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2024 Ford Mustang Drops AM Radio From Infotainment

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davideduardo

davideduardo

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Just saw this:

www.thedrive.com

2024 Ford Mustang Drops AM Radio From Infotainment

AM radio is starting to disappear from new cars, like the 2024 Ford Mustang. Officials are worried it could compromise emergency broadcasting.
www.thedrive.com www.thedrive.com

"The AM radio's discontinuation was discovered in an order guide for the new Mustang that circulated on the Mustang7G forum. A Ford spokesperson confirmed the feature's deletion to The Drive, citing that "countries and automakers globally are modernizing radio by offering internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, or digital.""
 
DavidEduardo said:
Just saw this:

www.thedrive.com

2024 Ford Mustang Drops AM Radio From Infotainment

AM radio is starting to disappear from new cars, like the 2024 Ford Mustang. Officials are worried it could compromise emergency broadcasting.
www.thedrive.com www.thedrive.com

"The AM radio's discontinuation was discovered in an order guide for the new Mustang that circulated on the Mustang7G forum. A Ford spokesperson confirmed the feature's deletion to The Drive, citing that "countries and automakers globally are modernizing radio by offering internet streaming through mobile apps, FM, or digital.""
Click to expand...
One person making a comment on that site says,

"AM radio is cesspool of right-wing propaganda, so I am amused, but who listens to broadcast radio anyway? It's 80% commercials and "personalities" bullshitting with inane banter with maybe 1-2 songs per half hour."

They seem not to recognize that services for many ethnic groups, members of a number of religions, sports talk stations in many markets, formats for seniors and other niche services are very often only on AM.

Looking at the city of Los Angeles alone, 40% of the population is foreign born, and of those, 26% are Asian. Most of the language groups other than Spanish only have AM radio service.

In all of California, 27% are foreign born. That is ten million people; nearly half now are not from Latin America and most arrive speaking Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Punjabi and other Eastern or Southeastern Asian tongues; there are few FMs in California in any of those tongues, but there are many on AM.

 
^^^^^^ Exactly. Who cares about stations like BIN, anyway? Who should care about their audience? (sarcasm button off).

I see the periodic comments on other radio sites about AM being "all religion and right wing extremist talk radio". Yet when I tune the band at night I hear all kinds of programming, much of it in Spanish, Punjabi, Chinese, and other languages. And the local AM band has about 15-20 stations audible (depending on where you are in the metro -- some fringe area stations aren't well audible everywhere) and three of them are conservative talk (four if you include a simulcast), with four religious stations (two protestant, two Catholic). A brokered station maybe has some religion. That's seven stations out of maybe 15-20 on the air.

People like to complain, rather than tune around and listen to what's out there.
 
Okay, then. Expect the floodgates to open and no more "the list is only" posts from me.

From an automotive journalist perspective: Ford knows its customer base---spends millions researching its target---and it's probably very comfortable with the percentage of 2024 Mustang customers who'll be unhappy with the move.
 
DavidEduardo said:
They seem not to recognize that services for many ethnic groups, members of a number of religions, sports talk stations in many markets, formats for seniors and other niche services are very often only on AM.
Click to expand...

You yourself have pointed out that the US is late to the table on this. Other countries, including those where many immigrants originate, have already eliminated AM.

But in this case we're only talking about one car model by one manufacturer. It's a car that sells for between $40-60,000, and qualifies for an additional gas guzzler tax. There are other options for ethnic minorities who want a sports car with AM. But do you really want to play bandwidth-restricted AM radio with all the static through a Bang & Olufsen 12-speaker sound system with subwoofer? It includes HD radio, and most AM stations are available there.
 
Isn't it ironic that Mustang -- the classic car brand famous for its 1960s heritage -- is among the first to drop AM radio.

DavidEduardo said:
One person making a comment on that site says,

"AM radio is cesspool of right-wing propaganda, so I am amused, but who listens to broadcast radio anyway?
Click to expand...

I have long maintained that AM radio's demise is as much about this exact perception as it is about its technical shortcomings. It's a self-inflicted wound on a band so heavily dominated by rightwing talk that it became synonymous with conservative extremism, to the point where the very idea of listening to anything at all on AM radio became repulsive to most civilized Americans.

It's 80% commercials and "personalities" bullshitting with inane banter with maybe 1-2 songs per half hour."
Click to expand...

This perception about the commercial load and quality of jocks on FM music stations is not surprising either. Radio can and should do better, but it has been doing things this way since the era where it had little-to-no competition and the industry seems unable or unwilling to change now, even as more attractive alternatives keep gaining traction.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Isn't it ironic that Mustang -- the classic car brand famous for its 1960s heritage -- is among the first to drop AM radio.
Click to expand...
At least where I Live, a lot of AM stations have music. But most of them have translators.

In Myrtle Beach SC about 20 years ago, an AM station played oldies for people who had classic cars that only had AM, figuring they would like that music.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Isn't it ironic that Mustang -- the classic car brand famous for its 1960s heritage -- is among the first to drop AM radio.
Click to expand...
Only kinda.

In the same way the new Corvette isn't playing to nostalgia any longer, I think we're moving into a post-classic age for the Mustang, too.

Yeah, the '24 has some ages-old styling cues (put headlights on either side of a big grille with a horse in the middle of it and three taillights on either side out back and you're pretty much done), but the dual-cowl dashboard with two round gauges resurrected in 2005 (along with an old Ford font and that not-quite-blue-not-quite-green lighting) vanishes in '24 to be replaced by screens.

Biggest reason---demographics. I had just turned 8 when the first Mustang hit showrooms in April of 1964. I turn 67 in a week and a half. Someone old enough to drive when that car came along is 75. There's not a lot of "remember when" left to go around in the likely under-55 buyer base, much of which has no memory of when their favorite radio station was on AM, either.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
I have long maintained that AM radio's demise is as much about this exact perception as it is about its technical shortcomings. It's a self-inflicted wound on a band so heavily dominated by rightwing talk that it became synonymous with conservative extremism, to the point where the very idea of listening to anything at all on AM radio became repulsive to most civilized Americans.
Click to expand...
I agree. The only defenders of AM, are the ones who regularly listen to the remaining programing on the band; Religion, some non-English language programming, or mainly right wing Political talk.
Theater of My Mind said:
This perception about the commercial load and quality of jocks on FM music stations is not surprising either. Radio can and should do better, but it has been doing things this way since the era where it had little-to-no competition and the industry seems unable or unwilling to change now, even as more attractive alternatives keep gaining traction.
Click to expand...
For as much as everyone seems to think that radio is somehow digging it's own grave by having to evolve as a business, my view is the ubiquitous use of tablets and smartphones at an increasingly early age, all connected to the public Internet for content, have dominated the consumer product market so pervasively that there's just no turning back. For as much as the old timers think if radio had just continued doing what it did in the 60's through 80's there would be no need for smartphones, they should really consider pulling their head out and take a look around.
That said; radio is still listened-to by over 90% of media consumers each week. It's just not the dominant force it once was.
 
boombox4 said:
^^^^^^ Exactly. Who cares about stations like BIN, anyway? Who should care about their audience? (sarcasm button off).

I see the periodic comments on other radio sites about AM being "all religion and right wing extremist talk radio". Yet when I tune the band at night I hear all kinds of programming, much of it in Spanish, Punjabi, Chinese, and other languages. And the local AM band has about 15-20 stations audible (depending on where you are in the metro -- some fringe area stations aren't well audible everywhere) and three of them are conservative talk (four if you include a simulcast), with four religious stations (two protestant, two Catholic). A brokered station maybe has some religion. That's seven stations out of maybe 15-20 on the air.

People like to complain, rather than tune around and listen to what's out there.
Click to expand...
And 3 of those Seattle AM's still have a niche music format, KRIZ, KYIZ, and our beloved KIXI.

AM isn't dead till the fat lady sings!
 
TheBigA said:
You yourself have pointed out that the US is late to the table on this. Other countries, including those where many immigrants originate, have already eliminated AM.
Click to expand...
An example is Quito, Ecuador where the market has gone from 41 AM stations in 970 to just 8 or 9 today. But that is because they license an FM ever second channel, allowing nearly over 50 stations on the FM dial... all of which are operating.

Similarly, Mexico has allowed most AMs to move to FM, but in the largest cities and along the US border, there are still over 200 AMs remaining and new ones being granted to serve minority communities (meaning that they broadcast in one of the 120 indigenous languages or dialects).

Canada has allowed nearly all heritage AMs to migrate, but has given new AM licensees to narrowcasting for underserved or unserved groups.

El Salvador gave all AMs an option to move to FM, and then gave many, many church groups AM licenses.

Every place in Europe that moved to FM only or to DAB has allowed nearly all or all AMs to migrate.

The US has no such plan and has antiquated FM separation rules. There is a lot of service on AM that can't get an FM presence because of that.
TheBigA said:
But in this case we're only talking about one car model by one manufacturer. It's a car that sells for between $40-60,000, and qualifies for an additional gas guzzler tax. There are other options for ethnic minorities who want a sports car with AM. But do you really want to play bandwidth-restricted AM radio with all the static through a Bang & Olufsen 12-speaker sound system with subwoofer? It includes HD radio, and most AM stations are available there.
Click to expand...
I looked at the ethnic AMs in LA, and of 14 in total that are not group owned, I see only 3 with limited signal translators and one on an HD channel (All Spanish sports KWKW),

Those stations are very dependent on their AM signals. And just because they appeal to ethnic groups does not mean they won't buy a nice new car.
 
KilowattKat said:
And 3 of those Seattle AM's still have a niche music format, KRIZ, KYIZ, and our beloved KIXI.

AM isn't dead till the fat lady sings!
Click to expand...
True, actually.

But the ratings of those stations are nothing to write home about. I think KRIZ and KYIZ don't even subscribe. But they hang on, they survived the pandemic recession, and apparently serve the older African American demographics. And you've got BIN. I think 13000 people listen to it in Seattle/Tacoma.

But according to some, AM is just religion and right-wing talk, right?

If every new automaker gets rid of the AM band it won't really make a difference. In a few years, they can get rid of FM too, because GenZ, who'll be entering the prime sales demos within 10-15 years, aren't all that gung-ho about OTA radio. Streaming is where everything is headed. It's going to kill FM and AM, and satellite, too. AM stations that want a future will have a stream. Many already do.

They frequently mention their station's app in promos and liners. They see the writing on the wall.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I looked at the ethnic AMs in LA, and of 14 in total that are not group owned, I see only 3 with limited signal translators and one on an HD channel (All Spanish sports KWKW),

Those stations are very dependent on their AM signals. And just because they appeal to ethnic groups does not mean they won't buy a nice new car.
Click to expand...

How many of them don't stream? The gist of the article is that the infotainment system is designed for modern streaming which means it should natively support the major broadcaster & aggregator platforms along with CarPlay and Android Auto. I think anyone dropping ~$50k on a nice new sports car will also have a modern smartphone with unlimited 5G data to support that.
 
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