Sean Hannity, coast to Coast AM /WPHT AM 1210

[davideduardo]

And I'll also add, that, if these horrible signals are more the norm than the exception for 50kw non-Ds, AM radio is even more screwed than I thought.

And this is a problem for many seemingly good AMs

Case in point: KFI in Los Angeles. The lowest frequency of the US clear channel stations, it lives in a desert area. Power line insulators get covered with dust and create noise everywhere. Add in noise from anything with a microchip or SCR as well as industrial machines and the MetroRail and every manner and kind of industrial machines and KFI has areas inside its 15 mV/m signal where the noise overcomes it. In the Glendale and Burbank areas I know of entire main streets where it is unlistenable, well within the inner suburbs.

Noise, bad receiver designs, the fact that nobody buys "a radio" anymore and the fact that about 85% of top 100 market AMs don't adequately cover the market and you have the reason for AM's decline. And, as more and more stations go to religion, ethnic or brokered models, there is less traffic on AM for the few remaining mass appeal stations.

Having programmed two of the better signal Los Angeles AM's in the somewhat recent past, I can say that even if given an AM today, I would probably refuse the offer as ultimately leading to failure if not disaster.

 

[BRUSSTAR]

Interestingly enough, those were the four "golden age" network affiliates:

560: ABC/NBC-Blue
610: Mutual
1060: NBC-Red
1210: CBS

950: Amalgamated

(sorry)

I'm well-aware Fred is plenty capable of speaking for himself, but I think his point was that USUALLY AM stations in the past couple of decades end up having fewer listeners each time they change format. There aren't many examples of someone's having "turned around" an AM with regard to listenership. Billing? Sure. Broker the damn thing out. But listenership? Those examples are much harder to come by. And most of these "new" AMs are foreign-language, religious, or satellite-sports services that nobody cares to hear. Not that there's anything wrong with them. At least they're making a somewhat effective use of the remnants of AM. But they're not MASS-APPEAL. Coming up with mass-appeal AMs that have launched in decent-sized markets since 1990 is a tougher task. Interestingly, one of the very few examples would be WPHT itself. And even that took almost four years-- and Rush Limbaugh-- and soon thereafter the demise of its only competitor-- to become even remotely mainstream again.

 

[BRUSSTAR]

Case in point: KFI in Los Angeles. The lowest frequency of the US clear channel stations, it lives in a desert area. Power line insulators get covered with dust and create noise everywhere. Add in noise from anything with a microchip or SCR as well as industrial machines and the MetroRail and every manner and kind of industrial machines and KFI has areas inside its 15 mV/m signal where the noise overcomes it. In the Glendale and Burbank areas I know of entire main streets where it is unlistenable, well within the inner suburbs.

Noise, bad receiver designs, the fact that nobody buys "a radio" anymore and the fact that about 85% of top 100 market AMs don't adequately cover the market and you have the reason for AM's decline. And, as more and more stations go to religion, ethnic or brokered models, there is less traffic on AM for the few remaining mass appeal stations.

If KFI, nice and low on the dial (and still doing relatively well it's my understanding-- for now) out there is having such signal problems, that's very telling. The fact that the populations of most markets have outgrown the footprints of their '30s and '40s-era AM signals is understandable.

I think even Joey Reynolds has long since stopped his "AM!" chant.

 

[Art Landing]

Bad receiver design must be more of a problem than I for one have realized. The only time I can't pick up KFI anywhere in Los Angeles is in tunnels such as the Pasadena freeway and when parked near a power line. Other than that my car radio (obviously not poorly designed) routinely picks up KOGO in San Diego as well. But it bothers me that BMW is proposing to delete the entire AM band from one of its upcoming models because of engine noise issues.

Why not improve the design of the radio or the engine (or both) instead?

Possibly because they think their likely <age 55 customers really don't care about AM that much. And the scary thing is that they could be right.