FM

Plot synopsis:
QSKY radio station manager/program director Jeff Dugan (Michael Brandon) builds a large fan base by assembling a group of charismatic DJ personalities playing popular rock and roll. He soon finds that corporate management expects Jeff to use the station's position atop the ratings to sell more advertising time. (Jeff Dugan is based loosely on Mike Herrington, the program director of Los Angeles radio station KMET while writer Sacks was working there.)
The conflict grows until sales manager Regis Lamar (Tom Tarpey) presents him with the chance to advertise for the U.S. Army using a series of cheesy radio ads. When Jeff refuses to endorse the contract, Regis takes the issue to upper management. Jeff is then ordered to run the ads as provided by the Army and on the schedule specified in the advertising contract. Rather than comply, Jeff quits his job.
All of the remaining DJs decide to take control of the station in a sort of lock-in/sit-in/protest. They get listeners to gather in the street outside the station as a sort of protest while the DJs play music without any commercials.
Jeff Dugan wakes up to hear the DJs take control of the station. The crowd is already present when he arrives at the station. The DJs lift him up to the second storey with a fire hose as they have already barricaded the front doors.
The lock-in lasts only until the police get an injunction to remove the staff. A tow truck rips off the front doors and the police enter the building. The DJs battle back using a fire hose and throwing tapes and other office objects at the police.
The battle is resolved when Jeff Dugan finds himself fighting a policeman outside on an overhang. Jeff saves the policeman from falling off and decides that fighting is the wrong thing to do. He calms the crowd and announces that the DJs are coming out.
Unknown to him, the company owner, Carl Billings (Norman Lloyd), has watched from the crowd as the events unfolded. He insists that the DJs stay in the station, fires his management staff responsible for the advertising conflict, and then joins the DJs inside the station.

Tags: satire

Review:
Turn Your Radio On. It may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but the 1978 movie FM has something going for it as, admittedly in its dated late 1970s way, it somehow foresaw the corporate turn that the radio media would take in years to come.
In essence, this is the classic rock response to the disco onslaught of Saturday NIGHT FEVER.Michael Brandon is Jeff Dugan, the program director at QSKY radio in Los Angeles who oversees an on-air staff of wild and crazy disc jockeys (Alex Karras; Cleavon Little; Eileen Brennan; Cassie Yates; Martin Mull) that, through playing what the L.A. populace wants to hear and with limited commercial interruptions, has made the radio station Number One in the second largest media market in the nation.
Maybe the idea that a radio station's staff would rail against corporate interference sounds a bit daft, but the notion that a big conglomerate (Clear Channel, for example) would turn a radio station into one big box in which the music is only the filler between attempts to part listeners from their hard-earned money isn't so easy to laugh at anymore.FM has a lot going for it.
And for another, that wall-to-wall soundtrack of what we now call classic rock is enhanced by actual concert footage of Jimmy Buffett and Linda Ronstadt.
And Linda, normally a very stage-shy performer, asserts herself boldly on searing renditions of "Tumbling Dice" and "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me", then pays a heartfelt tribute to Elvis by doing the King's 1956 classic "Love Me Tender."I can't help but give FM a rating of "7" because it reminds one of what the radio was like before corporate interference and MTV began to slowly corrupt and destroy it, and because it is an interesting time capsule of life in Los Angeles at the end of the 1970s..
The background music is just right and the concert appearances of Jimmy Buffett and Linda Ronstadt add to the late 1970s atmosphere.
Despite what other reviews have stated, Tom Petty does NOT appear in concert, he's being interviewed at the radio station.
Despite this, the movie is quite charming and for me, poignant, because it manages to capture something about the now-departed era when rock music and FM radio were a cultural force to be reckoned with.
In a time when music listeners are far more likely to be isolated in their iPod headphones, it's somewhat painful to realize what has been lost in music in terms of the communal listening experience that a locally-run, idiosyncratic radio station provided.
When the plot briefly passes through the Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard --- now as lost to the ages as the library at Alexandria --- you are confronted with the fact that the entire culture of rock n' roll that many of us grew up with at the center of our lives -- radio, record stores, and arena concerts -- is essentially a thing of the past.
Even though this isn't a great movie, it does a great job of taking you back in time to that era.The soundtrack is pretty middle of the road, but it's good to hear songs that the years have ground into mush briefly re-contextualized into their natural habitat.
I can't think of a better way to hear a lot of late 70's radio fodder ("Baby Come Back"; Billy Joel) than within the confines of this movie..
A film with a great soundtrack of the late 70's rock era although it belies the lyrics from the title song where Steely Dan sings about setting the mood for getting it on with a girl with funk and reggae because there is no funk or reggae in the movie.
The film has a simple premise in the radio station staff rebels over the commercialization of what is a commercialized business to begin with.
This is not a public or college station but regular commercial station but they take on the corporate world in a strike against the stations plans to be top 40 rock rather than free-form album rock with non-stop music and enlist their listeners help in their fight against the man.
It does feature a great soundtrack in music by Steely Dan, The Eagles, Boston, Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Joe Walsh, The Doobie Brothers, Queen, Billy Joel, Walter Egan, Foreigner, Reo Speedwagon, and concert footage of Jimmy Buffett and Linda Ronstadt.
It debuted on screens in the spring of 1978 and is a great snapshot and soundtrack of the late 70's rock radio.
Great film, only if you like flicks about Radio.
The characters in this movie remind me of many of my fellow co-works, on many levels.The film's plot centers on Station Manager and Morning Man Jeff Dugan.
This movie includes a good musical soundtrack, with bits of songs that were big in the 70's.
"FM" was excellent and reflected a wild time in radio, when there was some pretty weird music out there and some great ones too!.
As someone who works in "the business", I did notice that FM has its share of inaccuracies and things that don't quite work...big whoop...do not let those deter you from enjoying a movie that has been underrated and under-appreciated...with a cast that works well together and a killer soundtrack, FM tracks the musings of a station in LA that takes its music and its audience seriously...without commercial interruption...Michael Brandon is superb as the hero, Jeff Dugan...
Martin Mull is great as an over-the-top DJ, Eric Swan...Eileen Brennan as Mother, the late Cleavon Little as the Prince of Darkness, and Cassie Yates as Laura Coe make up an air staff that I would love to work with...the bad guys are Albert Driscoll, a company exec who doesn't understand anything beyond the bottom line, Regis Lamar, a "flunky" salesman who is doing what he's being told- even though he tries to understand what the radio people are doing, and Michael J Carlyle, a greasy radio exec not unlike a few in radio...and all through the movie, the fact that it is fun to work in radio is very evident...one note...Alex Karras as the Cowboy is a little bit of miscasting...not sure why he was put in there other than his character was in the book...but overall the quality and flow is excellent...and, as its catchphrase goes, "no static at all"...for those of you who are historians of radio, you will love the dual mikes they use at QSKY...brings back the memories...you're probably going to have to find the movie online somewhere, since it's unusual to locate it in a rental store, but it is a nice addition to a library...and try to find a brand new copy...WITH the poster!.
This movie is the story of one LA FM station, they play cool music, promote cool concerts and take over the station when things go wrong for them.
It's hard to want to recommend this movie, if you are interested in the time and the music back then, definately go see this.
While it's true that, as others have stated in previous user comments, it's a pleasant comedy and others who have worked in radio like I did have said it reminds them of people they worked with (as it did for me), I feel that this movie was an important statement about the direction rock radio was taking in the mid to late 70's.
Good concert footage of Jimmy Buffet and Linda Ronstadt give a sense of what live concerts were at the time.
Martin Mull is a hoot as the egotistical and somewhat child like disc jockey Eric Swan and the great Eileen Brennan makes a lot out of her small part as the world weary DJ Mother.
The Movie can be a bit slow in places, but it chillingly fore tells the coming doom of radio under corporate control, over commercialization, and the stripping of the Jocks influence and power.
Nice musical performances from Linda Ronstadt who was actually played on Rock Radio then, and Jimmy Buffett.
F.M. to me, accurately depicts the internal situations and wrangles of a radio  station - called Q-SKY in this instance - during the late 1970s, in a tongue-in-cheek way.
Especially good is Michael Brandon as the maverick new station boss, who's almost late for his first day at work.
Along with other members of the cast like Cassie Yates, James Keach, Martin Mull, and the late Cleavon Little as The Prince, it's quite clear that they are all performing with their tongues firmly lodged into their collective cheeks.The soundtrack is very impressive, and I'm someone who doesn't really like rock.
Linda Rondstadt (not my cup of tea) appears at one funny point in the film, in which the station 'illegally' broadcasts her in concert.
But best of all is the music played in the background, which includes artists like Michael MacDonald, The Doobie Brothers, and Fleetwood Mac. Steely Dan's title track also helps to set up the pace and tone of the film.Ultimately however, the idyllic atmosphere of the station is about to change, as some of the DJ's become dissillusioned with what they are doing, and interference from the station owner and managers causes all the employees to stage a revolt.
I remember one station had what was called side Sunday, where they would play one entire side about 4-7 songs from an album, uninterrupted.This movie catches that spirit of the fight for the soul of radio.
Eileen Brennan is especially good as the burnt out and weary mother character.I guess the real sad ending is that the force of the spirit of radio may win the battle but, in the long run they lose the war, the number crunchers win out and destroy the that goose that lays the golden egg..
No Static at All. This movie, and its soundtrack is the history of late 70's classic rock 101.
And behind the music portrayed a Los Angles radio station with a band of misfits, and its eccentric station manager who wanted to run the station with a college style and no commercials.
All I can say, is that it is such an accurate portrayal of the pre-Clear Channel debauchery-that which illustrates all that was a good and simple way of music life, and what we were fortunate enough to live, breath, be molded by, and experience during radio privatization (long since gone).
The music is wonderful, the characters are over-the-top groovy, funky cuteness incarnate, and Martin Mull, as I remember, is overtaken with lust as he nails a gal with some interesting pigmentation issues in the control room.It's all so much silly, military-industrial complex-bashing nonsense with Michael Brandon running a purist, anti-profit rock station in LA, fending off corporate bigwigs, Army sponsors, and a rival station that has .
It's full of lovers of pure music, cartoon-like baddies, and cameos by Jimmy Buffett, REO Speedwagon, and a dazzling Linda Ronstadt, who belts out "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me" at a simulcast-concert (making the speakers on your TV cry out in ecstasy).FM is ridiculous twaddle, but it's my decade .
As it turns out, this movie inspired me as a 15 year old to get into the radio business.
I've even owned a couple of stations myself along the way, and I've made a pretty good living in radio markets of all sizes.As you can imagine, my perceptions of Jeff Dugan and his devoted crew have changed somewhat over the years...and now, to me, what they're railing about in this movie as the "evils of commercialism" just aren't all that "evil" after all.
No one who's spent more than a couple of days in a professional radio station could possibly escape that fact.The movie is full of little mistakes that lead me to believe that perhaps the screenwriters really didn't know too much about radio.
If you want to be transported back to a time when the worst problem you had was over-commercialization on your favorite radio station, then sit back and enjoy.I just wish that, as good as this soundtrack was, they'd re-release this film on DVD.
I didn't particularly find the wacky DJs charming, while the live concert scenes with Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffett aren't anything special (they have nothing to do with the story, anyway).
One of the best "radio" movies of all time.
I enjoyed all of the concert footage in the film (mostly Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffet), but the comedy wasn't good, and the story was just plain awful.You've probably already read the synopsis so I'll spare you the details.
In fact, WKRP (which was being created at the same time as the movie FM) made much better comedy from virtually the same raw material.As for the premise, I found it patently hypocritical that FM station employees would be so offended at the idea of commercializing their station with ads, when that's in fact exactly what they do for a living.
In fact, I think it's a great deal for the radio audience; we get to sample the songs, and even fall in love with them before we decide to buy the recording.But the holier-than-thou attitude displayed in this movie is very disappointing.
At one point in the film, Tom Petty (whom I love) is brought into the booth to be interviewed by the DJ while they play tracks from his latest album, "Damn the Torpedoes." Meanwhile, the station manager is trying his hardest to prevent commercials from airing on "his" radio station.I wanted to shout, "Hey, dude!
There's a commercial for Tom Petty's album playing on your station right now!
Nice flick from the late seventies; watch for great songs from Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffett.
Jeff (Michael Brandon) is the manager for a very popular radio station in Los Angeles.
For his part, Jeff pulls off quite a feat by airing a Linda Ronstadt concert live which was sponsored by a different radio station!
The live performance by Tom Petty is unmemorable, and Linda Ronstadt, well, um...she was pretty to look at.The soundtrack, which was a major selling point for the film at the time, is loaded down with 70's smarm from "artists" like Billy Joel and the Buckingham/Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac. The fashions and hairstyles are hilarious and embarrassing.
If you were there and want to reminisce, or, if you wanna see what it was like during a time when 'the people' REALLY controlled the airwaves, FM is the movie for you.Plus...
you can't beat the music and the performances by artists and stars of the era.IF YOU LIKE ROCK 'N ROLL and YOU BELIEVE THAT IT WILL LIVE ON FOREVER, then, "FM" IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU!.
It did not seem to drag in the concert portions as much; in fact, it seemed like a much shorter movie than I remembered all around.Then it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a few of the scenes I was anticipating...so I started trying to figure out what I must have seen several years back.
And if they thought they had problems with tight corporate control THEN...they never anticipated what radio would become in thirty more years after that movie was made.
In a technical sense, radio wasn't even like the movie depicts at the time it was made (1978).
For the next twenty minutes, through a handing-off of various turns at the mic - as we meet each disc jockey working at the little-guy radio station playing wall-to-wall music - the good times continue to roll.
The cool, down-to-earth boss (Michael Brandon), also a DJ, fights to keep the airwaves commercial free, providing the dream radio station "for the people".The neverending (airwave) tunes are great, the live performances pretty good, and the eclectic cast of disc jockeys are decent enough - including Martin Mull, Cleavon Little, Cassie Yates, Alex Karras and Eileen Brennan - but the initial spontaneous fun (reminiscent of CAR WASH) is soon marred by a story involving villainous corporate goons forcing Army commercials on the station, turning a laidback character-study into typical underdog vs big business fare...
I just watched FM for the first time in almost 29 years, and while I certainly can't say it's a bad movie, there surely is a reason I hadn't revisited it since The Jimmy Carter Era. It just doesn't entertain like a movie should.The main story with Michael Brandon as a "stick-to-your-guns" radio station GM was OK, but other than the scene with the dope-smokin' army pitchmen, there weren't many attempts at laughter.
And this sure looks like it's presented as a comedy.Alongside a low-key Eileen Brennan's smoky voiced hippy DJ and Alex Karras' woefully miscast "country rebel", there was no way I could believe these were the main jocks at the top-rated rock station in LA.
For one, the music selected for the soundtrack (save of course for the great Steely Dan title track) is middle of the road white man's rock...Ronstadt, Buffett, etc.
Now if this was an FM rock station that was playing the REAL groundbreaking music of the 70's; like say...
I mean, for the movie itself, the acting is just OK for what sounded like a pretty lackluster script, but the message just gets lost in the commercial bent of the soundtrack.
I think what this movie tried to do and ultimately failed at, celebrating the independent spirit while having a good time with the music you love, was done correctly in both "Dazed and Confused" and "Almost Famous".And, yes, while there are a lot of commercial songs from the 70's in both films as well, those soundtracks to those movies work better in terms of connecting with the character arcs and the overall plot, as opposed to just offering a backdrop of...
Just as in the late 1970s, your best bet is still to tune in to your local college radio station.