[Reece]

As stated, the first FM broadcasts were mostly around NY and New England (Yankee Network) in the late 30's, early 40's, on the old FM band. The war interrupted this. David Sarnoff of RCA/NBC was not interested in FM at the time as he was busy developing TV. The whole story of Sarnoff vs. Armstong etc. has been well documented elsewhere: pretty complicated.

Anyway, the war interrupted development of FM and stopped production of any domestic radio sets. After the war, production started up again, but the FCC moved the FM broadcasting band to the present frequencies to make room for TV: Sarnoff had a hand in this. For awhile, some sets had both the old and new FM bands on them, late 40's sets.

FM was not very popular during the 50's and what there was often just sounded like Muzak or elevator music. There were some classical stations, too. The Golden Age of Radio was not yet dead in the 50's, but TV was gradually doing it in. There were still comedy, drama, etc. shows on the AM radio during the 50's, and popular music too. Radio as it had been known during the 30's and 40's was pretty much dead at the end of the 50's and radio became a music and news medium. Pop music was still on AM.

Popular music did not start really moving over to FM until the late 60's and into the 70's.

Reece