Make that more like 25 years. The average age of cars on the road today is about 12 years.
And with the estimates of how car prices will escalate due to our enormous inflation, it's likely that the average age will increase even more.
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WSB vs WABC
- Thread starter Radig
- Start date
And with the estimates of how car prices will escalate due to our enormous inflation, it's likely that the average age will increase even more.
And if you got to 18+ the use of radio increases even more. In 25-54, it is just under 90%, which is just 6% lower than it was 22 years ago!
What is off considerably is TSL. If we adjust for the changes the PPM brought, listening time is off by over 30% in the last 12 years (using first PPM year as my base).
The main reason why many countries can better transition stations from AM/MW to FM and DAB is because of their regulatory framework. For many years, many countries had only one government/public broadcaster that built enormous networks to deliver several channels over a nationwide or regional basis and when they decided to allow for "private" radio stations, the regulator did not assign that many licenses, thus keeping some level of control. Also, other countries do not have the same free speech laws that we have in the USA, meaning that the government can distribute licenses/franchises based on specific program content requirements. Ireland does it this way.
Also, in some places, the license was more like a franchise for a particular geographic area, which may be larger than the practical reach of a single transmitter so licensees/franchisees can construct multiple transmitters to cover their franchise area.
Japan has had a very successful transition plan for their private AM stations to move to FM in expanded spectrum. But again, a part of that is how they distributed licenses. There are 47 prefectures in Japan and most prefectures only have one AM and one FM commercial broadcaster. Major cities like Tokyo and Osaka will have multiple licensees in each band. Therefore, it was much easier to transition these AM stations to one or more FM transmitters within 5 MHz of expanded band.
If we were to do this in the United States, we would not be able to accommodate every AM broadcast station in 12 MHz of analog FM. In the past decade+, I have performed allocation studies in support of an expanded 76~88 MHz band and have found that even if the entire band was cleared of TV stations (including the very vocal WPVI), there would only be enough room for Class D and Class C AM stations.
The US missed the bus where it came to FM HD Radio. Because iBiquity (at the time) marketed it solely on "better sound" and not as much on the multicast capability, it was typecasted as a "luxury" service instead of a practical service. This meant that auto manufacturers made HD only available in their "luxury" packages instead of being standard equipment in vehicles. Because of the many failures of the consumer electronics industry at the time to step up and promote this technology, it gave broadcasters little incentive to install HD and to simulcast their AM signals on HD subchannels. Of course, iBiquity's greed where it comes to technology licensing and commercial revenues from the subchannels also played a part of it's unsuccessful roll out. (and I don't want to start the whole, "we should have gone with DRM" debate... that's a dead horse.) HD should have more penetrated in vehicles and homes by now, but too many players (including the NAB) really dropped the ball on this early on. Streaming services and SXM are now serious players and competitors for space on the dashboard and radio stood there with their antiquated business model and just let it happen.
Radio is still the greatest "app" and can do things and be in places where streaming and SXM can't. If the content on radio is not compelling enough, no one will come.
Also, in some places, the license was more like a franchise for a particular geographic area, which may be larger than the practical reach of a single transmitter so licensees/franchisees can construct multiple transmitters to cover their franchise area.
Japan has had a very successful transition plan for their private AM stations to move to FM in expanded spectrum. But again, a part of that is how they distributed licenses. There are 47 prefectures in Japan and most prefectures only have one AM and one FM commercial broadcaster. Major cities like Tokyo and Osaka will have multiple licensees in each band. Therefore, it was much easier to transition these AM stations to one or more FM transmitters within 5 MHz of expanded band.
If we were to do this in the United States, we would not be able to accommodate every AM broadcast station in 12 MHz of analog FM. In the past decade+, I have performed allocation studies in support of an expanded 76~88 MHz band and have found that even if the entire band was cleared of TV stations (including the very vocal WPVI), there would only be enough room for Class D and Class C AM stations.
The US missed the bus where it came to FM HD Radio. Because iBiquity (at the time) marketed it solely on "better sound" and not as much on the multicast capability, it was typecasted as a "luxury" service instead of a practical service. This meant that auto manufacturers made HD only available in their "luxury" packages instead of being standard equipment in vehicles. Because of the many failures of the consumer electronics industry at the time to step up and promote this technology, it gave broadcasters little incentive to install HD and to simulcast their AM signals on HD subchannels. Of course, iBiquity's greed where it comes to technology licensing and commercial revenues from the subchannels also played a part of it's unsuccessful roll out. (and I don't want to start the whole, "we should have gone with DRM" debate... that's a dead horse.) HD should have more penetrated in vehicles and homes by now, but too many players (including the NAB) really dropped the ball on this early on. Streaming services and SXM are now serious players and competitors for space on the dashboard and radio stood there with their antiquated business model and just let it happen.
Radio is still the greatest "app" and can do things and be in places where streaming and SXM can't. If the content on radio is not compelling enough, no one will come.
So Japanese consumers are still buying radios and are stampeding their big-box electronics stores (assuming they still exist) to pick up expanded-band receivers?
When I was in Tokyo back in 2019, ワイドFM ("Wide FM") was still very prominently displayed in the major big box stores (Yodobashi, Onoden, etc.).. I remember reports that the penetration of the new radios exceeded 60% a few years ago. In all fairness though, even before the expansion of the WideFM spectrum in Japan, some radio models that tuned 76~108 were already on the market there as they were designed for "international use". This helped jump start the expansion.
If such a band expansion were to come to pass, and there was insufficient spectrum to house every AM station, the FCC would auction the allocations, probably with a system of geographic priority (so that some channels would be available in rural areas)
There is a 0% chance that WRLL would be re-homed, but WLS, WBBM, WGN, WSCR, WMVP and WVON would all be left behind.
The REC concept gave first priority to Class C AM stations, then Class D, then Class B where available. Class A and most Class B would remain on AM in order to maintain a national nighttime infrastructure. FM channels would be determined through a table of allotments.
The FCC has historically been very good, for the most part, about setting standards for TV. Probably their most notable goof was approving the CBS color system in the early 50s, which was not backwards compatible with B&W sets. Probably their biggest win was saying no to Japan's analog HDTV system, knowing DTV was just around the corner, and then following through with a plan to make existing TV sets compatible with DTV. They may have spent more than they needed on converter box subsidies, but at least it happened. You can complain about the repack, but at least they made it happen without too much griping.
I don't think the FCC has shown that kind of leadership for radio since they approved FM stereo in 1961. They completely dropped the ball on AM stereo, the AM x-band was silly, and they could have done for FM what they did for TV. It wouldn't have looked exactly the same (analog FM would still have been here today at least to some extent) but starting digital radio on a 76-88MHz band would have done wonders towards planning for a future where AM reverted to the class As and Bs being the only viable signals.
Whether it was Sarnoff back in the day or iBiquity more recently, the FCC has long been too $ubject to political pre$$ure$.
Would this have considered digital FM and the ability to pack more stations in, whether on subchannels or closer allocations? What about class Cs and Ds who would have just hung it up instead of investing in brand new equipment for their station?
Keep in mind that the FCC is subject to oversight by congress. If congress doesn't like a particular decision, they can over-ride the FCC.
Some have pointed out that at one time the FCC has a lot of engineers on its staff, and that over the years some of those engineers have been replaced by lawyers. So it's a different organization from the one that existed 50 years ago.
The problem with any expanded (or new) band proposal is that nobody is buying new radios today. Unless it comes with a car attached, radios are not being sold. And with the average car about 12 years old, it will take a quarter-decade to get an expanded band into all cars.
And few people will buy a new "home" or "work" radio for a band that offers stations they didn't listen to anyway. Normalizing translators and reducing second adjacent separation would be the only practical answer to eliminating most AM stations.
Radio receivers are not being purchased because the number of listeners have declined. As many have posted, the AM band is in decline due to a more noisy environment (the downfall probably helped more by the prevalent right-wing programming crap). The FM band, apart from many PBS stations, is becoming more boring.
IBOC HD Radio works well on FM, but has been a failure on AM. DRM is a better technical, and less expensive, alternative to HD Radio.
Introducing DRM, with its neat features, together with interesting programs, would provide a demand for the new radios.
The main competitors to radio broadcasting now are the streaming services (via cell phones). DRM can provide an easier noise free reception, but the programming will still be a deciding factor.
Perhaps, but they're also not being purchased because the receivers themselves aren't being actively marketed. We saw how many people bought Amazon Echos when they were marketed and priced well. We haven't seen an exciting new radio released since the Sony FM Walkman 30 years ago. That's the kind of product that we need to see now. If you attend the Consumer Electronics Show, you never see new radios being presented. The industry has simply shut that area down, focusing on digital products and phones.
Th funding for non-com radio comes from the users, so the programming reflects their interests. The funding for commercial radio comes from advertisers, and so the programming reflects their interests.
And yet more than 90 percent in this country still listen to radio (primarily FM) regularly, albeit for fewer hours than they used to. They're happy with the radios they've had for years. Other than HD -- an abject failure in its original intention of becoming "the stations between the stations" -- there's been nothing "new" about FM since stereo, so why buy a new receiver? It's amazing that stand-alone radios are still being made and sold at all in 2022.
Which, in most cases, can stream your local radio stations and thousands more. Of course, you've been predicting for quite some time here that the ever-increasing cost of streaming will drive most radio stations to geofence or get off the internet completely, but that remains your own speculation, as streaming of terrestrial radio is still widespread and unlimited.
That is not as dramatically correct as you seem to think. In 1990, around the peak in both percentage of listeners and length of listening, 94% of adults listened each week. Today, that figure is around 89%. That is a loss of approximately 5% in radio's total cume over the last 30 years. f
The issue with radio sets is that people like multi-purpose devices such as phones that give them access to music, news, social contact, photos, videos and a whole bunch of other stuff. A single-purpose device is not attractive.
Actually, the conservative talk sector became the rebirth of AM radio starting over 30 years ago. AM would be almost totally dead today were it not for Rush and his camp followers who have kept AM alive for three decades. Of course, that was made possible by the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine that allowed polarized station formats.
And DRM has only been accepted for broadcasting on AM where the government has mandated it and built all the stations, specifically in India. Conceptually, it was developed to enhance Short Wave, but those bands are pretty much dead now.
DRM requires old stations to stop broadcasting and to be replaced. In India, the government simply added additional facilities, many in the 100 to 1000 kw power range, as they alone control the AM band there. There is no way to convert to DRM in the US as few would buy new home radios and it would take over two decades to bring it in to all automobiles.
DRM can't happen here, as no station is going to run with no listeners for years while the auto industry decides to add DRM to car radios. In the meantime, few will buy stand-alone home radios to get stations they don't like anyway.
That "right wing programming crap" brings ratings. Look at WFOM before and after flipping to conservative talk. De gustibus non est disputandum. There has been a decline overall in political talk listenership, but that's more a function of demos and alternative means of consumption (e.g., podcasts) favored by younger demos, not content. And that's a problem all over radio and not tied to any one format.
What doesn't work on AM anymore is music. Nobody wants to listen to music on a low-bandwidth, RFI-laden station with so many other alternatives. Pop music isn't written and produced for AM radio limitations anymore (which is why nostalgia and 50s/60s oldies stations lasted so long on the band). The big AM ratings now belong to spoken-word formats--not just left and right political talk, but also sports (PxP and talk), religion, ethnic talk, finance, etc. where bandwidth isn't much of an issue and RFI is more tolerated.
Even satellite cranks down the bandwidth on their spoken-word channels.
... and most of the attention of the FCC staff is directed towards cellular and its derivatives.
That is why DRM would be an attractive advantage. It would be a higher fidelity, and being digital, be immune to noise.
Attractive to you, but not to the FCC or the licensees.
Yes, very attractive to me. Maybe to others too?
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