If those places are on the AM dial, they don't exist to the vast majority of people under 50. Us radio nerdniks excepted, of course.
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KFI drops the buzz!
- Thread starter KB1OKL
- Start date
If those places are on the AM dial, they don't exist to the vast majority of people under 50. Us radio nerdniks excepted, of course.
Yes, it means what it says. People in radio are worried about the death of AM as a viable medium for commercial broadcasts but the reality is it's been dead for ages. Everyone here lives in the insular world of radio where everything is peaches and cream and the listenership is still 89% of total US population or some nonsense. Meanwhile, if you leave the confines of radio circles and see what people in the real world have to say, you'll be in for an eye-opener. Average everyday people do still listen to the radio regularly, because it's easy, free and ubiquitous. But youth (under 20) are nowhere to be found unless they're too poor to afford the data to stream. No one under 50 even knows AM exists anymore unless they're sports junkies in a market with no sports on FM.
I liken this attitude to the old saw (apocryphally) attributed to Pauline Kael about how she couldn't understand how Nixon won when she only knew one person who voted for him. Everyone in radio listens to the radio so who are these people who don't? Go read the comments under the articles announcing AT&T (and later, T-Mobile's) plans to enable FM radio chips in smartphones. It's a great idea, but you'd think from the comment section that these people were going back to horse and buggy days. "Who listens to the radio anymore?" "Radio sucks, even my parents use Pandora" stuff like that.
Even on a general discussion type site, the attitude towards radio is the lowest I've ever seen it. People still listen, and I don't see listener erosion really taking off as much as some doomsayers claim, but radio is no longer the go-to medium it was in the 60s and 70s.
And is it any wonder no one listens to AM if they can help it? Urban RF pollution is out of control in many markets, and the dial is a wasteland of religious dollar-a-holler barkers and low powered ethnic broadcasters that don't cater to mass audiences. Not to mention the HD-hash and the 4 kHz rolloff of most car radios, it's no wonder no one listens anymore.
The standalone AMs that are still successful are in a minority and have massive signals, all. Smaller ones are thriving only due to translators, which means it's FM that's the savior, not the programming.
HD or no HD, KFI is the exception, not the rule. Sorry to go off topic, but it has to be acknowledged.
"Dead" would mean that no viable AM station can make money any more.
That is patently not true.
First, some history. There are a lot of AM stations that never should have been built. Back in 1992, pre-consolidation, the NAB financial survey, which replaced the FCC annual financial report report, showed half of all radio stations in the US lost money. Those stations, in many cases, should never have even tried: inadequate facilities, daytimers, stations in communities that are too small to support stations.
But the rest of the AMs, the ones that have a half-decent facility and population in the primary contour that can be served, do make money. Many of those AMs are religious or ethnic and don't need ratings. Many others are in smaller towns where there is a local revenue base to support a community station... agricultural areas being a great example.
That means that at least 2500 of today's AMs are profitable and have found a niche to serve and can sustain themselves for the immediate future.
That's very much alive.
Actually, it is 93%, which is only a percent or two below the peak levels of 30 years ago. Yes, there is a decline in the amount of time spent with radio, but it's still used by a huge percentage of people.
The figure for radio usage among teens (12-17) is in the 80 percent range. And that is all the more amazing because no station in the US specifically programs for teens.
All the AM sports stations make up a huge number of cume listeners. Add in the ethnic stations that are the only choice for folks of any age who prefer music in Kreyol or Farsi or Russian and there are plenty of listeners. Just not the big mass appeal formats of yesteryear.
Pandora is radio. It just uses a newer distribution platform. Those Pandora listeners simply regard their smartphone or tablet to be their "radio".
Those religious and ethnic stations have audiences and are, for the most part, profitable. And they make good use of inferior facilities.
Note; "Dollar a holler" refers to "normal" radio stations that sell at cut rates. Teaching and preaching religious stations generally sell block time, not cheap spots.
There are only about 75 HD AMs on the air, and there were never more than about 200... out of about 4,800 AMs. It makes no difference. As to the roll-off, or frequency response, that's been a problem for the last 40 years as manufacturers tried to knock pennies off the cost of radios to win competitive bids at WalMart and the like.
AM's biggest problem has been FM. And the issue was never stereo or better fidelity... it was mostly better signals with less noise. The average Top 100 market has about 1.7 AM stations that cover 80% of the market day and night with a usable signal. THose same markets generally have 8 to 12 and sometimes more full signal FMs.
You prove my point that AM lost the "majority" position nearly 40 years ago due to coverage issues.
But there are plenty of AMs like KRVN and WNAX and KFYR and hundreds like them in smaller markets that are doing very well because they are AM and because they have good signals.
No, it is not the exception. Generally, AMs with good signals do very well even in major markets. And while the audience is aging, they are not dead and won't be for quite a few years. Same goes for the religious and ethnic stations, too.
And to add one other thing contrary to what some have implied on this forum; those AM stations in major markets such as Boston or N.Y.C. (WBZ, WCBS, etc.), which are still doing well from a ratings or revenue perspective that are still running HD/IBOC, doing so while still running HD. The vast majority of average listeners don't know, nor care.
For what it's worth, my father used to listen to WBZ every night after he went to bed, soon after WBZ started it's stubborn obsession with jamming Northeastern adjacents my father asked me why WBZ didn't come in good anymore and he stopped listening to it. WBZ sounds like krap still because of the buzz and to me still doesn't seem to be as strong as it used to be here where i live.
People may not know what's wrong or even think about it but on some level they notice and switch, (granted there are people with tin ears who can't tell the difference and some who don't care) but an increase from 3khz to 5 khx bandwidth is very noticeable even to most non radio people. IBOC'ers underestimated their audience.
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Are either of you in the Boston Metro Survey Area? If you are not, they really don't care.
With HD, the bandwidth is 5 kHz to 6 kHz. What is limited to about 4 kHz is the bandwidth of the enormous majority of consumer AM radios.
Again my mistake, I meant 3 khz vs 5 khz top audio frequency response.
That does not compute.
The analog "top" while using HD is between 5000 and 6000 Hz. Without HD, the NRSC mask stops cold right below 10,000 Hz.
Again you are right, I'm tired, but anyway I think most people can hear the difference between the two.
Not for speech, which is much of what is on AM these days. That rarely goes above 3kHz.
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
That limit, though is an audio low pass filter. All - as in ALL home radios use one cheap ceramic filter which results in poor selectivity: http://earmark.net/gesr/Current_Radio_Design.htm Unfortunately for HD radio - an audio low pass filter is not enough to get rid of the high levels of self-interference that comes from HD sidebands. Phase modulation from 5 to 10k you say? That only works if you are perfectly tuned on the station. A little off frequency, and it becomes loud amplitude modulation! And just try to tune perfectly on frequency with the cheap mechanisms in analog radio. Digital tuning? Nope. As much as 3 to 4 kHz off on some channels - those cheap microcontrollers don't have good DACs. Hence another good reason for a cheap ceramic filter as wide as a barn door. And 5-10 kHz sidebands again converted to loud self interference.
I've heard it myself, when I still lived where there were still AM IBOC stations. I don't know where they dredged up all those antiques to "prove" HD AM would work. But they sure slanted the results by the radios they picked. Bad science. Invalid test.
I have heard the AM IBOC sidebands on several digitally-tuned automobile radios .... but not on all AM stations which are running IBOC.
I'm guessing that the station's sideband response is the cause. If the sideband response is not symmetrical, the two sidebands will not cancel.
The result ....hissssssss.
I'm guessing that the station's sideband response is the cause. If the sideband response is not symmetrical, the two sidebands will not cancel.
The result ....hissssssss.
A lot of it. The sideband response of the receiver, just like the transmitting system, must be symmetrical.
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
I ran some of those cheap AM ceramic filters on a network analyzer. One of them was +/-40 Hz bandwidth. Most ran +/-15 kHz to +/-20 kHz. Wide as a barn door, and the response peak was lopsided on several - the very definition of unsymmetrical IF response.
I hooked up the tuning voltage output of an iHome to a 6 1/2 digit voltmeter. It was very apparent that the DAC generating the voltage steps was not up to the job of generating precise steps. It was 10 bits at best, judging from the steps I saw. The varactors were surprisingly linear - I took a precision voltage source and was able to tune right on frequency across the AM band. There were adjustments for top and bottom of the band, which scaled the voltage steps from the DAC. I optimized at 600 kHz and 1500 kHz so the tuning voltage was spot on - but around 1200 kHz it was tuning about 3 to 4 kHz off the frequency needed on the local oscillator (1655 kHz was about 1659 kHz). When I put in decent (+/- 6 kHz ceramic filters, it almost misses the stations around 1200. So- back to sloppy +/- 20 kHz ceramic filter, and the stations sound fine. Just no selectivity - so around here a local 1180 bleeds onto a nearby 1200. Cheap, bad radio design!!!
And yet on a quick bandscan just before sunset, I heard music programming on 8 of 13 local signals.
By this logic AM speech programming should be fine at telephone quality, but give people a choice bergen telephone and FM for talk and they'll always choose FM.
My experience has been the total opposite. I've never listened to a digital radio that I couldn't hear the sidebands on an HD station on AM. The best radio I've come across in that regard was in some recent Mazda vehicles, with their sub - 4 kHz audio response. But it was still there and obvious, even when listening to a station nearly 75 miles away.
Of course I don't have this problem where I live now; the nearest HD AM broadcast is probably 250 miles away.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
I can't help but laugh at something that was apparently an auto-correct:
Did Edgar help you compose that, or was it Candice? Charlie or Mortimer maybe?
Did Edgar help you compose that, or was it Candice? Charlie or Mortimer maybe?
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