You say playing a 10,000 oldie rotation would work on AM? Here's your chance!
Reading the ad, it appears the station is already operating in violation of the rules. It's supposed to have an office, employees, business hours and an immediately-connectible studio. Running "automatically from the transmitter" isn't exactly what the Commish defines as "serving the public".
Aside from small market, full service stations and a few 60+ outlets, are there many examples of successful, medium-to-large market AM music stations? I get the impression that the two or three in my general area continue to exist, mainly due to being part of a local cluster.
Unless you're using it as a vehicle for a translator, it seems to me that general entertainment programming on any sized AM is a tough nut these days, especially if the station is expected to carry the entire economy of its supporting business.
This reminds me a bit about the movie theatre business, which I also have a heavy involvement in. As the business model moved to smaller auditoriums and multi-screened venues, many older, sloped-floor, single-screen buildings either went dark or are just barely hanging on. That has given rise to many "wannabes", who believe all they need is to get their foot in the door to become successful exhibitors. They have blinders to the notion that the theatre would likely be in the hands of a competent operator, if it was worthwhile in the first place. Without much (if any) research, they believe instead that all they need is the keys to the doors and a VERY low entry fee and all will be well.
It happens, I suppose, but then a lot of people fancy themselves as potential major league athletes, too.
Those days largely disappeared in the '70s. Today, I'd be impressed if 1 in 1,000 of today's generation had seen an arc-backed film. You're right though. There was a different effect to using arc lamps. For that matter, nitrate had really great contrast, but you probably know where that went...