On this day, April 28, 1978, the movie "FM" was released.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, the DJ on WTMD, which was trying to come in in digital this morning, but has given up on that. It's north of Baltimore, so some days it has problems coming in in analog.

According to Plex, "This title is currently not available on any service."

FM (film)


Original movie poster

Release date: April 28, 1978

FM is a 1978 American comedy drama film about internal conflicts at an FM radio station directed by John A. Alonzo and starring Michael Brandon, Eileen Brennan, Alex Karras, Cleavon Little, Martin Mull and Cassie Yates. The screenplay was written by Ezra Sacks.

The film was produced by Universal Pictures and originally released to theaters in the spring of 1978. The film performed poorly at the box office, but its soundtrack was a Platinum-certified disc, selling over one million records.

{snip}

Soundtrack
Main article: FM (soundtrack)

Despite the poor performance of the film at the box office, the soundtrack sold over 1 million records.[2] Steely Dan's "FM (No Static at All)" won engineers Al Schmitt and Roger Nichols the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical.

{snip}

The album with the soundtrack was released sixteen days ahead of the movie. The single came out a month later.

FM: The Original Movie Soundtrack


Soundtrack album by Various artists

Released: April 12, 1978
Genre: Rock
Label: MCA
Producer: Various artists
Singles from FM: "FM (No Static at All)"
Released: 19 May 1978 (US)

FM: The Original Movie Soundtrack is the original soundtrack to the 1978 film FM.

Reception

In the United States, the album reached the Top Five of Billboard's album chart and quickly earned a Platinum-certified disc. It reached 37 in the UK charts.

Roger Nichols won the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for his work on the soundtrack.

{snip}

Well else could the DJ put on but this? The first clip does not appear to come from an official site, so it might disappear. It deos have snippets from the movie.

FM • Theme Song (No Static At All) • Steely Dan

HD Film Tributes
2.29M subscribers

56,885 views Dec 7, 2019
Soundtrack from the 1978 John A. Alonzo film "FM," with Michael Brandon, Eileen Brennan, Martin Mull, Alex Karras, Cassie Yates, Cleavon Little, Jimmy Buffett, Linda Ronstadt & Tom Petty. --- HD Film Tributes is a channel with over three hundred movie homages currently posted. We make zero money from YouTube as obviously none of these edits will ever be monetized by us. Any and all ad revenue from these videos goes directly to Google as well as to the various copyright owners, the film studios and the recording industry.

If that video gets pulled, here's the audio, from the official Steely Dan site.

FM

Steely Dan
218K subscribers

859,764 views Jul 31, 2018
Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group

FM · Steely Dan

A Decade Of Steely Dan

℗ 1978 Geffen Records

Released on: 1985-01-01

Producer: Rand Holston
Composer Lyricist: Donald Fagen
Composer Lyricist: Walter Becker

Auto-generated by YouTube.

[rsdsharp]

1. I remember seeing it in the theatre. I was a jock at the time, and largely found it cringe worthy.

Radio movies usually seem to be written by people who never worked in the medium. WKRP nailed the personalities, but totally fumbled the technical aspects.

In 1978, AM was still king. The FCC began pushing FM in 1968, and by 1978 those efforts, coupled with disco heralding the end the Top 40 format, were showing results. Within three years, WABC the most listened to Top 40 station in the country, went talk. But in 1978, given a choice between an FM with a line of sight reach of about 60 miles, and a 50,000 AM that could blanket multiple states, most jocks would have chosen the AM blowtorch.