By employing "Top 40" as a radio format, stations were also making a decision to target a niche in the listening audience rather than trying to appeal to everyone as they had done since the beginning.
This strategy of marketing radio broadcasting was made clear and successful through the developments and maturation of early "Black Appeal Stations".
In Chicago, Jack Cooper, a black DJ with a big band audience refused to play R&B as it was considered 'low life' and had 'suggestive lyrics' that were somewhat sexual due to the double entendres, the cultural connotations were that it was music your mother didn't let you listen to.
King started his career as a disk jockey on the station programmed by Nat D. Williams with a rhythm and blues sound.
[2] The format was successful, and quickly spread to other stations in Birmingham, New Orleans, Nashville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., among others.
Edward R. Murrow and a young collaborator, Fred W. Friendly, had transformed their documentary radio series Hear It Now into See It Now.
This influence was in large part to Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who developed a new term for the upbeat music that combined elements for rhythm and blues, gospel, and country.