When did people start moving to FM?

[vchimpanzee]

In the case of people I went to high school with in the 70s, I don't recall an FM station being mentioned. Charlotte had 61 Big WAYS and that stations did promotions. I remember their DJs playing our faculty in Jr. High. I rooted for the teachers because I didn't know who these people were. I certainly didn't listen to Top 40 music.

Even my parents didn't listen to FM. We didn't have a car that had it. At home we finally got a stereo with FM. After that my father flipped between EZ-104 and WBT-FM, both beautiful music. EZ-104 had more annoying station IDs. But we listened to WBT-AM in the car, which was AC.

Finally when I was a high school junior there was WBCY, "Charlotte's best rock" (WBT-FM changed). There may have been kids who listened to 95-Q, an album rocker. WBCY was more like a Top 40 station. Broadcasting Yearbook called it AOR but a list of songs it played that appeared in The Charlotte Observer looked very much like Top 40. There may have been disco but I don't recall. "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione was there.

As a college freshman I didn't have a radio but I could hear station IDs from those who had them. All FM stations. WKZL and Z-93 (Greensboro NC market) were the most popular. Both were technically Top 40 but Wikipedia's articles suggest they leaned rock like WBCY. One guy liked "disco" which must have been WQMG, which Broadcasting Yearbook listed as "jazz, sophisticated soul". One guy liked to study with beautiful music WGLD.

After one semester there I changed to a school closer to home, but the only station I remember anyone listening to was WPEG (and he was white), which had been disco. I later found out that was "urban contemporary", a new format with mostly African American artists.

 

[TheBigA]

Depends on the people, market, and format. Some started moving in the 1950s. There were magazines that catered to those people called FM Guide and High Fidelity. There were some highly rated FM beautiful music stations in the 1960s. But for most people, it happened in the 1970s. By then FM radios were more available, the patent on FM had run out, people could buy FM converters for their cars, and there was a big stereo boom going on where people were buying stereo systems with FM radios.

 

[Harvey_Dogg]

Not only did the music sound better, it was in stereo too.

 

[davideduardo]

Depends on the people, market, and format. Some started moving in the 1950s. There were magazines that catered to those people called FM Guide and High Fidelity. There were some highly rated FM beautiful music stations in the 1960s. But for most people, it happened in the 1970s. By then FM radios were more available, the patent on FM had run out, people could buy FM converters for their cars, and there was a big stereo boom going on where people were buying stereo systems with FM radios.

As you say, it depended on a variety of factors. I built Northern South America's first commercial FM (the band had been used for Studio-Transmitter links for some time) in 1966 and it immediately rose to second place in ratings in "upper income" which was the primary sales demo then. It was a blend of instrumental and folkloric music of Latin America.

At the opposite end, by 1979 in San Juan, PR, FM had less than 15% of all listening... at a time when in the US as a whole FM had close to 55% of the audience. But suddenly, the FM share went from that low level to over 50% of all listening in just 90 days when one station, WZNT came on with an all-salsa format and alone got as high as a 33.5 share. That one station dragged listeners to other FMs and the whole band grew instantly.

So, it was a combination of an attractive product and enough listener interest to make the switch.

Another factor was the gradual adoption of FM in cars, which for much adult listening was critical. Early FM CHRs like Bartell's "Q" stations in Miami, Detroit and St Louis, worked well targeting teens first because that group rushed out to buy portable FM sets... just as they were early adopters of the Walkman and the iPod in later decades.

Rock drew another early adoption group. First, station owners liked rock when they had to end simulcasting. But they found that intense rock fans would spend large amounts of money to buy stereo FM gear to listen to their music... and they would listen a lot.

The turn of the decade period around 1970 found syndicated Beautiful Music formats that made doing Beautiful Music easy for medium and smaller market stations, and those that adopted the most successful syndicators, Bonnevill and Shulke (SRP) were wildly successful.

An interesting fact is that in 1950 there were over 1000 FM stations licensed, but by 1959 it was down around 700. The 60's brought some early developments, such as the expiration of the Armstrong patents, the introduction of FM stereo, the availability of inexpensive transistor radios and, of course, the FCC requirement to end most full FM/AM simulcasts. And, of course, FM sounded better.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Anecdotal tale for sure, but I managed to notice some genuine 'progress' though a format originally called 'Progressive Rock'.
(This observation may not be relevant to the OP's question ; I'm not sure about what kind of people he was inquiring about.)

A kid out of radio work -- heck , work period -- after having taken one of those accelerated First Phone license courses in Sarasota, I was told by some old friends of an opening at the FM side at a station where they were working the AM. It was Spring 1972. The FM station was WHVY 94.7 in Springfield Mass. 50,000 watts (at which I now could legally be on the transmitter log with my 'First').
Progressive Rock it was, or 'underground'.

I hated the music but it was a paycheck. Every jock there was far more versed that I in eclectic music and groups, like Renaissance, and The Blues, and of It's A Beautiful Day and Jeff Beck and The Dead. The military draft was still big news (my number was 222) and everyone on the FM side had long hair and would bring in LPs from home. I had the unlikely NYC pompadour and only a box or two of 45's and knew only FM fare from Mountain and some mid-range Fleetwood Mac. And before I went on the air, the PD gently suggested I use my real name -- some largely unpronounceable French thing -- because Springfield was maybe 4/5ths French Canadian descent ancestry. So I did. I mothballed the Irish side of the family names for a while, lol. And after a while the station asked me to become music director of the Folk section because they enjoyed the songs I picked from there, two tunes per hour iIrc. I guess they were too tunnelvisioned in the Yes / Fairport Convention / Bong-break ELP to pay much attention to the lighter, shorter songs already there.
The devil knows whatever else occured socially in summer of '72. There HAD to be some groundswell going on in radio and music and the world, because the Fall book came out and we had risen to a solid #2 in the market behind Top 40 AM legend WHYN 560. Even # 1 in some dayparts (not my 7-mid shift, lol ; mine was #2). We even handily beat our sister Country station across the hall, WMAS 1450.

It couldn't've been more than a year later when pioneering Lee Abrams reportedly coined the phrase 'AoR' and told his staffs at the Superstars stations not to be surprised if the ratings for those stations showed a mob of teens listening into them (which proved prophetical) to bulk up the numbers.

I don't know if that all helps answer your question, VChimp. I CAN state that it was summer 1972 and its aftermath that seemed to offer a huge and melodic social form of FM music to 'yoots' between ages of 14-30. And the following era made this Brooklyn-born punk come to love that ensuing era of the 'pop progressive / AoR' genre. -- along with working at it with affection for another 6 years or so.

 

[landtuna]

Prior to my family's move from Tucson to San Francisco in summer of 1960 I do not recall any Tucson FM stations. There were several in SF - so-called "underground" radio. We (teens) listened to KYA, KEWB, KLOK and KFRC - all AM's. When I returned to SF after navy service overseas in April of 1966 there were a bunch of FM's including my personal favorite KGO-FM. The most popular stations were still AM's although more and more FM's were coming on-air late in the decade and some of the more popular AM's changed formats (KEWB for instance went news/talk). Seems by 1970 every significant market had at least one FM rocker and some of the AM blowtorches (KOMA?) were still hanging on.

 

[kwthom]

Another perspective...

KWFM Tucson
Brief History

(note - this was the original version from 1970...)

If you had an older cousin, brother, sister, etc., they may well have been the one to introduce you to what was going on in the FM band.

Yeah, there was at least one other station (KTKT-FM, later KLPX-FM) here in the market in the 1970's, but our version of what @Steve Green NEPA wrote about above was this.

 

[TheBigA]

There were several in SF - so-called "underground" radio. We (teens) listened to KYA, KEWB, KLOK and KFRC - all AM's. When I returned to SF after navy service overseas in April of 1966 there were a bunch of FM's including my personal favorite KGO-FM.

KGO was the corporate ABC Love format. The local progressive one in SF was KMPX. The Big Daddy Tom Donohue went there when he got sick & tired of Top 40 at KYA. In 1966, (shortly after hosting The Beatles concert in Candlestick Park) he approached the owner of KMPX and proposed a deal that would improve station ratings by playing a lot of SF based rock bands. Donohue hired the talent and picked the music. Lots of Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead. Things went well until the owner got greedy and wanted more money. Then Tom picked up his DJs and music and moved them over to Metromedia's KSAN. He & his wife ran the rock radio format at KSAN until 1980, when it went country.

 

[vchimpanzee]

It couldn't've been more than a year later when pioneering Lee Abrams reportedly coined the phrase 'AoR' and told his staffs at the Superstars stations not to be surprised if the ratings for those stations showed a mob of teens listening into them (which proved prophetical) to bulk up the numbers.

In Charlotte WROQ 95Q, the station I mentioned, was described as "adult ROQ" ("adult rock" in Broadcasting Yearbook) and I don't know if the teens listened. If you ask me, WBCY was more "adult" even though Broadcasting Yearbook called that one AOR.

I don't know if that all helps answer your question, VChimp. I CAN state that it was summer 1972 and its aftermath that seemed to offer a huge and melodic social form of FM music to 'yoots' between ages of 14-30. And the following era made this Brooklyn-born punk come to love that ensuing era of the 'pop progressive / AoR' genre. -- along with working at it with affection for another 6 years or so.

I guess it depends on the market and the formats.

 

[seatownmedia]

I’ve always heard that hilly cities were late to the FM band. Seattle was one of them. While I am not a station engineer I believe the transmitter/antenna improvements created a somewhat better FM situation in Seattle. To put an approximate date on this was when I told my doctor I was an FM dj. He was from Florida and asked me why the FM stations were so hard to pick up. That was 1984.

 

[landtuna]

KGO was the corporate ABC Love format. The local progressive one in SF was KMPX. The Big Daddy Tom Donohue went there when he got sick & tired of Top 40 at KYA. In 1966, (shortly after hosting The Beatles concert in Candlestick Park) he approached the owner of KMPX and proposed a deal that would improve station ratings by playing a lot of SF based rock bands. Donohue hired the talent and picked the music. Lots of Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead. Things went well until the owner got greedy and wanted more money. Then Tom picked up his DJs and music and moved them over to Metromedia's KSAN. He & his wife ran the rock radio format at KSAN until 1980, when it went country.

I remember that Beatles 1966 concert. It was a huge dud. I remember Donohue very well. Not a big fan of SF bands although I did follow the Airplane and subsequent variations. Tommy was a big boy and died way too soon IIRC.

 

[TheBigA]

I remember that Beatles 1966 concert. It was a huge dud.

It may have been their final concert.

 

[anotherguyTN]

My parents bought me a radio with FM for Christmas when I was 10 or 12 in the late 60's but I really didn't listen much to FM until the late 70's because of still listening to AM top 40 radio. I started switching to FM when WMC FM 100 in Memphis switched from album rock to top 40. When I discovered CCM radio in the 80's It was only available on AM (Mainly low powered) stations from Memphis so I was listening to CCM on AM for CCM in the daytime when I could get it and FM for top 40/CHR or tapes at night. It wasn't until 2001 when K-LOVE came into West TN that I could get CCM on FM.

 

[ZantennaG1]

I’ve always heard that hilly cities were late to the FM band. Seattle was one of them. While I am not a station engineer I believe the transmitter/antenna improvements created a somewhat better FM situation in Seattle. To put an approximate date on this was when I told my doctor I was an FM dj. He was from Florida and asked me why the FM stations were so hard to pick up. That was 1984.

With the terrain question in mind, I have to think of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as one of the worst major metros for FM reception (not to mention AM). The downtown area is just surrounded by hills the size of mountains, and not even the road network is very good around there.

 

[victorres43]

With the terrain question in mind, I have to think of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as one of the worst major metros for FM reception (not to mention AM). The downtown area is just surrounded by hills the size of mountains, and not even the road network is very good around there.

Looking at L-R coverage of superpower WDVE, it seems as if signals are dramatically difficult to pick up once outside the 65 dBu coverage area. Though its no picnic picking up Atlanta signals outside the 65 dBu coverage either. But Pittsburgh is in the middle of Appalachia.

I’ve always heard that hilly cities were late to the FM band. Seattle was one of them. While I am not a station engineer I believe the transmitter/antenna improvements created a somewhat better FM situation in Seattle. To put an approximate date on this was when I told my doctor I was an FM dj. He was from Florida and asked me why the FM stations were so hard to pick up. That was 1984.

Probably a reason why Seattle TV stations are located on Queen Anne Hill instead of Tiger Mountain.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Different times in different markets. Miami was early with FM stations like WMYQ, WSHE, and Y-100 (WHYI) coming in the early ’70’s. With the influx of new residents the population held no allegiance to the old AM’s WQAM and WFUN. WFUN threw in the towel by 1975. Markets with terrain problems like San Francisco, or Buffalo where the FM’s were mostly class B and underdeveloped took longer as well. The Buffalo stations WGR, WBEN, WKBW were also known for their personalities, news and had a real an established identity.

 

[davideduardo]

I’ve always heard that hilly cities were late to the FM band. Seattle was one of them. While I am not a station engineer I believe the transmitter/antenna improvements created a somewhat better FM situation in Seattle. To put an approximate date on this was when I told my doctor I was an FM dj. He was from Florida and asked me why the FM stations were so hard to pick up. That was 1984.

I don't think that terrain was, in reality, a problem. The issue was that management thought that it was an issue.

I did an FM in Quito, Ecuador in 1966. I can't think of a more rugged terrain, yet within a year or two the station was #2 in its target demo (I owned the #1 station, too... an AM though).

So I think the issue was daring to put something attractive on FM and promoting it.

 

[fybush]

Different times in different markets. Miami was early with FM stations like WMYQ, WSHE, and Y-100 (WHYI) coming in the early ’70’s. With the influx of new residents the population held no allegiance to the old AM’s WQAM and WFUN. WFUN threw in the towel by 1975. Markets with terrain problems like San Francisco, or Buffalo where the FM’s were mostly class B and underdeveloped took longer as well. The Buffalo stations WGR, WBEN, WKBW were also known for their personalities, news and had a real an established identity.

I would lean more heavily on the strength of the AM programming than on any signal issues to explain Buffalo, because it's hard to argue the FMs there were "undeveloped."

By the 1970s, most of the class Bs there were operating with essentially full (50 kW/500' or equivalent) B signals. 93.7, 96.1 and 106.5 were all on the Rand Building in the heart of downtown. 92.9, 94.5, 99.5 and 102.5 were all superpower B-plus operations with clean line of sight into the city from the hills to the south. 96.9 was a full B from the channel 2 tower in the south hills. The odd signals out were 98.5, 103.3 and 104.1, all on under-height AM towers.

I could easily argue that Rochester was much more underdeveloped at the time, FM-signal-wise, but also that the AM programming here was rather less dominant and thus easier to topple once FM programming geared up better to compete.

 

[davideduardo]

It couldn't've been more than a year later when pioneering Lee Abrams reportedly coined the phrase 'AoR' and told his staffs at the Superstars stations not to be surprised if the ratings for those stations showed a mob of teens listening into them (which proved prophetical) to bulk up the numbers.

Yep, Abrams determined through his PD stint at WQDR in Raleigh that a tight, researched and star-based format would beat the progressive rock freeform stations. There, Superstars was born and he quickly worked to make his formula into a consultancy.

Because the Superstars stations played hits, and not a bunch of album cuts, they got lots of teen males, and they did extremely well in 18-34 and even 25-44 men. Before that, a lot of album rock stations played many cuts that only sounded good in listener's jointland moments.

The term "AOR" for Album Oriented Rock was one of the Radio & Records creations, IIRC, that were intended to make the magazine different from Billboard. They renamed a number of formats, with album rock being one of them.

 

[davideduardo]

I would lean more heavily on the strength of the AM programming than on any signal issues to explain Buffalo, because it's hard to argue the FMs there were "undeveloped."

By the 1970s, most of the class Bs there were operating with essentially full (50 kW/500' or equivalent) B signals. 93.7, 96.1 and 106.5 were all on the Rand Building in the heart of downtown. 92.9, 94.5, 99.5 and 102.5 were all superpower B-plus operations with clean line of sight into the city from the hills to the south. 96.9 was a full B from the channel 2 tower in the south hills. The odd signals out were 98.5, 103.3 and 104.1, all on under-height AM towers.

I could easily argue that Rochester was much more underdeveloped at the time, FM-signal-wise, but also that the AM programming here was rather less dominant and thus easier to topple once FM programming geared up better to compete.

In most markets, the 60's found lots of licensees keeping their FMs just in case, but not maximizing the facility. Stations were on the most convenient building, not necessarily the highest. The expense of going to a mountaintop was not warranted. As FM began to develop, the early leaders were often the ones who maximized the facility. That took quite a while in some markets, particularly ones where equipment and site improvements were a big percentage of potential sales returns.