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[TheBigA]

Either way, those of us who enjoy audio entertainment beyond the lowest common denominator fare should be able to find streams that serve our interests, whether the royalties are fair to small operators or not.

It may become harder when the creators of that kind of music are being ripped off by listeners who prefer pirates to actually paying for that kind of music.

We're seeing that now where certain artists are choosing to work in other genres because there's no money in less commercial music.

 

[gr8oldies]

Those beautiful music stations sat in a corner, clicked and whirred, and were number one every time while their associated AMs promoted their buns off. RKO management didn't just roll over to program Bill Drake's newfangled top 40 format in 1965. It was "Drake's Folly" according to some in senior management.

If playing everything that was ever recorded since the beginning of time in one giant rotation made money, someone would be doing it.

That's funny. There were far fewer formats, far less risk, and far more greed in the 60s.

Consider beautiful music as a format. How much risk in playing the Living Marimbas and 101 Strings? Sleepy & dull, but very profitable.

Consider talk radio in the 60s & 70s. With all of the polarization, all of the controversy, all of the riots, and none of it was on the radio.

 

[TheBigA]

If playing everything that was ever recorded since the beginning of time in one giant rotation made money, someone would be doing it.

If people want radio that takes risks with no greed, the best place to find it now is non-commercial radio. They take risks there every day because they can, and there're no corporate stockholders to please. Just listeners. And Boston has a very robust and exciting group of non-commercial stations playing a wide diversity of music and covering a very wide range of opinion. In fact non-commercial radio was created in the 1960s because commercial broadcasting had become too boring and too greedy.

 

[CassChopper96]

Now that WAAF is gone I guess every other station stays the same WODS WKAF and jamin 94.5 are In question but who knows

 

[davideduardo]

Now that WAAF is gone I guess every other station stays the same WODS WKAF and jamin 94.5 are In question but who knows

Why would any station change due to the absence of a station that barely got a 0.1 rating?

 

[CassChopper96]

I was just wondering could anything happen to those stations considering they are all lower rated. We already talked about WODS

 

[JBraddock]

Boston has a very robust and exciting group of non-commercial stations playing a wide diversity of music and covering a very wide range of opinion. In fact non-commercial radio was created in the 1960s because commercial broadcasting had become too boring and too greedy.

The NCE band (88.1-91.9) has been defined since 1945 to the best of my knowledge. Most non-comms I'm familiar with didn't start operation until, at earliest, the 60s. What happened between 1945 and 1960 with the noncomm band?

It appears that you're using "greedy" to mean "highly profitable." Greed, by definition, involves excess. I define 'greedy' as operating in an ethically challenged or illegal manner. Operating legally in a capitalist system would not necessarily imply 'greed.'

 

[TheBigA]

The NCE band (88.1-91.9) has been defined since 1945 to the best of my knowledge.

Correct, and WGBH and WBUR both started in the very early 50s. My reference to the 60s was for the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which was meant to organize the non-commercial band. My usage of the word "greedy" was in reference to its use in post #12:

Risk Aversion and greed have killed radio

My point being if the poster wants to get away from that, try listening to public radio. They take loads of risks every day, and aren't motivated by commercial advertising.

 

[JBraddock]

Perusing David's site, it appears that there were around 26 noncomm FMs operating and another 19 construction permits as of January 1, 1949, compared to around 500 commercial FM licenses. Pretty impressive for a band that wasn't going to catch on in a big way for another 20 years, though most participants at that early stage probably didn't know it would take that long.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wS2yW7x4fh7Lz6KOfxa-XRdPaySs7VIx/view?usp=sharing

 

[TheBigA]

Pretty impressive for a band that wasn't going to catch on in a big way for another 20 years, though most participants at that early stage probably didn't know it would take that long.

Correct, especially given that the FCC had reserved a completely different group of channels the first time around. And I should point out that there were several college owned AM non-coms during this time as well, including WOI in Ames Iowa and WHA in Madison WI. But one of the reasons why the NAB didn't object to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was because very few of its members saw any threat at all from FM at that time. Ten years later, they would have second thoughts about that. Whoops.

 

[Wimmmex]

I absolutely agree.

Any chance you can learn how to quote what you are responding to?

I see a number of your posts (like the one above) and have no idea what you are responding to.

 

[JBraddock]

Correct, especially given that the FCC had reserved a completely different group of channels the first time around. And I should point out that there were several college owned AM non-coms during this time as well, including WOI in Ames Iowa and WHA in Madison WI.

Yep. Everybody had to buy new receivers to get FM post-WWII and they apparently weren't cheap at first. Thank 'General' Sarnoff at RCA who wanted to protect his AM networks (and also the tendency for stations in the original FM band 42 - 50 MHz to be subject to the atmospheric reflection we sometimes see on the lower VHF TV channels). At any rate, that's what early FM stations in the late 40s were up against.

Princeton's WPRB was also on the air as an FM by 1949, but it was, as it is today, a commercial station in the commercial FM band. Some colleges that would later launch noncomm FMs were operating carrier current AMs in the mid-40s.

But one of the reasons why the NAB didn't object to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was because very few of its members saw any threat at all from FM at that time. Ten years later, they would have second thoughts about that. Whoops.

While FM radio had had a reserved band for non commercial stations for over 20 years by the time the Public Broadcasting Act was created, the act really carved out a place for PBS TV. I assume with a protected band in place, non commercial FMs would have proliferated anyway once FM had proved itself viable by the early 70s.

Today, we see the next generation of protectionism, with NPR coming out against the FCC's proposal to allow FM6 LPTV Channel 6 stations to retain an analog FM audio component after the digital conversion is completed next year. NPR was similarly against LPFMs, though in addition to added competition for donor support, LPFMs have the potential of interfering with noncommercial translators in the commercial band.

 

[TheBigA]

Yep. Everybody had to buy new receivers to get FM post-WWII

Well, "everybody" didn't buy new receivers. Because FM wasn't standard equipment. The issue was the patent. So equipment manufacturers had to pay to install FM on radios. RCA (run by Sarnoff) didn't offer FM at all on its radios until the patent ran out in the mid 60s. Then companies started adding it, but it still cost extra due to the antenna and other requirements.

 

[davideduardo]

Well, "everybody" didn't buy new receivers. Because FM wasn't standard equipment. The issue was the patent. So equipment manufacturers had to pay to install FM on radios. RCA (run by Sarnoff) didn't offer FM at all on its radios until the patent ran out in the mid 60s. Then companies started adding it, but it still cost extra due to the antenna and other requirements.

A parallel can be seen in the number of FM stations.

By 1950, there were over 1000 licensed FMs, yet approaching 1960, the number had dropped to just over 600.

Not only did RCA's resistance (due significantly to its belief that a new radio band would lessen interest in TV) affect FM, but so did issues like lack of an effective AFC design, causing receivers to drift needing re-tuning as listeners enjoyed a station.

By the end of the 50's, there were few independent FMs and most of the remaining ones were simulcasts of AM stations.

The big changes came with the early 60's end of the Armstrong patents, the development of AFC and the strategic (but relatively slow adoption) introduction of FM stereo. As the 60's opened, there was a big rise in independent FMs, with early independents adopting classical and instrumental (what would become "Beautiful Music") formats as well as some ethnic stations in larger and diverse markets (Cleveland had two FM's in a variety of European languages, as well as a jazz station and several instrumental and one classical commercial FMs in 1960 along with numerous simulcasts) .

 

[davideduardo]

It appears that you're using "greedy" to mean "highly profitable." Greed, by definition, involves excess. I define 'greedy' as operating in an ethically challenged or illegal manner. Operating legally in a capitalist system would not necessarily imply 'greed.'

AM stations in the 60's had indeed become greedy.

After radio discovered in the 50's how to move away from network drama and variety shows into consistent music formats, the surprising success of music radio brought over-commercialization. The FCC had to step in, putting aside any station's renewal application for review if the "composite week" showed hours with more than 18 commercial minutes.

Remember that in the Golden Age of radio, roughly the 30's through the end of the TV licensing freeze, network radio had just a few minutes of ads per hour, as most programs were sponsored with minimal commercial time and network "loose" spot sales was not driving revenue.

When the FCC required FMs in larger markets to quit full-time simulcasting, the new format had few commercials. Then, as the early developers of aggressive formats on FM discovered that they could attract listeners by limiting commercials to 8 to 10 minutes an hour.

Listeners reacted by buying FM radios, with the band surpassing AM in listening by 1977.

 

[JBraddock]

Well, "everybody" didn't buy new receivers. Because FM wasn't standard equipment.

Everybody who had purchased an FM receiver to listen pre-1945, and it was a select crowd, had to go out and invest again in a new, relatively expensive FM receiver post-war to receive the new band - or invest in a converter. FM receiver performance wasn't that great to begin with and you had to adjust an external directional antenna. AM was much easier to use.

Yeah, the patent issue must have kept many manufacturers out of FM for awhile (sounds like early HD radio development in that respect). As such, FM radios didn't start to noticeably improve until the early 70s when smaller, better-performing home units and car FM radios appeared. Wikipedia shows a Scott receiver in 1961 as the first FM receiver, so I guess if you wanted hi fi FM reception before then, you had to connect a tuner to a separate amplifier.

Sarnoff wanted to protect his phone-fed AM networks and realized that FM relay networks would sound much better than his existing infrastructure. Lots of written history available about the acrimonious relationship between RCA's Sarnoff and FM's inventor and patent-holder Armstrong. Sad story; those of us coming of age in the late 60s and early 70s lucked out with the timing of FM's maturation, urged on by the FCC.

 

[JBraddock]

It appears that you're using "greedy" to mean "highly profitable." Greed, by definition, involves excess. I define 'greedy' as operating in an ethically challenged or illegal manner. Operating legally in a capitalist system would not necessarily imply 'greed.'

AM stations in the 60's had indeed become greedy.

After radio discovered in the 50's how to move away from network drama and variety shows into consistent music formats, the surprising success of music radio brought over-commercialization. The FCC had to step in, putting aside any station's renewal application for review if the "composite week" showed hours with more than 18 commercial minutes.

You're defining 'greed' in terms of what the FCC deemed appropriate. AMs would eventually have found a sweet spot where they could maximize revenue without driving away too many listeners. WABC in New York use to play a commercial after what seemed like every song, and we stayed tuned because there would be another hit record within a minute. Is that 'greed' or clever programming?

I maintain that the word 'greed' is vastly overused. It depends on who's defining what 'excess' is.

 

[Wimmmex]

I maintain that the word 'greed' is vastly overused. It depends on who's defining what 'excess' is.

Kinda like the term "fair share"....depends on who is defining what "fair" is.

 

[davideduardo]

You're defining 'greed' in terms of what the FCC deemed appropriate. AMs would eventually have found a sweet spot where they could maximize revenue without driving away too many listeners. WABC in New York use to play a commercial after what seemed like every song, and we stayed tuned because there would be another hit record within a minute. Is that 'greed' or clever programming?

I maintain that the word 'greed' is vastly overused. It depends on who's defining what 'excess' is.

In this case, the FMs that limited commercial loads to between 8 and 10 minutes showed that the over-commercialized AMs running up to the 18 minute FCC-imposed limit were at a tremendous disadvantage.

Later, I saw examples during the 70's and early 80's that showed that 8 to 10 minutes was considered tolerable at the time; going beyond that was perceivable by listeners and was detrimental to TSL and made a station vulnerable to competitors.

In one case that I was at the center of, in the 1976 gubernatorial elections in Puerto Rico, we put limits on each campaign (fully legal) to maintain our 10 minute commercial limit on both AM and FM. Other stations were going over 18 minutes. Our ratings, stable for some time, increased by about 30% and after the elections we continued above our prior level.

We did some research at the time, and found out that not only were the excessive ads very noticeable, but a significant majority of listeners disliked all political ads, including those for their own party and candidates.