The Birth of AM/FM

TQM, premium service lines, Chris Evans

While the magazine may have died, the TX Infoline went from strength to strength, taking several hundred calls a week. By now some people didn't even now it had originally accompanied a magazine and thought it was just a service on its own.

In 1989, with me back at University and a bit more time to spare (a final year project and some important exams coming up? yeah, so'), Chris England and I hit on a new wheeze: telephone information services. Up till then you had to pay a large sum to BT and invest in a ton of expensive equipment to run your own premium service lines. However, Vodafone were now offering the ability to do so for a comparatively small sum. Through another provider, Chris had already begun running a newsline about Radio Caroline with impressive results, so we were sure we could make a go of it.

The hardest part was coming up with a name. We finally settled on 'TQM Communications', inspired part by the 'Total Quality Management' system spreading through BT (where Chris also worked) and part by situationist pop pranksters Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's KLF Communications. Unfortunately this then meant forever answering questions from people about whether we were big supporters of Total Quality Management as a business philosophy or just what the three letters stood for. 'The Queen Mother' were the only words that otherwise seemed to fit.

(As an aside, we finally settled on the name at a BBC Micro show at Alexandra Palace, where Chris was demoing his bulletin board software with co-developer Nick Piggot, now a big shot in GWR. Broadcasting live from the show on the BBC's GLR was one Chris Evans, dressed in pink T-shirt, purple shorts and Afghan slipper socks and trying very hard to make people take notice of him but to no avail whatsoever. Actually it must have had some effect for that image to have remained today.)

AM/FM Advert

With our lines sorted, the TX Infoline was reborn as AM/FM. As well as the main news line there were also numbers for station listings, a message board with callers' comments and for extracts from the stations. We lost a few callers who weren't prepared to pay the extra for a premium rate line, but most seemed happy to do so — or just called from work...

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