Radio in the 1970s - FM

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The legal battle that started with civil rights leaders ended up providing all sorts of people with tools to increase speech on the air. So conservative voices were definitely on the air, but it was far from the one sidedness you're liable to hear today. All of these legal changes coincided with the explosion of FM radio, which overtook AM and listenership in the late 1970s.

If you’ve ever flipped through the radio dial — not satellite, not podcasts, but good old-fashioned AM and FM radio — you may have noticed something. Right wing radio talk is everywhere.

But the airwaves weren't always so dominated by such a narrow range of voices. Reporter and friend of the show Katie Thornton has the story of how talk radio has evolved (and perhaps devolved at times) over the past century, and what all of it means for the airwaves today.

The Divided Dial

Hear the rest of the the series from On the Media