Do you remember?

General Electric released this ad, one of a series featuring well-known faces, in February 1947. This ad included Kay Kyser, professor of the “Kollege of Musical Knowledge” heard each Wednesday over NBC. Kyser kept his NBC show in the top 10 for 11 years and was dubbed “the ‘Ol Professor of Swing”. The ads touted the new sound of FM radio and that GE produced “natural color tone radios.”

When FM radio was introduced 60 years ago, radio manufacturers pushed hard to inform potential listeners about the new technology. Today, the same cannot be said for the HD Radio rollout.

To see more of this series of General Electric ads, visit this link.

Do you have interesting radio ads from the past? Tell us about them at radio@RadioMagOnline.com.

That was then

In response to our December 2007 request for old staff photos, Xen Scott sent us these two 1964 photos from WTOA (FM) 97.5MHz, Trenton, N.J. Xen was a staff engineer at the time and the announcer is Phil Stout.

Sample and Hold

Around this time last year, Jacobs Media released its Tech Survey III, highlighting the public's knowledge and expectation of HD Radio. While the study showed that very little of the public was very interested in HD Radio, it also showed that a growing number of people were somewhat interested and just needed to know more about the technology. Here is one tidbit from the research about what features the public wanted in new cars. Jacobs Media will release its Tech Survey IV in the next few months. Keep your eye here to see how perception of HD Radio has changed in a year.

Source: Jacobs Media, Tech Survey III, 2007.