During the 1950s and 1960s, civilian audiences in Europe widely listened to AFN, as American music was very popular but rarely played on most European broadcasting stations, which at the time were generally state-operated. This was particularly the case in Communist bloc countries, where, despite the language barrier, it was seen as an alternative way of maintaining contact with the west, and had the added bonus of not being subjected to radio jamming, unlike stations such as Radio Free Europe, which carried news in Eastern European languages.