Cable Radio - United States

United States

The first "commercial" cable radio station in the United States was CABL-FM 108, on the Theta Cablevision system, serving West Los Angeles, California and surrounding areas. It went on the air January 1, 1972, and was run by Brad Sobel, playing what he called "progressive top 40". CABL-FM 108 came into being after Brad's original venture, K-POT, a bootleg FM station at 88.1 MHz was busted by the FCC in November 1971. The illicit station ran for three days until it was shut down, and the event made the front page of the Los Angeles Times and the Herald-Examiner. Because Theta Cablevision charged extra for their FM hookups, CABL-FM 108's potential audience was between 4,700 and approximately 25,000 (based on information provided by Brad Sobel in an article in Billboard), out of Cablevision's approximately 100,000 subscriber households.

The first exclusively cablecasting community radio station was CPVR in Palos Verdes, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. CPVR 95.9 Cable FM radio was on the Times-Mirror cable system and was started by a group of teenagers who initially practiced being disc jockeys in the homes of two of the founders. Since traditional broadcasting equipment was prohibitively expensive at the time, a young engineer named Tom Hewitt built much of the electronic hardware from scratch. Mark Speer and Brad Gardner were the two who began the venture, which was run as a non-profit youth organization from a studio in the Golden Cove shopping center in Rancho Palos Verdes beginning in March 1972. Even though they were non-profit, they were not subject to the restrictions of terrestrial public radio stations, and thus were able to subsidize expenses by accepting commercial advertising. Because the air staff and audience were part of a highly desirable demographic (many of the DJ’s weren’t even old enough to drive), advertisers of the day, such as concert promoter Pacific Presentations and local record stores eagerly bought ad time in order to reach such a prime demographic (m-f, 13-24) as CPVR had attracted during its history, further enabling CPVR to not only continue operations, but expand into larger studios. Greg McClure, Jim Sideris, Harv Laser, Liane Benson, Lorraine Dechter and Kathy Bauer were but a few of the people who helped create the station’s legendary style and sound. Unlike Cable 108, CPVR was not only on the FM dial, but was in stereo, and also appeared on the cable system's "barker" channel (Channel 3). Although the station was only on the "cable" for about two years programming free-form rock and roll, CPVR often scooped it’s over-the-air competitors, breaking acts such as Bruce Springsteen and Queen and oftentimes premiering landmark albums such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon” and Procol Harum’s “Grand Hotel” sometimes several weeks before the L.A. stations picked them up. Many of the original staff went on to careers in media (co-founder Brad Gardner has since been nominated for four (and won two) Emmys, one for a music video "The Doctor is In" and the other for the veterinary show "Horse Vet". His other two nominations are for directing and audio). For those involved and those who heard it, this tiny little community rock and roll radio station holds a special place in their hearts and minds, often discussed in the same breath as KMET, KPPC, KWST, KRLA, KROQ-FM and KNAC, legendary southern California radio stations in their own right.

For a time, cable radio stations popped up across California and the U.S, most run by high school and/or college students. CCIA, a cable radio station on the campus of California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, is one example. But as the founders of these stations grew older and moved on, there was no one to take up where they left off. Eventually all these cable radio stations went dark. Today, where college or community groups might have once considered starting a "cable" radio station, they now look to creating an internet radio station.

On the East Coast the most popular commercial cable radio station was WLHE, started in 1979 in Woburn, Massachusetts. This station was the first commercial cable TV only radio station in the country and ran from 1979 to 1987. The man who started it was Larry Haber, owner and operator. Frank Palazzi and Alan Rupa were the first on air disc jockeys. Palazzi was known on the air as Frank Fitz, and Alan Rupa was known as Alan James. Mr Haber went by his own name. Other DJs were oldies expert Chuck Steven, country music expert Glen Evans, indie rock expert Mark Sawyer, and jazz expert Scott Cavanagh (aka Scott Rogers). Larry Haber was the stations first president and general manager, Palazzi served as program director, and Rupa was music director. The station was heard only on Continental Cablevision's local Channel 6 in Woburn, Wilmington, Stoneham, North Reading, and Billerica, Massachusetts.