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The state of AM Radio
- Thread starter JaneChristo
- Start date
I think it is content to a large degree. Many of the radio groups are overloaded with debt and use cost cutting to balance the books. This is just driving listeners away, rating go down, revenue decreases so they do more cost cutting.
The big legacy AM's that have continued to invest in local content have held on. The big legacy AM's that have gone the cost cutting route are falling - the Cumules - former ABC stations that just a couple years ago were more successful are a good example currently in progress - WABC, WLS, WJR all are falling.
The big legacy AM's that have continued to invest in local content have held on. The big legacy AM's that have gone the cost cutting route are falling - the Cumules - former ABC stations that just a couple years ago were more successful are a good example currently in progress - WABC, WLS, WJR all are falling.
OK let's look at the powerhouse AM's from my youth, 590 WEEI, 680 WRKO, 850 WHDH, 1030 WBZ, 1510 WMEX
then there were the less than full market coverage stations.. I am going to toss in WLLH , WLYN, WBET, among others.
40 years later who is left standing... and only with the help of a walker... WRKO and WBZ,
WRKO is a year away from going on life support, WBZ has shown what direction they are going with Jen Brien on the overnights, and it is not a a good one.
Where is AM going, it is not where it is going, it is where it has gone. got 45 bucks you can buy a whole hour of air time on any of a dozen AM stations in the market.
then there were the less than full market coverage stations.. I am going to toss in WLLH , WLYN, WBET, among others.
40 years later who is left standing... and only with the help of a walker... WRKO and WBZ,
WRKO is a year away from going on life support, WBZ has shown what direction they are going with Jen Brien on the overnights, and it is not a a good one.
Where is AM going, it is not where it is going, it is where it has gone. got 45 bucks you can buy a whole hour of air time on any of a dozen AM stations in the market.
@radioinsight posted on twitter that the FCC (well maybe one of the commisioners) wants every AM to get an FM repeater and they added yeah nice, like that band isn't crowded enough...
Other than Brien BZ may not be that bad.
Your use of "full-market coverage" is an interesting term when talking AM radio in Boston. Since these heritage AM signals signed on the air, the amount of population growth west of 128 has been tremendous, but the signal patterns have not adjusted to match. Of the five "powerhouse" signals listed, the only station that adequately covers the stretch from 128 to Worcester during both night and day is WBZ.
This isn't true in every market, but outside of WBZ, the only way to get your voice out to all corners of the market is FM.
WBZ really isn't that bad, their news coverage is pretty solid IMO. But Brien and the flood of informercials (6pm-10pm Saturday followed by syndicated and recored Kim Komando, 330am-430am Sunday morning, 10am-12pm Sunday morning (though they do still have traffic during the Rick Edelman show) and 9-10pm Sunday evening) are a bit much.
Here's a thought about AM (indulge me please)...
Let's say Howie moves to an FM talker when his contract is up (a station that will flip to talk with Howie available).
What's WRKO to do? What if they went back to music and did an oldies format (ala WODS & WCBS-FM)?
Be much less expensive than talk...easier to run....would get a loyal audience...and with no more Oldies 103, could it be viable format? (Viable is the key word...could it be successful enough to not lose money?)
Kinda like the Music of Your Life was...but moved up 30 years....and done in a contemporary style like CBS-FM and Oldies 103. ANd RKO has one of the best AM signals in Boston (OK, not in the Western suburbs.) With stereo and a full 15KHZ....that music wouldn't sound too bad on AM. (HD might help a bit)
I for one would like cruising around in the car listening to oldies on 680AM.
I know Harry Nelson, JJ Wright, Tom Kennedy, Dave Supple are all still around. ;-)
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S
stevensonair
Guest
Free translators to AM operators on increasingly crowded bands amounts to a government bailout of a failing business.
It is the fault of the AM operators who did not plan accordingly during previous windows and evolve their business plan. Now they're asking for a favor from the FCC at the expense of other licensees on a crowded dial. There is absolutely no reason an AM operator should be freely handed an FM channel.
It is the fault of the AM operators who did not plan accordingly during previous windows and evolve their business plan. Now they're asking for a favor from the FCC at the expense of other licensees on a crowded dial. There is absolutely no reason an AM operator should be freely handed an FM channel.
Agreed with stevensonair. Many of these AM operators have already *had* a FM. They traded off the FM for some $$$ -- now they want the nighttime signal they gave up back.
IMHO there are nowhere near enough FM translator channels available to give one to every AM. Maybe we should give first priority to any AM station that never had a FM?
IMHO there are nowhere near enough FM translator channels available to give one to every AM. Maybe we should give first priority to any AM station that never had a FM?
Not gonna happen, and not just because it's music on AM. The economics make no sense.
The audience for that format is aged 50+, the audience it's far harder (and more expensive) to sell to, so there will be no agency buys and no national ads.
With all due respect to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's effort to take AM off of life support, he doesn't seem to recognize the biggest problem AM has: the drastically increased noise floor, stemming in large degree from the FCC's refusal to enforce their own rules on radio-frequency emissions from consumer electronics (otherwise known as FCC Rules & Regulations, Part 15). By one conservative estimate, an AM station that covered all of a given metro area 40 years ago will now cover only about 30-40% of that same area because of the increase in noise and interference from cheap, poorly designed and poorly manufactured electronic devices. Some have proposed giving every AM station a power increase to compensate for the increased noise, but the laws of physics would say that will just increase the noise and interference. HD Radio on AM is a non-starter, mostly because it contributes to the noise problem and because the general public is ignoring it. It is contrary to current FCC rules to run an AM station with 15kHz frequency response. 9.5kHz is the highest frequency you can transmit before the mandated roll-off, and the biggest problem with AM fidelity is the receivers, most of which can do 2.5kHz on a good day.
Assuming all the people you named were available (AFAIK all are retired, and Harry Nelson has had health problems of late), they don't come cheap, especially in a major market. Since radio has, effectively, no "farm system" as it used to have, because medium- and small-market stations are mostly automated, finding good air personalities to really sell an old-style top-40 format is pretty much impossible. If you then consider a satellite-delivered format, like Scott Shannon's True Oldies, again there's a cost involved, which for a major market is not insignificant.
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Agreed on the noise level. All these electronic devices (plasma TVs, computers, fluorescent lights etc) have killed a lot of AM reception. We didn't have to deal with a lot of that in the 1970s and 80s - so more people listened.
And no, there is NO way to have EVERY AM move to FM - unless either EVERY station flips to an AM format or the band goes down to 76 mhz. One of the bad things about that however is the decreased signal on the clear channel stations. I can pick up KSL 1160 every night here in WA - if it turns into a 76 MHz broadcast I would never be able to hear it due to distance on 76 MHz (unless there's E-skip). It's fun to hear the different distant AM stations.
-crainbebo
And no, there is NO way to have EVERY AM move to FM - unless either EVERY station flips to an AM format or the band goes down to 76 mhz. One of the bad things about that however is the decreased signal on the clear channel stations. I can pick up KSL 1160 every night here in WA - if it turns into a 76 MHz broadcast I would never be able to hear it due to distance on 76 MHz (unless there's E-skip). It's fun to hear the different distant AM stations.
-crainbebo
1) The NRSC cutoff today is 10khz. 15khz will never happen again.
2) The C-QuAM receivers just aren't really out there anymore. That would mean new equipment for the listener. Car manufacturers would also have to be convinced that putting AM stereo back in cars is a good idea. Tough sell.
3) HD on AM is part of the problem RE: noise.
We're talking about a technologically inferior service by nature of the AM band. The low frequencies used are subject to noise, and today's electronic environment has decimated the signals of stations. To truly fix the noise problem, you'd have to replace every street light, traffic light, LED sign, TV, compact fluorescent lightbulb, power transmission lines, etc.
I agree with this. I actually still like Dan Rea and Jordan Rich is a quality, professional host although his show is not my cup of tea. I also like Ric Edelman on Sundays. The hiring of Brien, however, likely for tiny money, definitely indicates the direction in which the station is going.
Are you kidding? BZ sounds great in HD! So doesn't Radio Disney...although not my cup of tea! LOL
If you have tin ears.
Those of us who still have some high-frequency hearing left can hear the artifacts from the lossy codec and compression, and it sounds awful.The other downside, as I and others have noted previously, is that it drives up the noise level on the AM band and contributes to the problems caused by all the other noise generators. It's been well documented that HD on AM interferes with stations hundreds of miles away, inside their own supposedly interference-free signal contours. One of the victims of this phenomenon, Bob Savage, owner of WYSL/1040 in upstate NY, is a frequent critic of HD on AM. WBZ's HD murders Bob's signal in what is supposed to be his interference-free coverage area. (Bob often posts on the HD Radio topic on this site.)
Let's not forget: Any AM station that's making money is not making it from its HD signal, and there are (by iBiquity's own estimate) more than a billion *analog* radios already in the homes and cars of potential listeners. If HD makes any headway at all (and that's a huge "if") it's going to take decades for enough of those radios to be replaced, and the reality at this point in time is that HD is being met with nothing but apathy. It's the answer to a question no one ever asked.
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Again the "let's just have a bunch of AMs simulcast on FM" idea being floated is a bit daft given the crowded dial already. In some cases we already have such things as WNNW 800 in Lawrence on 102.9 (and WCCM 1110 Salem NH is on the _HD2_ of 102.9); WPKZ 1280 Fitchburg is on 105.3; WKXL 1450 Concord NH is also on 103.9; WNBP 1450 Newburyport is on 106.1...and many more. What about FM
homes for WLYN, WKOX, WCAP, WBNW, WXBR...or even WRKO? Or WJIB, with a minuscule night signal? Yeah sure, put em ALL on FM, there's room for em.. not.
http://radioinsight.com/blog/blogs/...t-is-struggling-all-you-need-is-an-fm-signal/
>>Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn...has issued a proposed rulemaking that among other things will open a one-time filing window “limited to current AM licensees and
permittees, which will allow each to apply for one new FM translator station to
fill in its service area.”
As the article above notes, HD radio has also been proposed as a cure all (can't pick up Bloomberg 1200? Just get an HD radio
and tune to 94.5-HD2!) or even such things as an expanded FM band (so...all those radios that can't pick up 76-88 MHz won't
be of much use...)
My own HD portable can pick up some of the HD signals but not all. Sure, 93.7's HD2 Funkytown comes in, as does 107.9 HD2's
Matty's Comedy, etc.--but I have trouble with the 98.5 sub signals (including WBZ AM which thankfully comes in on AM 1030 just fine for me).
And again as far as the FM dial goes we're already overcrowded--translators may help but how much? (Plus of course we have the
wonderful pirates--arrg it's talk like a pirate day!--clogging up some spots...and those with satellite radios or mp3 players rebroadcast on car stereos need at least ONE signal to use!)
homes for WLYN, WKOX, WCAP, WBNW, WXBR...or even WRKO? Or WJIB, with a minuscule night signal? Yeah sure, put em ALL on FM, there's room for em.. not.
http://radioinsight.com/blog/blogs/...t-is-struggling-all-you-need-is-an-fm-signal/
>>Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn...has issued a proposed rulemaking that among other things will open a one-time filing window “limited to current AM licensees and
permittees, which will allow each to apply for one new FM translator station to
fill in its service area.”
As the article above notes, HD radio has also been proposed as a cure all (can't pick up Bloomberg 1200? Just get an HD radio
and tune to 94.5-HD2!) or even such things as an expanded FM band (so...all those radios that can't pick up 76-88 MHz won't
be of much use...)
My own HD portable can pick up some of the HD signals but not all. Sure, 93.7's HD2 Funkytown comes in, as does 107.9 HD2's
Matty's Comedy, etc.--but I have trouble with the 98.5 sub signals (including WBZ AM which thankfully comes in on AM 1030 just fine for me).
And again as far as the FM dial goes we're already overcrowded--translators may help but how much? (Plus of course we have the
wonderful pirates--arrg it's talk like a pirate day!--clogging up some spots...and those with satellite radios or mp3 players rebroadcast on car stereos need at least ONE signal to use!)
I think it's a pretty unrealistic proposal. If all it took was to get FM translators, the big boys would have bought them all up already.
The big issue is if they'll loosen the ownership rules and not count translators against the ownership caps. I didn't see that mentioned in her speech.
The big issue is if they'll loosen the ownership rules and not count translators against the ownership caps. I didn't see that mentioned in her speech.
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