➦In 1933...Windsor Ontario radio station CKOK and London, Ontario's CJGC merged to create CKLW. The call letters stood for “London-Windsor”. CKLW (“The Big 8”) became one of the most influential powerhouses of early Top40 radio, breaking national hits and dominating Detroit ratings for years in the late 1960’s and early ’70’s.
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| Armstong |
➦In 1935…Edwin H. Armstrong announced his development of FM broadcasting after conducting the first large-scale field tests of his new radio technology at RCA's facilities on the 85th floor of the Empire State Building from May 1934 until October 1935.
In 1937, Armstrong financed construction of the first FM radio station, W2XMN, a 40-kilowatt broadcaster in Alpine, New Jersey.
The signal (at 42.8 MHz) could be heard clearly 100 miles (160 km) away, despite the use of less power than an AM radio station.
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| NYTimes 11/6/21 |
RCA began to lobby for a change in the law or FCC regulations that would prevent FM radios from becoming dominant (David Sarnoff was looking to protect his stations on the AM band) .
By June 1945, the RCA had pushed the FCC hard on the allocation of electromagnetic frequencies for the fledgling television industry.
Although they denied wrongdoing, David Sarnoff and RCA managed to get the FCC to move the FM radio spectrum from 42–50 MHz, to 88–108 MHz, while getting new low-powered community television stations allocated to a new Channel 1 in the 44-50 MHz range.
Furthermore, RCA also claimed invention of FM radio and won its own patent on the technology.
A patent fight between RCA and Armstrong ensued. RCA's momentous victory in the courts left Armstrong unable to claim royalties on any FM receivers, including televisions, which were sold in the United States.
The costly legal battles brought ruin to Armstrong, by then almost penniless and emotionally distraught. Eventually, after Armstrong's death, many of the lawsuits were decided or settled in his favor, greatly enriching his estate and heirs.
But the decisions came too late for Armstrong himself to enjoy his legal vindication.
It took decades following Armstrong's death for FM broadcasting to meet and surpass the saturation of the AM band, and longer still for FM radio to become profitable for broadcasters. Two developments made a difference in the 1960s.
One was the development of true stereophonic broadcasting on FM by General Electric, which resulted in the approval of an FM stereo broadcast standard by the FCC in 1961, and the conversion of hundreds of stations to stereo within a few years.
➦In 1939...the first commercial TV station in the US, General Electric’s WGY-TV Schenectady, NY, began service.
➦In 1947...The weekly show “Meet the Press” started on NBC TV, and it is still running, making it the longest running TV show in U-S broadcast history. It started as a Mutual radio show in 1945.
➦In 1954…Elvis Presley signed on for the 'Louisiana Hayride; for one year. The Saturday night radio show originated at KWKH, Shreveport, Louisiana.
