Just over 15 years ago, FM radio gave the presentation of rock n roll its first alternative. No longer did one have to sit through a zillion pimple cream commercials and suffer through 10 drecky ballads to hear the one Beatles, Yardbirds or Byrds tune that occupied the Top Ten. FM radio, the original stations like KSAN in San Francisco and WOR-FM in New York, played the good stuff all the time.

But they also did a lot more. Even though they were broadcast locally, they helped create a national community of listeners. Call em hippies, free spirits, whatever—FM radio was the voice of a new lifestyle. It was so unique and accepting that it couldnt last forever, and of course, as any flick of a current FM dial can tell you, it didnt. In these days of AOR systems, heavy rotation of Judas Priest and/or Fleetwood Mac, and the most insignificant space possible alloted to new artists and independent releases, the first FM programmers are probably rolling over right next to Beethoven. In New York City, there are only two places you can hear new West Coast punk bands like the Dead Kennedys or Black Flag; on college radio, with its second hand equipment and limited transmission range, or on a cable television series called New Wave Theatre" on USAs Nightflight programming.

Cable television, both the national monoliths like Warner Amex that spend millions and pose a considerable threat to commercial TV, as well as the small-budgeted, local services which presumably fill community needs, is the bright hope of rock n roll broadcasting. Because its new, it still takes chances. Because its just starting up, its rules arent yet engraved in concrete. And because many of its directors, especially on a local level, are, more open-minded than the FM program directors, it can be as clever, smart-mouthed and free as the music its not afraid to air.

A former booking agent, Jeff Franklin understands the bottom line as well as anyone, but what he stresses as the key to Nightflight is ËœTm 37 years old and I grew up with rock n roll."

It will still take up to another five years before the entire country is wired to receive cable, and folks in the boonies have a better chance right now of dialing in MTV and its increasing number of competitors than do the three million inhabitants of Queens and Brooklyn. So lets pretend its 1987, concert tickets for the few really big acts still able to tour cost upwards of $50 at the box office, and we all have a multichannel cable receiver perched atop our stereo television set. The cassette is cued into the video recorder, ready to preserve some choice footage for the rent party were holding next Saturday night. What can this all-pervasive new medium of cable television do to keep rock n roll alive? Based on the several months Ive spent poking around several national organizations and local independents, this is a pretty good clue to what we can expect.

MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION OR MONEY TALKING VICTORY?

MTV, Music Television, jumped into cable with both feet last August 1st, staying on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To suit its grandiose vision of continuous, rock-oriented programming, it signs each hour with a suitably explosive logo, a rocket blasting off at full fury. Too bad that what follows the lift-off brings the action back to earth with a dull thud.

Unless one has an inexhaustible appetite for promotional videotapes, played end over end without much regard as to whether or not Pat Benatar makes sense directly following the Specials, MTVs format could easily tire. I would have assumed that the forward-looking vision of cable televisions potential would have inspired more than the visual equivalent of a third rate AOR format radio station. Only on MTV, the veejays, with one exception, arent nearly as comfortable with their environment as are professional disc jockeys, and the decent standout, J.J. Jackson, made serious factual errors during the segments 1 scanned.

According to MTVs programming head, Bob Pittman frequently described as a media wunderkind," a format more suited to remaining background noise than to inspiring its audience suits him just fine. Shielded by his publicist, who was under orders to monitor our interview, Pittman maintained: This is a new component of a stereo system. What weve done to television is the same thing music radio did to radio when it came along. There was no plot and continuity on music radio—music is mood and needs to be presented in a different manner.

Theres no beginning, middle and end to MTV, so you can join it any time. The kids today can listen to the radio, do their homework and watch TV, keep three sources of information going at the same time and follow each." Attempts to tell Pittman about tests measuring performance going down when all the appliances are going full tilt brought the first of a string of accusations that either I didnt know my subject matter or I didnt know as much about it as he did. Then again, we must remember that this is a man who says he learns about the news from skimming headlines and is proud that his attention span is so brief as to render him incapable of reading a publication like the New Yorker (or CREEM, as he didnt seem to know that we often cover artists with no major label).

Well, MTV, with its almost total reliance on record company-supplied promotional videotapes, coupled with 30-second artist interviews, concert news delivered in snippets by four unquestionably young and cute airheads, and Jackson (a radio veteran who at least has a personality), and the occasional rock film or concert, completely fills Pittmans quest to glorify the superficial. Pittman justifies his extensive use of videos by saying We are not the artist, we are the art gallery. Its the same reason a radio station never ever produces records for an artist. The best we can do is encourage these people, support them, and when they create this art, give it exposure, hopefully in a way thats appealing to the consumer."

Because many new artists, sometimes those even without record deals, have gotten their videos aired on MTV, the network is not totally without merit. Perhaps the screening of tracks off an LP that the local FM isnt playing might get some people to buy that album, and such an assist can only help this troubled industry. But MTV, a channel with a multimillion dollar budget, is wasting its airspace when its veejays interview a brand new , in this case Our Daughters Wedding, without either airing one note of the groups music or showing them performing it.

As almost all the other programmers would later comment, MTV deserves credit for getting on the air continuously first, for taking popular music seriously enough to utilize it as the basis of a format, and by so doing, prove that an audience for rock television definitely exists. But these executives would also say that MTV does not go nearly far enough, nor does it do anything genuinely innovative with either rock music or the medium of television.

NiGHTFLiGHT: INSOMNIA WAS NEVER LIKE THISI

For just 12 hours a week, on Friday and Saturday nights, the USA Networks Nightflight offers a broad spectrum of music programming that, as its executive producer Jeff Franklin states,. isnt available anywhere else. The stuff thats on Nightflight, you gotta watch Nightflight to see it."

Franklin, who became well known in the music industry community as the head of ATI, one of the most enduring booking agencies, is a colorful character whose pullover, jeans and cowboy boots formed-a sharp contrast with Bob Pittmans suit and tie. A former booking agent, Franklin certainly understands the bottom line as well as anyone, but what he stresses as the key to Nightflight is, Im 37 years old and I grew up with rocknroll."

Nightflight was just four months between its conception last February as a possible outlet on cable for ATIs large client roster and its first airing last June. Says Franklin, weve focused on a 16-40' age range. When you run Jimi Plays Berkeley and Lenny Bruce Without Tears as a double feature, youre getting fathers and sons."

With limited airtime, Nightflight has one huge advantage over MTV—selectivity. It broadcasts two independently produced features: Take Off," a mini-magazine that covers everything from rock choreography with Toni Basil to an exploration of British reggae-rock, and New Wave Theatre," a hard-core punk show from Los Angeles with bands you will never see anywhere else. Ive been quoted as saying I wanted ËœNew Wave Theatre off the air, but were not gonna take it off. The mail is coming in from the Southeast and Southwest saying, keep it on, so its working, more than I thought. It says something and proves its point, and thats the first compliment Ive even given it in print." Other shows, music and non-music, are planned to start by the close of this year, including Spotlight," presenting new bands from around the world, and the Samuel Z. Arkoff Horror Theatre." Through another ATI division, Franklin also will gain access to a vast amount of BBC rock archive material.

But in addition to the uncompromising nature of New Wave Theatre," Franklin can be most proud of Nightflight1 s in-depth material. On New. Years Eve, the station aired the TAMl Show, starring the Rolling Stones and James Brown, circa 1965. It has put on a series of programs from the classic blues years of Apollo Theatre. It regularly runs the Devo films as a package and has room for both Volunteer Jam and Our Latin Thing. Says Franklin,1Nightflight is fun. Its a fantasy of mine come true. Theres a whole four people as the staff. We have credibility in the marketplace, with advertisers like Chevrolet, Pepsi and Wrigley." And he could have added, MTV.

HEARTBEAT MEDIA NETWORK: THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF MUSIC

Getting ready to start on the air before the end of 1982, Heartbeat Medias president, Derek Meade, sees his cable service as a 24 hour a day operation a few years down the line. A relative upstart among media giants such as WarnerAmex or ATI, Heartbeat is planned to be more indepth than MTV, while still having an identifiable format, down to its pulsating musical signature. While rock is going to provide Heartbeat with a lot of its programming day, Meade plans to apply all of his segments to other musical forms, from classical to jazz.

Its hard to accurately judge how a service will sit on a long-term basis from a one-hour presentation. But if Heartbeat follows through with skilled reporters like John Ogle and Bill Vitka (both of New Yorks lamented WPIX-FM), and especially anchors half as witty and knowledgeable as the inexhaustible and modest Jonathan King—all of whom helped make the Heartbeat prototype quite irresistible, MTV may have an awesome competitor.

Meade insists that Heartbeat will not rely on promo videos to the extent that MTV does, but will use clips when appropriate, especially to present archive material. Within an hour, the service seems to be about 50% promos, plus featurettes such , as Kaleidoscope News" which put Ogle on the streets of the East Village, checking out alternative clothing stores. Carol Miller, looking uneasy but without the aimlessness of MTVs jocks, presented group and concert information in newsreader fashion. Perhaps the best of Heartbeats potential, and a segment that fulfilled the emotional clues of the networks name, came with the Nuggets" segment. Footage from Phantom Of The Opera was time-sequenced to a recording of Tracks Of My Tears," and the result was definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Meade is aware that Heartbeat is working without a massive budget, and believes that the Nuggets" feature perfectly illustrates how music and television can strengthen each other. We produced that for a ridiculously low figure and I think youd agree its pretty impressive. There are a lot more options open than the record companies. We plan on tapping into archives, creating our own computeranimated video, doing all kinds of photographic montages. The whole premise behind Heartbeat Media is to offer music in an honest and entertaining and ongoing professional way thats true to the spirit of the music and its audience, which is something that all music has suffered through on television. "

THE INDEPENDENT: GETTING PAST TV PRODUCTION 101

Mike Shavelson made and lost a bundle in the music business, which is why hes out to do it himself as a producer of musicoriented cable TV via his Close Shaves" company. When Shavelson was a radio promotion executive for the likes of CBS and Mercury, he noticed how radio directors would come running whenever he arrived at a station with a new promotional video in hand. Maybe theyd even play the artists record. This stuff could move mountains.

But when he invested in the wrong company, and as a result, had to move back home to his folks in New Jersey, as he recalls, I had no excuse. I went back to college and took a couple of courses at Fairleigh Dickinson University, like Television Production 101. Almost simultaneously, the public access system in New Jersey opened up. You could just walk up to them, knock on the door and say, ËœI wanna produce your show, and theyd say ËœGreat!"

Since public access channels fill a legal requirement for a cable to serve the local community, they were and still are open to anyone, with or without experience. As long as youre non-profit and dont get obscene or violent (and thats a matter of debate), the station provides the use of its equipment and facilities. Shavelson saw the opportunity to try out his format, which he called Video Radio," that would create on a local level what MTV was doing nationally, but with a lot more wit and craziness.

I wanted to make a rock n roll soap opera, do a rock game show revolving around the videotapes, take the late night horror movies and use them to lead in and out of videos. I had college kids for a crew. We did a takeoff on Cosmos called Comatose. It was sloppy but it was fun."

Eventually, Shavelson moved past the point where working for no money was feasible, and is today in the rough business of trying to sell his own growing skills as an independent producer of music programs to interested cable personnel, and maybe someday pay off the $60,000 worth of editing equipment and cameras he owns. But' Shavelson, who in his late 30s, decided that. living with mom and dad was OK for a while as long as he had complete control, repeats fiercely that cable music can be a lot more than a boob tube with sound. There hasnt been a better time for anybody who wants to enter the video world than now. But its closing fast.