What The FM Broadcasters Have To Say:

A Statement Concerning W71NY by J.R. Poppele,
Chief Engineer Bamberger Broadcasting Service, New York, NY

The operation of an FM station, with its many technical and prograinming problems, constitutes a new and exciting adventure in broadcasting. FM is a shiny horizon that has opened up at a time when we were all beginning to believe that there weren’t many promising frontiers left in the business of radio as we knew it. Television, facsimile, it is true, were new developments. But their path appears to be a thorny one.

Now, in the space of a year, we find FM has magically arrived. We find that it answers so many of the problems confronting modem broadcasters. We find that the public, likes FM and, most of all, we find that FM has the power to revitalize this industry with new talent, engineering ability, and improved service to the listener.

Here at WOR we have watched with lively interest the growth of frequency modulation, it was this interest that impelled us to install an experimental FM transmitter in February, 1940, many months before FM received its commercial go-ahead. We did this because we had faith in FM, like many other pioneer broadcasters throughout the nation. Today that experimental station, W2XOR, has grown to become W71NY, New York’s first commercial FM outlet. It operates on a full-time schedule that is 95% different in program material from its parent station, WOR.

The commercial aspects of FM are today limited. We have sold several programs, but are reconciled to the fact that it will be a number of’ years before we realize any substantial returns from our investment. But there will be returns. We are so confident of this fact that we have ordered a 10,000-watt Western Electric installation to be on the air by about the middle of this summer.

We are encouraged by the brisk sale of A-FM combination receivers around New York City, where some 10,000 sets are already in use. We find a mounting interest on the part of advertisers who, in many cases, are waiting only for further growth of the listening audience before buying any time. It is up to W71NY and its fellow FM stations to give their best in programming so that this audience may increase Then, with the beginning of substantial revenue, we must make that programming service even better.

FM, as we view it today at W71NY, is an unparalleled opportunity to serve the pubIic better with a finer product. And only by doing so, in our eyes, shall we be able to fulfill that fundamental tenet of broadcasting---to operate freely and intelligently, dispensing education and entertainment in the "public interest convenience and necessity.”

FM / June, 1941