4 ms·

Another medium was FM and the advent of specialist DJ’s playing deep album cuts on certain US radio stations. This for most listeners would have been a step up

Another medium was FM and the advent of specialist DJ’s playing deep album cuts on certain US radio stations. This for most listeners would have been a step up in audio quality from jukeboxes and AM even if they couldn’t afford a full system.

jhoechtl 5y ago
That really is a thing of the US. I am born '76 and throughout Europe we ever had FM radio, AM is and was on no ones radar except medium wave hunters. The only addition was FM stereo where I remember a local radio station which didn't broadcast stereo until the mid 80ies.
- flyinghamster 5y ago
  It really was in the 1970s that rock music on FM took off in the US. Before then, it was almost exclusively the domain of classical music and local broadcasting. The typical top 40 stations were on AM, and the phrase "clear channel" meant a 50 kW AM transmitter that was allowed to run at max power 24x7 (so it could be received over a vast region after dark). Rock on FM was local, and very experimental in those days. Then, in the 1980s, consolidation started happening, and the 1996 removal of all ownership limits turned radio in general (both AM and FM) into the cesspool it is today. There are precious few rock stations from those days that have managed to stay around, not get borged into the cesspool, and keep their format without going stale. In my neck of the woods, WXRT 93.1 in Chicago is the best example.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  It was before my time, but some British stations broadcast on AM from ships outside of territorial waters in the North Sea to get around strict broadcasting regulations (it was a state monopoly for a long time). They had no choice but to use medium wave because they needed the long range propagation. Some of them were apparently very popular and one of them (Radio Caroline) recently went against the trend of closing AM stations down and re-opened on the old BBC World Service MW channel.

jhoechtl 5y ago

That really is a thing of the US. I am born '76 and throughout Europe we ever had FM radio, AM is and was on no ones radar except medium wave hunters. The only addition was FM stereo where I remember a local radio station which didn't broadcast stereo until the mid 80ies.

flyinghamster 5y ago
It really was in the 1970s that rock music on FM took off in the US. Before then, it was almost exclusively the domain of classical music and local broadcasting. The typical top 40 stations were on AM, and the phrase "clear channel" meant a 50 kW AM transmitter that was allowed to run at max power 24x7 (so it could be received over a vast region after dark). Rock on FM was local, and very experimental in those days. Then, in the 1980s, consolidation started happening, and the 1996 removal of all ownership limits turned radio in general (both AM and FM) into the cesspool it is today. There are precious few rock stations from those days that have managed to stay around, not get borged into the cesspool, and keep their format without going stale. In my neck of the woods, WXRT 93.1 in Chicago is the best example.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
It was before my time, but some British stations broadcast on AM from ships outside of territorial waters in the North Sea to get around strict broadcasting regulations (it was a state monopoly for a long time). They had no choice but to use medium wave because they needed the long range propagation. Some of them were apparently very popular and one of them (Radio Caroline) recently went against the trend of closing AM stations down and re-opened on the old BBC World Service MW channel.