Back in the days of AM radio dominance, there was one thing that often set FM stations apart from their AM counterparts: the length of the songs. Popular AM top-40 stations such as KHJ (930 AM) had rules that limited song length — roughly three minutes — while FM stations tended to play the full album versions, even the early FM top 40s like KKDJ (now KIIS, 102.7 FM)

There are various reasons for this difference. In the early days of recorded music, songs tended to be about three minutes due to the technology of the time. The 45 RPM records (and earlier 78s) tended to be limited to that in recording length, and that is what stations played.

But many AM programmers tended to take this to an extreme.

Longtime KHJ Director of Production Douglas Brown explained that even as late as the mid-

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