How might it have turned out?

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Wed, 5 Mar 2014 16:22:09 -0500, Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com> said:

> of note 5 moving from Worcester to Boston opened up 5 for NYC

Unlikely.  NYC to Albany is a shorter distance and that didn't prevent
them from duplicating all but channel 13 at Albany.

They just didn't understand how VHF propagation worked well enough to
actually perform the computation, and the lobby groups (particularly
the Television Broadcasters Association) were more concerned with
cramming as many stations into the big markets as possible.  (UHF was
still experimental in 1945.)  But television was so clearly the Next
Big Thing that /Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising/ changed its
title to /Broadcasting * Telecasting/ with the first issue of
December, 1945.

By the way, there was also a bill in Congress at that time -- never
passed, of course -- that would have made the FM band entirely
non-commercial and government-operated.  As it was, the move
"upstairs" nearly killed FM, with the "assistance" of the American
Federation of Musicians.  There was a different bill at the same time
(sponsored by the HUAC chairman) that would have banned "propaganda"
(i.e., commentary offered by persons of liberal views) on the radio.

If you're at all interested in the history of the mass media more
generally, I can recommend little better than the entire 1945 run of
/Broadcasting/.  It's chock full of "oh, so that's how/when/why that
happened".

-GAWollman