U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1961)
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What Henri, Hurst accounts hear about fm
What is fm broadcasting?
Tec hide ally, il means that the broadcast sigmd is ■frequency modulated instead of amplitude modulated as in am radio broadcasting. To the layman this boils down to reception which is capable of extremely high fidelity and is entirely static free.
Commercially, fm has become a sponsor's dream. It provides, in many cases, loyal devoted audiences who show their appreciation by also being loyal to station sponsors. More of this later.
Growth of fm broadcasting
This form of broadcasting goes back to the dim days of radio, having competed with am during broadcasting's infancy. Fm lost out to am's broader range and for many years retreated to an experimental posi
tion, used primarily In non-commercial stations, such as WT.IM Chicago, or as adjuncts to well-heeled am stations, such .is YVOXR New York.
In each case, the Im station was a lonely tower devoted almost entiteh to classical music. While these stations slowly built fanatical!) loyal audiences, these audiences were so small they were of little value commercially. For truly efficient radio advertising, they couldn't begin to compete with the powerful and popular am stations and networks.
Then came the 1950s and television!
Almost overnight the television stations took over public attention and practically all of the commercial advertising. The am stations and networks began to gasp for air. Radio, said the experts, was finished. All washed up. It wasn't true, of
Hours spent with f m often out-pace those with am and tv
Hourly periods
Tv viewing
Am listening
Fm listening
MORNING
6 7 a.m.
1.5%
7.9%
3.0%
7 8
4.2
24.1
15.6
8 9
6.2
13.6
21.8
9-10
1.8
7.3
26.6
10-11
1.6
5.2
26.2
11-12
2.9
4.6
23.5
AFTERNOON
12 1 p.m.
3.1%
9.3%
15.6%
1 2
3.1
4.3
18.2
2 3
2.1
4-6
21.0
3 4
3.2
3.9
27.8
4 5
5.5
3.7
30.7
5 6
6.9
7.6
32.3
EVENING
6 7 p.m.
11.4%
9.6%
34.8%
7 8
17.7
5.3
52.8
8 9
32.4
3.9
65.1
9-10
35.4
5.3
60.9
10-11
26.1
4.3
51.2
11-12
8.2
4.2
23.8
The comparison of hours spent viewing television, listening to am and fm radio is revealing. (This is a survey of fm listeners.)
course, and doubly so oi Im.
Almost unnoticed in the glare of the tv lube, the ntimhei ol im stations began to multiply. J » y 1951, Chicago's single outle t, VVFFM, was joined by seven other Im stations, liy the end ol the decade, that number had increased to 16, New stations appeared in city after city, until the present total has grown to over 850.
Programing diversity
As the number of fm stations increased, the programing base broadened.
Pioneers in the field continued to build their schedules on a broad baseof classical music. Many of the newcomers included a fair share of classical music in their schedules but branched out from there into semiclassical and some jazz.
Others went the am route with completely diversified music and talk shows. All, however, retained a basic fm characteristic: commercials are limited, in many cases to a maximum of six per hour and, in many instances, three per hour, as against the standard six per quarter hour on most standard am outlets.
Fm audiences
As in every other phase of their operation, fm broadcasters seem to have no conception of the importance of the size as well as the quality of their audiences. While am beats its chest over a 98% set penetration and tv thunders about total audiences of 60 million and more, fm seems hesitant about admitting that it has some 80 million listeners in the U. S., reaching over 44% of the total population.
Even more interesting is the fact that this 44% of the population has more than 51% of the entire buying power! Source: Survey of Buying Power, July 10, I960. Sales Management magazine.
Those are now impressive figures. But who listens? WQXR New York did a survey of listening habits in January 1959. It polled a random sample of 1,683 names drawn from subscribers of the QXi? Program Guide. 1,174 completed questionnaires were returned and revealed the following:
Annual income, adult family members
Over $15,000 . 15.5%
$10,000-$15,000 22.1%
il
U. S. FM • August 1961
7