May We Suggest to the FM Broadcasters

Editorial by Milton Sleeper

Before any FM station can have a listening audience, people within the station’s service area must buy FM-AM sets from the local dealers. That makes the station directly dependent for its own success upon the cooperation of the radio stores.

When dealers learn that an FM transmitter is projected for their territory, they ask immediately: “When will broadcasting start?” They want to sell the higher-priced FM-AM receivers as soon as there are programs to create public demand but: “When will that be?” They must know definitely, in advance, so they can schedule the purchase of sets.

Up to now, this has been the one piece of information they couldn’t get. Or, if they were told, it didn’t work out that way. Never mind why, or who was at fault. Consider the situation in Portland, Me.:

When it was announced that WGAN would have an FM transmitter, there was great enthusiasm among the dealers. Local publicity was most effective in creating public interest. An application had been filed with the FCC, and work would be started on the station shortly. Programs would be on the air soon. People who had been planning to buy AM sets decided to wait for the new FM-AM models. The dealers promised to get in the new sets, and made immediate inquiries of their jobbers.

But they didn’t actually order FM-AM sets. No. When dealers buy merchandise, they have to know that they can sell it within a reasonable time. So the Portland dealers waited for definite word of FM programs. Meanwhile, their AM set business suffered. Each day’s delay meant lost profits.

WGAN was doing business on its AM station as usual in the meantime, but the delay in its FM plans was hurting the dealers seriously. After a reasonable period, still with no definite date set for putting FM on the air, the dealers did the obvious thing: They told their customers that frequency modulation was a false alarm, and sold everyone away from it. If they hadn’t, there might not be any radio stores in Portland now, for WGAN has never carried out its FM plans.

If and when it now sets a date to start FM broadcasting, the local dealers will simply say: “So what?” Radio listeners in Portland will say: “Well, my dealer told me that FM is the bunk.”

The above is not intended to be personal to WGAN. This is merely a specific case, typical to a greater or lesser degree of the treatment accorded dealers in many other cities. These situations add up to a very serious handicap to rapid FM progress.

MAY WE SUGGEST that the FM broadcasters can better serve their own interests by (1) giving dealers in their service areas definite information concerning the timing of their plans and (2) by saying as little as possible publicly about what they are going to do until they know when they will do it.

FM Magazine