Cable radio

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Cable radio or cable FM is a concept similar to that of cable television, bringing radio signals into homes and businesses via coaxial cable. It is generally used as cable TV was in its early days when it was "community antenna television", to enhance the quality of signals that are difficult to receive in an area. However, cable-only radio outlets also exist.

The use of cable radio varies from area to area — some cable TV systems don't include it at all, and others only have something approaching it on digital cable systems. Additionally, some stations may just transmit audio in the background while a cable access channel is operating in between periods of video programming. In the late 1970s to the mid to late 1980s, before the advent of MTS Stereo television broadcasts, cable TV subscribers would tune in specific cable FM frequencies that simulcast the television broadcasts in stereo.

The first exclusively cablecasting community radio station was CPVR in Palos Verdes, a suburb of Los Angeles. CPVR 95.5 Cable FM radio was on the Time-Warner cable system and was started by a group of teenagers who practiced being disc jockeys in the homes of two of the founders. Mark Speer and Brad Gardner were the two who began the venture, which was run as a non-profit youth organization from a studio in the Golden Cove shopping center in Rancho Palos Verdes beginning in 1972. The station was on the "cable" for about one year, programming progressive rock and roll, including Pink Floyd and Steely Dan, among other acts. On the East Coast the most popular comerical Cable radio station was WLHE started in 1979 in Woburn, Massachusetts. This station was the first comerical cable radio station in the country the station ran from 1979 to 1987. The man who started it was Larry Haber owner and operator. Frank Palazzi, and Alan Rupa was the first on air Disc Jockeys. Palazzi was know on the air as Frank Fitz, and Alan Rupa was know as Alan James. Mr Haber went by his own name. Other DJ's were oldies expert Chuck Steven, Country Music expert Glen Evans, and indies Rock expert Mark Sawyer. Larry Haber was the stations first President and GM, Palazzi as the program director, and Rupa was the Music Director. The staion was heard only on the local Woburn cable channel in Woburn, Wilmington, Stoneham, North Reading, and Billerica Massachusetts.

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission previously required most cable companies to provide cable FM service; those that did were required to convert all local AM broadcast radio stations to cable FM signals. The commission now requires only that campus, community, native radio stations, and one CBC Radio station in each official language, be provided by local cable companies, either via cable FM or via digital means (i.e. set-top boxes).[1][2] Rogers Communications, notably, has entirely abandoned traditional cable FM distribution, instead providing a number of terrestrial radio services as part of its digital cable audio package.

A related secondary meaning of the term is any automated music stream - the usual format of cable only "stations".

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[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2006-119, 8 September 2006
  2. ^ Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2006-51, 19 April 2006; see para. 26 for discussion of analog/digital carriage issue

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