THE FM ERA BEGINS

...Professor Armstrong's invention may well prove to he the stimulus for s new rhapler m US III history...

...See my article "Red-Baiters snd Radio-Baiters," Tht JV-w Uoder, Fes...

...By this measure the Commission intends "to leave tbe door open to newcomers," a ruling requested by veterans organisations and by the US Senate Small Business Committee...

...Other more impartial experts arrived also at less optimistic calculations...

...Tbe distribution of FM channels, instead of being left to the stronger elbows and bank credits of the competing applicants, is planned, or at least supervised, by a governmental body...

...Simultaneously, this system opens new wavelengths for public broadcasting, anil excludes static from transmission...

...From the end of the war to July, 1946, the Commission issued 466 new conditional grants for FM, which added up to a total of 609 FM stations...

...That's why many critics saw a sort of monopoly among the 900 broadcasters, especially since an ever-increasing number of stations—according to the latest survey, 764 —were affiliated with, and sometimes controlled by, one of (he four big networks...

...For the first time in America— or in any country, at that—there were more radio stations licensed, and to bet operated soon, than there were daily newspapers being published...

...Chattanooga, Tenn., and Los Angeles...

...Such a judgment is less easy in FM where many applicants have no previous radio record to show...

...It granted eight of these channels to noncommercial educational broadcasters, and it upheld this ratio of every fifth channel being given to such a station until now...

...The International Ladies Garment Workers Union has been granted a permit, or has an application pending, for FM stations in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, St...

...State controlled Gold Rush The distribution of the newly-discovered FM facilities among interested groups developed in a very different way from say, the distribution of the California gold mines a hundred years ago when the Forty-Niners had only to stake out their plot, to have it registered, and to exploit it for good or bad...

...From 1918 to 1927, too, the few powerful electrical concerns, followed by a host of adventurous dentists, cigar manufacturers, salesmen, engineers, promoters, publishers and showfolk who saw a new gold field in broadcasting staked out their claims registered and crosslicensed their wavelengths within the outdated wireless-telegraph regulations, and began broadcasting...

...The radio spokesmen of the union have assured FCC that commercial programs will take up less than half of the total program presentations of the station, that it will not sell time for controversial and religious programs, ami that music, public health, educational and civic programs, especially in the fields of labor-management and consumerfarmer relations will be encouraged...

...From now on, there will, in addition to more than 1,200 AM stations, be an array of almost 2,000 FM stations...

...Twenty-five grants of this sort have already been ssasle to state universities, colleges and similar institutions...

...While he Commission must determine whether a station will be operated "in the public interest," it is tempted to invade the domain of free opinion...

...Besides the ILGWU...

...The technical high fidelity transmission of FM radio improves musical programs to an incomparable degree, and the technical FM principle itself excludes practically all the static and ststion interference which is often so annoying in AM radio...

...On January 1, 1946, the frequency allocation of FM was completely changed...

...Some circles charged industry and AM broadcasters with a conspiracy to hold up the competition of FM...

...furthermore, tits construction of 266 new station*' was on its way snd applications for 642 other AM Stations were pending...

...the ruling sought of the Commission would violate not only the Constitution, but the heart of the civil liberties that are guaranteed In the First Amendment...

...The aim of safeguarding a fair distribution of FM channels in the public interest, instead of leaving it to a gold rush race for the best megacycles, can come dangerously close to arbitral}' decisions, and possibly governmental censorship when there are more applicants than there are channels available, and when FCC has to choose the best applicants...

...The lower costs of FM broadcasting will permit a lesser amount of commercialism...

...the very fact that the Commission occupied itself intensively with the question was called by Arthur Kreek, the Washington cor* respondent of ths New York Times,' "basically illegal...

...It is true that since the end of the war the number of AM radio stations too has begun to increase again...

...Wisconsin and possibly also Maryland and West Virginia are planning to build up elaborate state networks for cbildrens and adults' education...

...Last year, only three percent of the American listening families owned a FM receiving set...

...Louis...

...In New York City, for instance, nins fm stations are already operating, tome as offshoots of the existing network and independent stations, some controlled by newspapers, ons by department store interests, although being tied up with a college and a music organization...

...when two applicants of different political views, though otherwise being equally qualified, apply for the same wavelength, the channel must bo assigned to one of them, while their politics—being none of the Commission's business—have to be ignored...

...Whils nn January I, 1946, there weie 906 stations operating, in mid July 1946 there were 063 stations...

...FCC saw here a chance for anyone with the urge and $8,000 to $10,000 to break inta the broadcasting business...

...One of them is the News Syndicate Co., which publishes New York's most widely-read tabloid, and which cent tolled for a while an independent city station...

...In 1940, the Federal Communications < mumission allotted for the first time a small portion of the radio spectrum to 40 channels for FM service...

...Whether FM offers very good chanees to broadcasters with little economic resources Is, however, a delisted question...

...Now a technological invention rather than political interventions (which were requested by some people) have abolished the threatening monopoly...

...Other organizations, such as the Young Men's Christian Association, plan to be FM broadcasters...

...Distrlbariao- t*a Air Waves However, fm win give an opportunity to those groups which had less access to the air under the AM set-op than they required, and who influenced radio less than befitted their position within the natioa...

...On ths other hand, the National Association of Broadcasters representing tbe industry, and fighting FCC by tradition, saw little hope for those who "can be induced to go into radio with $10,000...

...The renewal of licenses for AM, for instance, can be fairly done on ths basis of the station's previous programing record which either did or did not keep its public promises...

...Another applicant for a New York City channel is the People's Radio Foundation, Inc., a group sponsored and directed by Soviet defenders and fellow• travelers which has already sold $66,00') worth of stock to its backers, and programs to nine sponsors...

...When all the FM stations are broadcasting full blast, and all the FM receiving sets are transmitting them into the Crest American Living Room, radio will stop being mainly the medium for mass tastes and majority opinions...

...In 1947, the social climate and political philosophy have changed very much since radio's first years...

...In that, the beginning of the FM era was even thoroughly different from the beginning of the radio era in the decade after the last war...

...the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union as well as the United Automobile Workers Union intend to set up their KM networks in five different cities, while ths National Maritime Union prepares sa FM station in New York City...

...One hundred fifty-two FM stations are already operating at present in .III states...

...FM—Today and Tomorrow ThF...

...main object stHI missing in FM broadcasting is a FM audience...

...Some technical experts even foresee the prospect of nearly 6,000 broadcasters on the air in the next several years...

...Under the direction of Senator Glen H. Taylor from Idaho, this agency gave much publicity to FM as "a remarkable opportunity for small business, for the cost of constructing and operating a broadcast station is far less than most people realize...

...In the desire to give "the little fellow" a chance, FCC as well as Senator Taylor's Committee is trying to keep some FM channels free from the more powerful applicants who are frequently identical with the previous AM broadcasters, who, in turn, are often'closely connected with the publishers of ths big daily press...

...At the beginning of 1947, altogether 705 FM stationa were authorized (though the construction of many has not yet betn finished, nor the operation of others begun), and 255 more applications were pending...

...Hut AM wavelengths are limited, and practically every one of them is now being used...

...As long as there is no FM msss audience, only the esthetic rather than the social progress of FM can be appreciated...

...hardly more than 10 percent of the newly produced sets had KM receiving facilities...

...Since FM's beginnings, the Federal Communications Commission set aside every fifth channel for non-profit educational broadcasters...

...Its application was contested by another organisation, ths American Jewish Con* gross, which alleged that the newspaper owned by ths applicant had shown racial blss in its news presentation Whether this charge was true or not...

...For there is technically room for many more FM stations than there could ever be for the traditional AM stations.- In fact, where there is room for four AM stations, there is room in addition for at least six FM stations...

...The higher number of stations will be able to cater more to minority tastes, similarly to the magazine field, where a few popular magaiines with the largest mass sppesl live In s friendly and profitable way together with a number of publications serving groups of special educational backgrounds, tastes, or political preferences...

...Since, however, James C. ivtrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, prevents duplication of AM programs over FM radio without special fees, many musical presentations sre not yet broadcast over FM...

...This is especially true for the labor movement which has seized the chance offered by FM...

...at least one KM broadcaster who represents the ILGWU has come to an agreement with a manufacturer to produce FM sets for his own prospective listener...

...By shifting the band to higher megacycles (from 42-60 me to 88-108 mc) the basis for 100 additional channels was] created...

...In 1947, nobody can stake out his FM wave length this way...

...Newcomers to FM radio, and new programming experiments on KM, will have their effects on the other, more tradition-bound stations, where the competition will enforce improvements, too—the ssme development which oceiired in the magazine field...

...In 1936, Professor Armstrong had more or less concluded hia research...

...For years somewhat less than 2.000 dailies have been published in this country, while somewhat more than 900 radio stations were broadcasting...

...Only in 1927 was the Federal Radio Commission set up, tbe'predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission of our day, which licenses radio stations—AM as well as FM—in ths public interest, convenience and necessity...

...I lie larger diversity of opinions and pieseiitiitions will make radio Itself more progressive than it has been up to now...

...Furthermore, FCC set aside recently every fifth "Class B"-channel (of higher power, for metropolitan or rural ose), for one year in every city wheee there are five or more FM stations...

...FM's basic principle sounds rather simple: While in so-called AM (amplitude modulation) radio the frequency of the signals remains constant and their amplitude, or intensity, varies according to the transmitted sounds, in Flu the frequency of the signals themselves is varied, or "modulated," to make it carry sounds over* the air...

...For ths remaining five channels, there are 17 applicants...

...Fiftythree FM grants had been made when the war put a stop to further progress, since no new transmitters or receiving sets could he built...

...Senator Taylor's Committee estimated tbe costs of the major FM broadcasting equip* meat for the weakest (250 watt) station between $6,600 and $14,600, rising to between $73,000 and $16,000 for the Strongest (60 kilowatt) station...

...The main part of this development was caused by FM radio which, according to Charles S. Denny, head of the Federal Communkations Commission, has "gotten off to a fine start" FM (frequency modulation) radio, a young and exciting invention, has been developed almost single-handed by Major Edwin II Armstrong, a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, largely at his own expense and through private loans from his friends, while indnrt'i held bark its helping hand...