WHRW - The Golden Age of FM

The Golden Age of FM

In the early 1970s, some adventurous FM stations (such as KSAN-FM and WNEW-FM) began experimenting with programming based upon album tracks, not only from established artists but from more obscure bands as well. Many of these stations played records by bands few AM radio listeners had heard of at the time such as Led Zeppelin, The Chambers Brothers, Iron Butterfly, and spoken-comedy acts like Firesign Theatre. As in the early days of rock and roll, DJs would play a record based mostly upon their own judgement.

Experimental programming was also becoming popular, especially among college stations, and this time period is also where the term "progressive" or "underground" radio was born. It was the 1960s description of what we now call free-form radio. A DJ could play whatever he or she wanted as long as it did not violate Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations (some DJs played things which most certainly did!), and a station's popularity depended upon how well its DJs knew music and how they applied that knowledge on the air. Classical was played alongside jazz; rock against folk music or folk-rock, and so on. Shows were often semi-scripted, using tape production to introduce both commentary and comedy rather than simple turn-table seque-ways to press disparate sound, culture and music into a holistic collage that sometimes became art, but often challenged mind and senses in ways nearly painful for the thrill. In the mid-1970s free-form radio fell out of vogue, and many formerly progressive FM stations adopted an AM-like playlist and rotation schedule, though unlike today many of those stations would still offer specialty programming such as live concert simulcasts (most notably the King Biscuit Flower Hour) and comedy shows such as the National Lampoon Radio Hour and Dr. Demento. WHRW decided to preserve this format throughout those years and beyond, perhaps not intentionally, but simply by sticking with a style that suited its DJs and listeners.

Since the collapse of free-form commercial FM, the commercial radio market has become more and more stringently formatted and automation-driven, leaving no room for experimentation or the possibility that any artist would ever become popular without the official imprimatur of major-record-label or broadcast-industry focus groups. It has been said time and again that even Elvis Presley or The Beatles would have had a difficult time succeeding if the radio industry of the 1950s and 60's were like the current ultra-conservative climate of radio. But four decades after going on the air, WHRW has bucked current trends and retained its free-format philosophy.