needed a First Ticket person on duty. It was also required, IIRC, for higher power AM stations up to some point. Many stations that had separate transmitter sites had to have operators there to take readings. I don't quite remember the precise years, of course.

In 1975, the relaxation of FCC rules allowed me to change a 10kw 4-tower directional that had employed 6 or 7 operators at its remote site to a remote controlled facility with 3rd Phone operators. The savings were enough to make the station profitable for the first time in about a decade.

 

[davideduardo]

The rockers, jazz fans and the beautiful music fans went to FM early on, during the 70s.. The pop music people followed later on, during the early 80s. Same with country.

Jazz was actually one of the heritage 60's FM formats, dating to the era when owners thought FM was for "quality music" like jazz and classical. My first radio job in 1959 was at an all jazz FM that operated Monday to Saturday, 5 PM till 11 PM... and that was in what was, at the time, a top 10 market.

As soon as FM became immensely profitable, many of the jazz stations switched format.

 

[b-turner]

And I might add, David, that FM 'Prime Time' was in the evening. Very few had FM radios in their vehicle. For many families the FM was in the Home Entertainment Center, a wooden piece of furniture with record changer, AM and FM radio and good amplifier and speakers. It was often a centerpiece of dens and living rooms.

Quite a good number of FM stations, even in big markets, were not on the air except late afternoon into the late night. Most operated much of the day and night on weekends matching leisure time when most FM listening happened.

A station that was real nice to a kid that loved radio like myself was a classical station that operated 4 or 5 to Midnight expanding to Noon to about Midnight on weekends. In 1968 they went 24/7.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

It looks like GM and Chrysler made AM/FM radio an option starting in 1963 or 1964 on certain models.
The high-end Chrysler Imperial had FM for 1963, and for 1964 many GM vehicles from Cadillac, Buick and Olds picked up AM/FM options.

It took a long time for AM/FM to become standard on all models, though. IIRC, the 1976 Chevy Malibu my parents had when I was a tot was AM only.

 

[michael hagerty]

It looks like GM and Chrysler made AM/FM radio an option starting in 1963 or 1964 on certain models.
The high-end Chrysler Imperial had FM for 1963, and for 1964 many GM vehicles from Cadillac, Buick and Olds picked up AM/FM options.

It took a long time for AM/FM to become standard on all models, though. IIRC, the 1976 Chevy Malibu my parents had when I was a tot was AM only.

My dad’s boss had a 1963 Ford Thunderbird with a factory AM/FM (mono) radio.

 

[Kelly A]

My dad’s boss had a 1963 Ford Thunderbird with a factory AM/FM (mono) radio.

I remember those. Had a chrome slide switch. Slide it one way and 'AM' is exposed. Slide it the other way and AM is hidden and 'FM' exposed. There's a company now that makes retro-appearing radios for classic cars with the same face and switches as original, but modern internal SDR guts and features like Bluetooth(tm).

 

[fybush]

It looks like GM and Chrysler made AM/FM radio an option starting in 1963 or 1964 on certain models.
The high-end Chrysler Imperial had FM for 1963, and for 1964 many GM vehicles from Cadillac, Buick and Olds picked up AM/FM options.

It took a long time for AM/FM to become standard on all models, though. IIRC, the 1976 Chevy Malibu my parents had when I was a tot was AM only.

My mother's 1973 Oldsmobile Omega was AM-only. Dad had a series of sports cars (BMW 2002, Chevy Vega, MGB) that I think all had FM in that time period, but mostly we listened to WBBF in the Omega.

Once she got an FM radio in her '80 Skylark, the switch from WBBF on AM to WVOR and WPXY on FM was pretty quick. By 1982 WBBF had gone to talk anyway.

 

[Harvey_Dogg]

1969. Muncie, Indiana. We could get WNAP from 50 miles away. It played AOR mixed with pop and soul. There were also three unlicensed pirate FM's in town operated by high school kids.

 

[gr8oldies]

Earlier someone mentioned a “first phone” which is something I never attained. Most jocks in the 70’s had a “third phone” which was easy to attain. It was all about operating the Transmitter. Third phone just meant you knew some general basics as in how to turn the transmitter on or off, lol. But as I recall back in that era there needed to be a First phone on site during certain hours. What a completely different world in radio as late as the early 80’s. Sometimes a first phone would help dj’s get jobs when other talents who were better would be left out. I’m not sure when this all started to change but it seems by the mid 80’s this requirement was greatly relaxed.

Yes, directional AMs in the late 60s/early 70s required a First Phone to be on duty, then to have one full timer with a First Phone working full time, then part time. First Phone Wonder Schools met that need......you essentially memorized the test, Some of them were REI and, Brown Institure.