I called to complain about a station's HD being off

[nd2023]

I called a certain station to complain about their HD being off because I like their HD2. The DJ who picked up didn't know what I was talking about! I called the sales department and they too were confused. I was asked "What's an HD2?" by a sales rep.
I guess I have 2 open DX frequencies because I doubt the HD is coming back.
It's sad when station employees don't know their own station had HD radio.

 

[kenglish]

I've had similar experiences.
It's too bad that stations can't at least write up a memo to ALL their employees, telling them about any new technologies that are being used, and who to call about problems.

 

[KB1OKL]

I've had similar experiences.
It's too bad that stations can't at least write up a memo to ALL their employees, telling them about any new technologies that are being used, and who to call about problems.

New technologies?? Ha ha! In this day and age something 7 years old (on the air) is ancient. I am sure that if they had gotten any traction AT ALL on this ahem...... new technology they would have been ALL over it.

 

[JoshTheRadioDude]

It was outdated technology even when it was "new."

 

[tomservo]

New technologies?? Ha ha! In this day and age something 7 years old (on the air) is ancient. I am sure that if they had gotten any traction AT ALL on this ahem...... new technology they would have been ALL over it.

Name one piece of backend broadcast technology in a radio station that is newer than HD? It may be a decade old at this point but it's still the new kid on the block. RDS predates it, SCA is old enough to be a member of AARP, and stereocasting is a great grandfather at this point.

As to the OP, I'm not surprised at the response. Ask a receptionist about Storq or RDS or why the stereo carrier is off and you'll get the same confused looks. The person who answers the phone is a drone who doesn't even know the call letters half the time, especially if it's a number for an entire large cluster. Ditto the sales weasels. It's not their job to know technology, only to sell ads.

What you need is a way to get in contact with the engineer, if the station has one. Unfortunately, engineers at 99% of the stations I've tried to contact are hidden away in a back room with a sealed concrete door, away from the public as if they're ashamed of them. Their numbers and e-mail addresses are rarely published on a company or station website. Strange as it may sound, I've had better luck asking technical questions to a station's social media page than anywhere else, but that's still only working for me once in a blue moon.

There's a lot of reasons the HD could be off. In my market, the Clear Channel stations that run HD always seem to have one of the cluster that's inactive. Sometimes I wonder if they're playing round robin with encoders, taking them from station to station, because it seems like exactly when one HD comes back, another goes off. The encoders can crash, or a part can fail that they can't afford to replace. It's always something, but it doesn't affect the main signal so it is low priority. HD and data services and the online stream are all redheaded stepchildren since they don't sell ads for the company. You could probably include SCA in that, too, since it's not a consumer-facing product.

 

[KB1OKL]

Well maybe it's comparatively new but it has been and will remain a nonstarter until radio people get sick of throwing good money down a hole that could have actually been used for the betterment of radio. Radio took a left turn about 7 years ago ran into the woods and hasn't found it's way out yet. Put the money toward better content and good jocks, pay them well, put some money into the important things about radio and it will pay off. All the people know and/or care about HD is it's not reliable and doesn't sound much different especially in a car and is a step down not up, they can tell when the overall feel of a station has improved however, people aren't as stupid as the so called experts think they are. They want content.

 

[bobjlv]

It would make perfect sense to me that station personnel wouldn't know about HD. We had it when I started at KIIM-FM Tucson in 2006, and yanked it out around 2010 (along with 4 other stations on that property). The marketing of HD was a disaster, and their signal strength was so weak that I chose NOT to even invest money in a receiver. I of course knew about it because I worked as a jock at the station (hated that 9 second delay). I'm sure jocks that were hired after I came and went at KIIM-FM weren't made aware of it either unless they worked with it before. With the turnover in sales departments, why would sales know about something that the station didn't have to sell anyway? HD is and was a failure just like C-Quam.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

It would make perfect sense to me that station personnel wouldn't know about HD. We had it when I started at KIIM-FM Tucson in 2006, and yanked it out around 2010 (along with 4 other stations on that property). The marketing of HD was a disaster, and their signal strength was so weak that I chose NOT to even invest money in a receiver. I of course knew about it because I worked as a jock at the station (hated that 9 second delay). I'm sure jocks that were hired after I came and went at KIIM-FM weren't made aware of it either unless they worked with it before. With the turnover in sales departments, why would sales know about something that the station didn't have to sell anyway? HD is and was a failure just like C-Quam.

I congratulate you on putting the best interest of the station first. HD seems to be a power vampire on stations, I have well documented how the stations in Houston and Dallas lose as much as 60 miles of range in the fringes, which unfortunately starts to include some affluent suburbs. I can only imagine what it does for building penetration in the city, but it won't be good.

I would argue a bit about C-Quam - it was a commercial failure, but not a technical failure. At least it worked, and worked very well. It did not limit a station's range - I documented 290 mile daytime static free stereo on a regional AM with a walkman style radio, and 1000 mile nighttime on WLS. That is a range that would make many a station owner drool - when they are faced with the limited range of HD AM, which is dictated entirely by how interference free the listening location is. Not to mention that AM HD also limits a station's range severely on the analog signal. I've often advocated that the HD people swallow their embarrassing colossal egos and switch to C-Quam - calling it HD AM. Nobody - as in NOBODY - would know the difference, and most HD radios would decode it as stereo with improved audio in mono. Win - win scenario for everybody.

 

[KB1OKL]

I congratulate you on putting the best interest of the station first. HD seems to be a power vampire on stations, I have well documented how the stations in Houston and Dallas lose as much as 60 miles of range in the fringes, which unfortunately starts to include some affluent suburbs. I can only imagine what it does for building penetration in the city, but it won't be good.

I would argue a bit about C-Quam - it was a commercial failure, but not a technical failure. At least it worked, and worked very well. It did not limit a station's range - I documented 290 mile daytime static free stereo on a regional AM with a walkman style radio, and 1000 mile nighttime on WLS. That is a range that would make many a station owner drool - when they are faced with the limited range of HD AM, which is dictated entirely by how interference free the listening location is. Not to mention that AM HD also limits a station's range severely on the analog signal. I've often advocated that the HD people swallow their embarrassing colossal egos and switch to C-Quam - calling it HD AM. Nobody - as in NOBODY - would know the difference, and most HD radios would decode it as stereo with improved audio in mono. Win - win scenario for everybody.

I remember driving to Vermont years ago with a C-Quam radio in the car, it picked up NY stations easily at night in stereo and they sounded great. Now if a good technology like that failed why do we have to put up with a vastly inferior one like HD for so many years which only benefits ibiquity? When are the radio station owners going to realize that it is an abject failure?

 

[JohnnyElectron]

C-QUAM was NOT a technical failure - it enabled AM stations to install a stereo audio chain and STL and it sounded fantastic! I listen to a 10KW Canadian CQUAM station 80 miles away on day pattern in my car, and their stereo audio is better than the FM rimshots in my market. C-QUAM works; the 3rd generation chipset was well-refined, and a new DSP chipset would be even better with noise-blanking circuitry, anti-platform motion (fixed in the 3rd generation chips with a stereo to mono blend as well) and a nice 7.5KHz AMAX I.F. filter. That would 'FIX' the AM band audio, along with minimum receiver standards, but the AM owners need to put some decent niche music formats that people are longing for - real oldie stations are a start. Come-on Pai and the FCC - let's get moving on the AM fixes, like the letter from the owner of Kinetronic Labs - he's got it figured-out how AM can thrive without HD on AM and leaving HD for the FM band only.

 

[radiophiler]

Regarding the debate over the newness of HD radio: Let's use human life as an example.

We refer to newborns. I don't think anyone would stretch that out beyond a year.

However, HD radio isn't grown up yet, either. Maybe it's just having an extended infancy. ;-)

 

[davideduardo]

I would argue a bit about C-Quam - it was a commercial failure, but not a technical failure. At least it worked, and worked very well.

The problem with CQuam is that it arrived too late to help music driven AM stations. Due to Leonard Kahn's delaying lawsuit, the scale had already tipped in favor of FM by the time the dust settled.

If an AM stereo system had been chosen in 1977 to 1978 as proposed, AM stations that played music could have survived if consumers had adopted the receivers early on. But by the early 80's, most of the music listening was on FM already and there was no perceived consumer need for AM stereo any more as the stations being listened to for music by then were nearly all FM.

HD today faces the same issues. Nobody buys radios any more. They use smartphones, tablets and the car audio system to hear music. If those devices and systems don't have HD, they won't buy a separate device.

Just as with CQuam, the window of opportunity for HD closed years ago. Except as a way of getting "free" translators, it is of little practical use.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

The problem with CQuam is that it arrived too late to help music driven AM stations. Due to Leonard Kahn's delaying lawsuit, the scale had already tipped in favor of FM by the time the dust settled.

Totally agree, but there was another factor involved in the switch to FM, one I don't hear discussed a lot. Top-40, as a format, was becoming closely controlled by record companies. It was a homogeneous product, top-40 stations across the country playing the same songs. But the problem was - it was censored. Although the black artists were finally being heard, there was a real revolution going on. The youth counter-culture movement, anti-Vietnam war, Monterrey and other music festivals, the free love movement, the beginning of disillusionment with the system. AM top-40 was too slow to adapt musically to the new musical trends. Kids buying albums were discovering non-radio tracks that had messages too controversial for top-40, but that resonated with the way they felt. And artists responded with even more. I remember going to friends houses to hear what they had discovered on albums - and weren't being played on the radio. I had a very progressive teacher at school that allowed me to do a presentation of revolutionary music in the English class. Every kid in there heard songs banned on the local AM top-40 like "Ohio" by CSNY, "For What Its Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, etc. I won another 30 converts to album rock that day! FM began to host "underground" music, album music, full album plays at midnight. The music was creative, revolutionary, controversial, and grew rapidly in mass appeal. What were underground rock stations all of the sudden began to generate real ratings and income. As they became more profitable - low power levels and bad dial positions were the first problems to be rectified. I would point to McLendon in Dallas as an example. KLIF was the big top-40 station with no real competition except where its signal got weak in Ft. Worth. Gordon McLendon sowed the seeds of the destruction of KLIF 1190 himself by changing low power KNUS 98.7 to underground / progressive rock. He may have been a genius who saw the future. Within five years, listenership had shifted from KLIF-AM to KNUS, and by 1975, the transition of top-40 from KLIF 1190 to KNUS was virtually complete. KZEW FM took the mantle of underground / progressive rock. Most of the "classic rock" stations of today play - or played - songs from that progressive rock era.

Add C-Quam stereo to the mix in the late 70's, it was already too late for some stations like KLIF. If top-40 AM had branched out when it had the chance in the late 60's and early 70's, perhaps the addition of C-Quam would have preserved AM music. But I don't think it would have preserved the music industry approved playlists of top-40 stations. That era ended when kids discovered album rock, and FM had nothing to lose by catering to it. I think even C-Quam was too little, too late. The musical genie was out of the bottle, and kids demanded more from AM radio than it was providing. Leonard Kahn's antics and talk radio were just the nails in the coffin of something that had already died.

 

[KB1OKL]

Totally agree, but there was another factor involved in the switch to FM, one I don't hear discussed a lot. Top-40, as a format, was becoming closely controlled by record companies. It was a homogeneous product, top-40 stations across the country playing the same songs. But the problem was - it was censored. Although the black artists were finally being heard, there was a real revolution going on. The youth counter-culture movement, anti-Vietnam war, Monterrey and other music festivals, the free love movement, the beginning of disillusionment with the system. AM top-40 was too slow to adapt musically to the new musical trends. Kids buying albums were discovering non-radio tracks that had messages too controversial for top-40, but that resonated with the way they felt. And artists responded with even more. I remember going to friends houses to hear what they had discovered on albums - and weren't being played on the radio. I had a very progressive teacher at school that allowed me to do a presentation of revolutionary music in the English class. Every kid in there heard songs banned on the local AM top-40 like "Ohio" by CSNY, "For What Its Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, etc. I won another 30 converts to album rock that day! FM began to host "underground" music, album music, full album plays at midnight. The music was creative, revolutionary, controversial, and grew rapidly in mass appeal. What were underground rock stations all of the sudden began to generate real ratings and income. As they became more profitable - low power levels and bad dial positions were the first problems to be rectified. I would point to McLendon in Dallas as an example. KLIF was the big top-40 station with no real competition except where its signal got weak in Ft. Worth. Gordon McLendon sowed the seeds of the destruction of KLIF 1190 himself by changing low power KNUS 98.7 to underground / progressive rock. He may have been a genius who saw the future. Within five years, listenership had shifted from KLIF-AM to KNUS, and by 1975, the transition of top-40 from KLIF 1190 to KNUS was virtually complete. KZEW FM took the mantle of underground / progressive rock. Most of the "classic rock" stations of today play - or played - songs from that progressive rock era.

Add C-Quam stereo to the mix in the late 70's, it was already too late for some stations like KLIF. If top-40 AM had branched out when it had the chance in the late 60's and early 70's, perhaps the addition of C-Quam would have preserved AM music. But I don't think it would have preserved the music industry approved playlists of top-40 stations. That era ended when kids discovered album rock, and FM had nothing to lose by catering to it. I think even C-Quam was too little, too late. The musical genie was out of the bottle, and kids demanded more from AM radio than it was providing. Leonard Kahn's antics and talk radio were just the nails in the coffin of something that had already died.

I agree a big part of the problem was that FM was able to play just about whatever it wanted and AM still had tightly controlled playlists as do many of the boring FM's today. FM became the voice of the young generation and it's time for another revolution in radio, put all the new daring stuff on AM, loosen the feeling, let the jocks talk and play what they want: that would bring back AM radio along with better reeciever specs and wideband audio and most importantly: Get rid of IBOC once and for all.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I agree a big part of the problem was that FM was able to play just about whatever it wanted and AM still had tightly controlled playlists as do many of the boring FM's today. FM became the voice of the young generation and it's time for another revolution in radio, put all the new daring stuff on AM, loosen the feeling, let the jocks talk and play what they want: that would bring back AM radio along with better reeciever specs and wideband audio and most importantly: Get rid of IBOC once and for all.

There is even more to it than that - when you think about the social revolution of the late 60's - kids had been forced into conformity - twice before by radio. First of all, the resistance to the new rock and roll style of music. Then the suppression of black artists and the horrible "cover versions" by white artists. Have you ever heard Pat Boone sing "Tuttie Fruity"? The video that exists of it is even more ridiculous. After being screwed over TWICE by radio - the message got out that radio was controlled by "the man", and was trying to control the thought of young people by playing only "acceptable" music. Which leads to the popularity of underground radio where alternative opinions and difficult topics were addressed by the artists in their lyrics. Enough to make conservative station owners and record executives cringe - but there was no going back. Young people would forever be skeptical of radio and its agenda. And they became vocal about their desire for a voice in the programming - or they would switch stations. They embraced the new idea that they could be engaged in the programming process and vote with their tuning dial. And the heck with what radio executives and record companies thought about it.

Fast forward that generation to today. I am one of them. I have been a vocal proponent for certain formats that the radio industry deems unacceptable. Haven't learned much in 50 years, have they?! I have a reasonable expectation, as do other people who lived through the 60's and 70's, that I can have a real voice in radio programming - and focus groups are NOT what I am talking about! If radio refuses to play the music I like, I can and will vote with the dial. If oldies, for example, is off the air - I can and will turn off radio and turn on Pandora, satellite, streaming, ipod, or whatever it takes to screw the heck out of stations that are not doing what I want. Every smooth jazz fan thinks the same. And now - radio is not a monopoly limited to stations in range. Yesterday's DX'ers have become today's satellite, stream, pandora, and ipod listeners. DX'ing was more difficult and expensive, so is getting the modern alternatives. Meanwhile, radio listenership is declining. The reason? NOBODY dictates somebody else's musical taste. It didn't work in the 60's, it doesn't work now. They can focus group, fine tune a dozen bland formats all they want, people are not interested in listening in increasing (and increasingly vocal) numbers.

Which leads me to another conclusion. The LEFT created Rush! Yep, the left leaning young people of the 60's learned how to think for themselves, and not have the thought police dictate how they should think about social issues. Fast forward that generation to today - and to the left's dismay - now they can't dictate a leftist agenda to people who have grown up questioning "thought police". Things were great for the left when people agree with them. But add decades to their ages, children, grandchildren, mortgages, brokerage accounts, and responsibilities, and the "now" generation is now the "get your politically correct stuff out of my life generation". Free thought was fine, as long as it was liberal and revolutionary. Now to their dismay - the social liberals find that free thought can also be conservative thought. They taught kids how to question authority in the 60's, now the authority that is being questioned is the liberal social planning politically correct crowd. When people are told they have to think a certain way, they are going to rebel. Hence - the left created Rush!

Which leads to another curious analogy. The Christian radio business has just gone through a 20 year attempt to purge Christian rock music off its stations. The 60's all over again, but in Christian music. The Nashville record execs who distribute the Christian music wanted to "play it safe" and keep the grandma pharisees happy - so that rotten rock and roll music had to be suppressed! Flashback to the resistance to Elvis on secular radio. Flashback to the resistance against black artists in the 50's. Flashback to the resistance to Woodstock and Monterrey by the complacent top-40 industry. SAME EXACT MISTAKES! Only happening today - not 50 years ago. And - guess what? Kids rebel by NOT listening to Christian radio! Imagine that?!

 

[kogi19]

The problem with CQuam is that it arrived too late to help music driven AM stations. Due to Leonard Kahn's delaying lawsuit, the scale had already tipped in favor of FM by the time the dust settled.

If an AM stereo system had been chosen in 1977 to 1978 as proposed, AM stations that played music could have survived if consumers had adopted the receivers early on. But by the early 80's, most of the music listening was on FM already and there was no perceived consumer need for AM stereo any more as the stations being listened to for music by then were nearly all FM.

HD today faces the same issues. Nobody buys radios any more. They use smartphones, tablets and the car audio system to hear music. If those devices and systems don't have HD, they won't buy a separate device.

Just as with CQuam, the window of opportunity for HD closed years ago. Except as a way of getting "free" translators, it is of little practical use.

Let us remember that in 1980 the FCC picked the AM stereo system from Magnavox to be the standard. But then through complaints and legal actions from both Kahn and Motorola, the Mark Fowler FCC changed their minds and let the marketplace decide. That made AM stereo DOA.

Also, people tend to forget that by the late 70s, the FM band had most of the existing formats that were also on AM. The band wasn't just a bunch of progressive, AOR or "free-form" formatted stations. Get out those old, fading editions of Radio & Records and take a look at the FM reporting stations. Many Top 40s were on FM. In LA, K-Earth was on doing Top 40/oldies. There were Country stations, forerunners to Rhythmic/Urban format, AOR stations and of course the holdovers playing Beautiful Music. Listeners could get their favorite music, no matter what the format, with better fidelity on FM.

 

[landtuna]

rbrucecarter5 - I was in that generation you accuse of being brainwashed by radio and I am here to tell you it is a myth. The radio stations, particularly in the Deep South, might have had some rules about Blacks in their playlists but in most of the country (and particularly in the West) they did not. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and dozens of Black rock and Doo Wop groups can attest to that. Singers like Pat Boone, who was at one time more popular than Elvis, died because people (young and old) didn't like his Black covers.

The Top-40 station in my hometown used Hooper to determine song popularity and Hooper used record sales. Since it was overwhelmingly kids that were buying records it was kids who directly determined what was played on T-40 radio. The 7 KTKT DJ's held weekly meetings to establish the playlist and I cannot remember them ever quashing a song due to its ethnic origin. Censorship didn't begin for me until I was stationed in Japan in the 60's and AFRTS refused to play songs like "Eve of Destruction".

 

[davideduardo]

Let us remember that in 1980 the FCC picked the AM stereo system from Magnavox to be the standard. But then through complaints and legal actions from both Kahn and Motorola, the Mark Fowler FCC changed their minds and let the marketplace decide. That made AM stereo DOA.

The original goal was to have the FCC pick one of the five competing systems by early 1978. I had commitment letters from two of the five to be their first order entered if their system was chosen.

Of course, the FCC delayed. And then Kahn sued.

In 1977, AM still had half the listening. So AM radio had a pulpit from which to preach the AM Stereo gospel. But by the time actual on-air use was authorized, the size of the AM audience had diminished significantly and the music formats were gone save for a few catering to "the remaining years of your life".

Also, people tend to forget that by the late 70s, the FM band had most of the existing formats that were also on AM. The band wasn't just a bunch of progressive, AOR or "free-form" formatted stations. Get out those old, fading editions of Radio & Records and take a look at the FM reporting stations. Many Top 40s were on FM. In LA, K-Earth was on doing Top 40/oldies. There were Country stations, forerunners to Rhythmic/Urban format, AOR stations and of course the holdovers playing Beautiful Music. Listeners could get their favorite music, no matter what the format, with better fidelity on FM.

Oldies hit FM in 1968 (WMOD in DC). Chicken rock in the form of Hitparade '68 and '69 and onwards was offered by DC. Beautiful Music became very competitive in the early 70's with players like SRP and Bonneville and dominated ratings for the next 15 years. Progressive rock morphed into AOR with Lee Abrams in the earlier part of the 70's, and stand-alone (not a simulcast of a daytime AM like WPGC) FM Top 40's rolled out in earnest in 1972.

In most markets, where post War urban sprawl had created vast suburbs, FM covered much better than most AMs did. So, more than sound quality, FMs won due to lack of static and interference and good signals in the 'burbs.

 

[davideduardo]

Totally agree, but there was another factor involved in the switch to FM, one I don't hear discussed a lot. Top-40, as a format, was becoming closely controlled by record companies.

Radio stations of all formats are subject to the insistence of record promoters. But to say that stations were controlled by record companies is absurd. Sure, there were cases of individuals taking payola, and that practice was defined and made illegal before the 50's were out.

Radio stations that played Top 40 were, in a sense, slaves to the audience. Lacking proactive research, stations used record sales, juke box plays and even requests to determine playlists. But, except for the few terminally corrupt takers of bribes, stations were not controlled by the record companies.

It was a homogeneous product, top-40 stations across the country playing the same songs.

How could it be any different? We had national shows like Your Hit Parade, first on radio and then on TV, where the national chart was counted down. We had Billboard providing us with a chart to guide us. And then we began to get... starting in 1958... tip sheets like The Gavin Report that showed what other stations were adding, moving up or down or dropping.

But the problem was - it was censored. Although the black artists were finally being heard, there was a real revolution going on.

Black artists were heard, including Chuck Berry and Little Richard and many others. There were lots of Black soloists and girl groups and male groups like the Coasters and the Monotones in the years between 1958 and the Motown explosion. And, in the birthplace of the term "rock and roll" Alan Freed and Mad Daddy played mostly Black artists.

AM top-40 was too slow to adapt musically to the new musical trends. Kids buying albums were discovering non-radio tracks that had messages too controversial for top-40, but that resonated with the way they felt.

By the late 60's, radio stations in Top 40 had figured out that they could not live just on teens... they had to hold the young adult demos and, particularly, the young adult women. So songs that were deemed too hard were not played. Simple logic, no agenday.

And artists responded with even more. I remember going to friends houses to hear what they had discovered on albums - and weren't being played on the radio. FM began to host "underground" music, album music, full album plays at midnight. The music was creative, revolutionary, controversial, and grew rapidly in mass appeal.

FM radio adopted "progressive" formats when the FCC banned most significant market simulcasts in 1967. Station owners, not wanting to hurt the bread-and-butter AM that controlled most FMs, opted for formats far, far away from what was on AM. Progressive rock, Beautiful Music, etc. Even if the stations did not get sales success, they kept the license and, surprisingly, started to make some money.

I would point to McLendon in Dallas as an example. KLIF was the big top-40 station with no real competition except where its signal got weak in Ft. Worth. Gordon McLendon sowed the seeds of the destruction of KLIF 1190 himself by changing low power KNUS 98.7 to underground / progressive rock. He may have been a genius who saw the future. Within five years, listenership had shifted from KLIF-AM to KNUS, and by 1975, the transition of top-40 from KLIF 1190 to KNUS was virtually complete.

You've got that wrong. In 1972, Arbitron announced that in 1973 they would combine for the first time Dallas and Fort Worth as a single market. McLendon knew that KLIF did not offer 24-hour coverage of Ft Worth, and in 1972 he sold KLIF to Fairchild, giving them an AM only non-compete. He put a clean new Top 40 on KNUZ because the FM could cover both cities. KNUZ was supposed to compete with KLIF, as McLendon no longer owned it. And it was Top 40, not progressive... Top 40 without the bubblegum, but Top 40. For the definitive chronicle of Dallas radio, see this... http://www.dfwradioarchives.info/

Also, KLIF had stiff competition in Dallas from KBOX and in Ft Worth from KFJZ and KXOL, all outstanding Top 40 operations. KLIF was hardly the "unchallenged" leader you say it was. In fact, most of the time in Ft Worth both KFJZ and KXOL beat KLIF consistently.

Add C-Quam stereo to the mix in the late 70's, it was already too late for some stations like KLIF. If top-40 AM had branched out when it had the chance in the late 60's and early 70's, perhaps the addition of C-Quam would have preserved AM music. But I don't think it would have preserved the music industry approved playlists of top-40 stations.

There were no "industry approved" playlists. AM Top 40s left the hard rock to FM, where it developed, once it was better formatted and presented, a strong 18-34 male following. Top 40 kept the teens and the young adult females, which was by design. Top 40 did not go heavily into anything but crossover hard rock songs because their core did not want them.

That era ended when kids discovered album rock, and FM had nothing to lose by catering to it.

It's the other way around. Many FMs, to protect sister AMs, picked progressive rock. Look at companies like Metromedia, which eventually found the new audience to be profitable. But the FMs, forced by FCC mandate to separate from simulcasts, introduced listeners to the music, and developed a following by their example.

I think even C-Quam was too little, too late. The musical genie was out of the bottle, and kids demanded more from AM radio than it was providing. Leonard Kahn's antics and talk radio were just the nails in the coffin of something that had already died.

In 1977, half the listening was to AM. In most markets, talk had yet to take off (Fairness Doctrine and other impediments being much of the reason). AM could have held audiences where they had good signals... but FM offered more signals day and night and, eventually, more formats.

 

[davideduardo]

The Top-40 station in my hometown used Hooper to determine song popularity and Hooper used record sales.

I thought that C. E. Hooper measured radio (and briefly TV) audiences. I was unaware that they ever tabulated record sales.

Hooper, Pulse and Trendex were the ratings services that were swept away by Arbitron. Pulse lasted the longest, enduring till 1978, 13 years after Arbitron started and nearly a decade after Arbitron introduced uniform national survey periods for all markets.