[78-L] AM Radio (and the music) is now dead

[Kristjan Saag]

Thanks, Mike, for this interesting and detailed explanation.
Kristjan
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Michael Biel wrote:
>> > It is worth noting that none of the NYC independent stations you
>> > mentioned were "formatted" stations playing only one type of music for
>> > the entire day. That type of specialization programming only came in
>> > the 1950s. EVERY station had a something-for-everybody format prior to
>> > that.

I asked::
>> So what happened? Was it the Roosevelt era that came to an end or what?


Mike replied:
> The number of radio stations in the U.S. exploded in the decade after
> the war.  Although we think of that era as being the growth of TV, radio
> actually grew at a greater pace during that time.  There were fewer than
> 900 radio stations when the war ended, and by the end of the 40s that
> number had doubled, and then doubled again in the following few years.
> There were about 4000 stations by 54 or 55.
>
> Meanwhile TV started with 13 stations and had about 40 by 1948 when
> suddenly the FCC stopped taking applications because they realized that
> RCA had lied to them about how far stations in that band could reach and
> they would have to re-do the entire allocation charts.  It took them
> four years, and by 1952 there were only 110 TV stations on the air.  It
> wasn't until 1954 thru 1957 that the next batch of TV stations hit the
> air, and there were HUGE parts of the U.S. that didn't get their first
> TV station until long after the most famous early TV programs had left
> the air!!
>
> But since the TV stations were in the largest cities, many of the best
> radio stars were leaving radio, which left the radio networks having to
> develop new programs and new stars.  But most of the thousands of new
> radio stations could not affiliate with the networks because there
> already were affiliates in their area, so these new stations had to
> figure out what to program.  Cities that only had 2 or 3 stations now
> had 8, so specialized formatting turned out to be the way to break out
> of the pack.
>
> In areas like mine in Kentucky the small towns were getting their first
> stations -- only one per town -- and these stations often kept to the
> something-for-everything formula.  When I moved to the small town of
> Morehead, Kentucky, the AM-FM station WMOR was still simulcasting the
> same programs on both, and were still doing different formats at
> different times of the day.  Farm programs in the morning and at noon,
> housewife programs in mid morning and early afternoon, rock after
> school, middle of the road in the evening, sign off of FM at midnight
> (AM signed off at sunset, which varied from 4:15 to 8:45 depending on
> the season).  And 30 miles to the West was another town with a similar
> station, 30 miles to the East was yet another, and so on and so on.
>
> But New York City had 30 stations, so the formats were day-long and
> quite varied.  Now we have about 13,000 stations and except for some
> listener supported stations and student-run stations, all are
> uni-formatted with just one type of music or talk all day and all night.
>
>
>
>> Meanwhile, back in the jungle (Europe) public service stations continued
>> their "something-for-everybody"-format and no one complained, except the
>> advertisers. Poor fellas, how many millions didn't the idea of public
>> service steal from Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola and...Volvo?  Kristjan
>
> It was fascinating watching Britain get Independent Local Radio in the
> 1980s, Austria getting just a very few local radio stations in the 90s,
> and the former Commie countries getting anarchy radio in the 90s.
> Within each state in Germany there have been some supermergers, such as
> Radio Bayran, and in Austria some nationwide local station chains like
> Antenne.  I miss not having a chance to be in Europe during most of the
> past decade, just having the internet to kinda see what is happening.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com