-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Time For A Rule Change
- Thread starter Cold Coffee
- Start date
TV spectrum and radio spectrum are not the same size. There was room to accommodate TV. Not so for AM on the FM band.
Cold Coffee
Banned
The FCC made WJLX shut down their FM translator when their AM tower was stolen.
You're missing my point entirely.
I am not calling for any new windows or any new signals. I'm saying that the broadcasters who are already on the air on the FM band (and have been there in some cases for a decade already) should have the option of shutting off their AM signals if they so choose.
It's happened already in the rest of the world. It happens with every other technology that advances.
What's so sacred about AM radio in the US?
Cold Coffee
Banned
WJLX had to leave the air on FM because of rules that were wrong. Alabama radio station booted from air after 200-foot tower vanished without a trace
Without reopening the can of worms that got the thread closed down, I don't know if I would use WJLX as an example. There's credible evidence that it hasn't been on the air at all on AM in several years. Until and unless the rules get changed, that's a recipe for license deletion.
It doesn't benefit the FCC to have a chunk of it's area of responsibility shut down. Every year, they look to increase agency funding. It would happen at the same time that congress is seeking to pass the AM in Every Car act. So without the support of the FCC or Congress, how would this get done?
A polite way of saying "We don't believe your story for a millisecond, but good luck anyway. You'll need it."
Exactly. There are some new threads on the board today regarding AM's in Florida and South Carolina cancelling their licenses rather than put money into them to return them to the air. A few of the stations belong to a friend of mine, and I know that he made a business decision that the markets won't support the AMs, and it just makes more financial sense to turn them off for good. The translators attached were deleted as well. And these won't be the last stations in his group facing this same dilemma, and other owners find themselves in the same boat.
For me, I won't look at a standalone AM even with a translator. If it's a group, I don't figure in any AMs in my long-term plans.
Cold Coffee
Banned
There are many AM's in small towns in the USA in the same boat. as WJLX. They couldn't keep the AM going. The FCC can revoke licenses for that and the people lose. Radio will never come back to their town Their high school games and community events will not be broadcast ever again.
Why are you still harping on about there's no listeners on AM
There's still someone listening to AM, But, it's not like 50 years ago...
Translators Max Power is I think 250 Watts, No one will hear it out of there coveage area
AM is best with Talk, Sports, All-News ect.
There's still someone listening to AM, But, it's not like 50 years ago...
Translators Max Power is I think 250 Watts, No one will hear it out of there coveage area
AM is best with Talk, Sports, All-News ect.
This sounds liek one of the few times where a technical change could make a difference in radio. So many times, people wanna improve radio through technological means.. and it usually falls flat on its face.
You can't shove a turd through to the studio and have it come out looking like a diamond simply because that AM is running AM Stereo.
Radio has to be improved, mostly through lower costs, maybe slightly less regulatory hoops and programming.
And on that programming note. sometimes the market just...cant..support it. If we'd had computers, podcasting, spotify and streaming come along 10 years later than it did, we'd be in the same spot we are now.. just 10 years later
Where we are today cant be drilled down to 1 specific reason. If the telecom act of 96 hadnt happened... we'd be better off for maybe a bit longer. And my above sentence... if that happened later.. again, we'd gain a few extra years.
You cant create heritage today.. if a stations got it, keep it, build on it with modern day means. Dont let it go or lose it, you can't get that trust back.
Reach your audience where they are, wether its FM, AM, streaming or social media. It's not any less radio, it's just a different transmission method.
I was involved in the planning of a cluster of stations in PA that had been sold and I'd have been going to work for the new owner about 6 - 7 years ago. Was going to convert the FM Country to Hot AC and i told the prospective new owner, "Weve got to get an app and streaming going for that station... as long as it pays for itself, we need to do it.. our competition in a near by market that has overlap with ours isnt doing it. Our listeners will find someone who is if we dont and they wont come back to us"
Well, the sale didnt close.. a new owner bought it a few years later and they dumped talk on the AM and are more or less doing what i had planned to do on that AM with a translator instead of the FM.
Sorry, squirrel moment and i get passionate about radio.
You can't shove a turd through to the studio and have it come out looking like a diamond simply because that AM is running AM Stereo.
Radio has to be improved, mostly through lower costs, maybe slightly less regulatory hoops and programming.
And on that programming note. sometimes the market just...cant..support it. If we'd had computers, podcasting, spotify and streaming come along 10 years later than it did, we'd be in the same spot we are now.. just 10 years later
Where we are today cant be drilled down to 1 specific reason. If the telecom act of 96 hadnt happened... we'd be better off for maybe a bit longer. And my above sentence... if that happened later.. again, we'd gain a few extra years.
You cant create heritage today.. if a stations got it, keep it, build on it with modern day means. Dont let it go or lose it, you can't get that trust back.
Reach your audience where they are, wether its FM, AM, streaming or social media. It's not any less radio, it's just a different transmission method.
I was involved in the planning of a cluster of stations in PA that had been sold and I'd have been going to work for the new owner about 6 - 7 years ago. Was going to convert the FM Country to Hot AC and i told the prospective new owner, "Weve got to get an app and streaming going for that station... as long as it pays for itself, we need to do it.. our competition in a near by market that has overlap with ours isnt doing it. Our listeners will find someone who is if we dont and they wont come back to us"
Well, the sale didnt close.. a new owner bought it a few years later and they dumped talk on the AM and are more or less doing what i had planned to do on that AM with a translator instead of the FM.
Sorry, squirrel moment and i get passionate about radio.
We're in a situation right now where there's a need to thin the herd. The spectrum was over-licensed at a time when radio had no competition. Now that it does, there are too many stations. It isn't in the interest of the agency that over-licensed the spectrum to now start allowing it to contract. The way we handle that in this country is by the free market.
Cold Coffee
Banned
I can hear the translator for WIBC hid 2 fifty miles from Indianapolis and it's directional against me to protect the commercial channel I dropped in here. Translators can get out like a Class A FM if they are on a tall tower.
Cold Coffee
Banned
I'm not thinking about another filing window. I'm saying let them turn off the AM's if they choose.
That's not an option. As I said, it's not in the best interest of the FCC or the government. They gave stations the translators for no other reason than it would help support the AM. That was the whole idea of AM revitalization.
In the case of JRLX, it might....People just need to send the guy $60k. As of now, his GoFundMe page is up to $6,400 in donations:
Donate to WJLX 1240 AM - Tower and equipment replacement, organized by Brett Elmore
Hi, my name is Brett Elmore, General Manager of WJLX 1240 AM. You have pro… Brett Elmore needs your support for WJLX 1240 AM - Tower and equipment replacement
"AM revitalization" was a flawed concept that the free market has rejected. It was a noble idea when it was conceived a decade ago, but time has passed it by.
You can't keep a dead medium alive through regulation, no matter how hard you try.
So do you ride it into the ground out of stubbornness, or do you look at the real world and try something new?
Again, I am a pragmatist. I believe laws and regulations have to bend to reality, not the other way around. The reality is that an increasing number of broadcasters have listeners and profitability on their FM signals but not on their legacy AMs. I think the public interest is better served by allowing them to use the band and technology that the marketplace has shown it wants, while allowing them to shed the expense of letting a dying AM drag them down.
You'd really rather watch these stations fail entirely just because "well, those are the rules"?
That's not a regulatory environment that ends up serving anyone - not even the bureaucrats, because a license that's deleted or surrendered doesn't pay any regulatory fees.
You can't keep a dead medium alive through regulation, no matter how hard you try.
So do you ride it into the ground out of stubbornness, or do you look at the real world and try something new?
Again, I am a pragmatist. I believe laws and regulations have to bend to reality, not the other way around. The reality is that an increasing number of broadcasters have listeners and profitability on their FM signals but not on their legacy AMs. I think the public interest is better served by allowing them to use the band and technology that the marketplace has shown it wants, while allowing them to shed the expense of letting a dying AM drag them down.
You'd really rather watch these stations fail entirely just because "well, those are the rules"?
That's not a regulatory environment that ends up serving anyone - not even the bureaucrats, because a license that's deleted or surrendered doesn't pay any regulatory fees.
There's a sucker born every minute...In the case of JRLX, it might....People just need to send the guy $60k. As of now, his GoFundMe page is up to $6,400 in donations:
Donate to WJLX 1240 AM - Tower and equipment replacement, organized by Brett Elmore
Hi, my name is Brett Elmore, General Manager of WJLX 1240 AM. You have pro… Brett Elmore needs your support for WJLX 1240 AM - Tower and equipment replacementwww.gofundme.com
I'm a realist. I worked in DC and saw how slowly the wheels turn. This current FCC is not friendly to broadcasters. The next one will likely be even worse. The whole place is paralyzed.
- Status