I was a little confused to see a self-congratulatory ad in the Old Songs program flyer from WCUW-FM announcing its 40th anniversary. I remember listening to WCUW in my dorm room in the late 60s, so what's the deal here? After a bit of research, I realized there are at least two influences on what happened:

FM radio had been invented sometime in the 1920s, but broadcast was limited to line-of-sight, so powerful AM radio became the broadcast band of choice. But FM broadcast was freer of noise and, in the late 1950s, stereo. It became the radio for classical music.

Meanwhile, colleges around the country were licensed to run radio stations. In the 1960s these were in the FM band. There's some sort of technology that uses the wiring of the dormatories for broadcast antennae(s?) that limits the listening area to a few blocks around those buildings. There were no rules or conventions about programming - student radio was run by non-paid volunteers, mainly students, and included just about anyone who showed up and talked or played music.

There were some rule changes from the FCC that allowed the student stations to broadcast at higher power, allowing for a larger listening audience.

So that explained WCUW - it was a college station, graduating to a larger audience in 1973.

In thinking about that I remembered the excitement of "underground" radio of that period - FM radio playing whole albums and new music that never would have made air-time on AM radio (which for some reason limited every song to 3 minutes or less). FM radio was being incorporated into portable radios and stereo music systems (just try to find a vintage 1955 FM portable radio). The over-30 crowd (remember not to trust anyone over 30) listened to AM radio. Perfect! It was an exciting time. To mollify the folk police, I have to mention here that folk music was part of the mix - I remember several shows in which the DJ hosted a show from his own collection of vinyl for 3 hours or so at a time every week.

In particular, I remember seeing Arlo Guthrie's first concert in Boston. It was part of a concert series held in Jordan Hall, the (smallish but beautiful) auditorium of the Boston Conservatory of Music. There wasn't much publicity and the wife of the promoter was absolutely certain that no one would attend - "Who cares who his father was? No one ever heard of him!" - But not only was the concert sold out, the audience knew the words of the chorus of "Alice's Restaurant." The underground radio stations had the same effect as the production of flashmobs via the internet today.

Those are some of my memories from Boston and Worcester, Mass. But I know there were similar things happening in other parts of the country, and I have no idea how long-format music infiltrated into the UK. Anyone willing to share memories?