Saving AM Radio

[TheBigA]

Understood but if you figure that not every listener went to the concert their audience was considerably more than 3000.
But no numbers at all?

My understanding was the owner was pretty cheap. Did he even subscribe? Another issue would be getting diaries in the hands of listeners.

 

[BruceB]

My understanding was the owner was pretty cheap. Did he even subscribe? Another issue would be getting diaries in the hands of listeners.

A biography I read of Tom Donahue said as much. Tom would have to empty the pop machine to meet payroll some weeks.
But my point to that other poster who said BM was more popular than Prog Rock in the 60's, not buying it.
A lot of other early FM Rock stations were low budget as well. WBCN Boston, WEBN Cincinnati, KSHE St Louis were all too poor to pay for the diary.

 

[TheBigA]

But my point to that other poster who said BM was more popular than Prog Rock in the 60's, not buying it.

Perhaps in12+. But not in younger demos.

 

[briancraig]

In the early 1970s, prog rock did ok with men 18-24, but pretty much no other demographic.
Beautiful music was far more popular overall.

Here’s the FM stations that made the top 5 in Spring 72 in ARB markets I have data for.
Unless noted, the station is beautiful music

New York—WRFM- 6.2
Los Angeles—KJOI-3.2
Chicago- none
San Francisco-none
Philadelphia- WDVR- 7.6
Boston- WJIB-9.1
Washington-WGAY-7.6, WPGC (top 40)-6.4, WJMD- 5.9, WASH (AC)- 5.5
(Interesting how in DC, of the top 5 stations, all are already FM except number 1, full service WMAL with 12.3)
Atlanta-WQXI-5.4 (I believe QXI-FM was adult top 40 with some album cuts)
Dallas-KNOK (black)-8.4
Ft. Worth- KOAX-5.5
(Dallas and Ft. Worth were separate radio markets until 1974)
Houston- KYND-7.1
Miami- WLYF-7.3
St. Louis- none although AM beautiful station WRTH had a 6.2
Seattle- none
Minneapolis/St. Paul- none
Detroit-WWJ- 9.0
Cleveland-WDOK- 7.7
Baltimore-WLIF- 6.8
Pittsburgh-none
San Diego-none
Cincinnati- WWEL- 10.1
Kansas City- none
Milwaukee- WEZW- 5.7
New Orleans- WBYU- 10.2
Memphis- none
Nashville- WKDA-7.1 (AOR)

So as you can see, in most of the top markets, a beautiful music FM station was in the top 5. But the only prog station is in of all places, Nashville, Tennessee

 

[davideduardo]

ARB did a notoriously bad job of measuring the audience of the early Progressive Rock stations.

There is no evidence or proof of that. And in the early years of "progressive rock" (1967 to 1972) Arbitron was not the most important measurement company in radio; it was The Pulse and Hooper that many agencies still traditionally used. And whether you looked at one or the other, none showed undermeasurement of those late sixties and early seventies rockers.

When KMPX-FM did a free concert at the Filmore that was only promoted on the station, they had to turn away hundreds because of Fire Marshall regulations.

Hundreds? The market had millions in that era, and a small concert crowd has nothing to do with total audience size.

But according to ARB , KMPX had no measurable audience.

I think if you look back in that era, you will find that the station had an audience, but not a sizable one.

 

[davideduardo]

Understood but if you figure that not every listener went to the concert their audience was considerably more than 3000.
But no numbers at all?

The San Francisco metro area was approaching 4,000,000 persons in 1970. To fill a 3,000 seat auditorium is absolutely meaningless.

A concert of traditional Ecuadorian pasillos could also have filled such a venue.

In that era, KFRC was cuming around a million people. 3,000 is a rounding error.

 

[davideduardo]

My understanding was the owner was pretty cheap. Did he even subscribe? Another issue would be getting diaries in the hands of listeners.

At that time, ARB included non-subscribers in all published listings.

 

[davideduardo]

At that time AM was making money and kept their transmitting plant in class A condition.

Not all of them. In the FCC financial reports for that era, about half of all stations were not profitable. I saw plenty of AMs in the 60's that had absolutely horrible facilities.

The land the tower was on didn't have the encroachments that happened over the years. The number of electronics which caused electronic noise was not as great. AM sounded fine then.

No, it did not. It was AM, and subject to static (which FM is not) and man made noise)

Today it is difference and if you still had that old Malibu with the same radio, you would hear mostly noise on the AM band.

The bigger change is that cities have outgrown AM signals, most of even the better ones having been licensed in the 30's and 30's well before urban sprawl set in. The fact is that most AMs don't cover their whole market with a 5 mV/m signal day and night, irrespective of interference.

 

[boombox4]

Of course, change is everywhere affecting every industry.
If automakers don't like a product, no law should force them to include it. Same with FM or anything else.

I disagree. Automakers didn't like a lot of stuff that became required, and still balk at some of it. But they don't solely determine what gets put on a vehicle. Governments do.

Mileage standards on gas and diesel powered vehicles is one of the requirements that got, and still gets pushback from the auto industry. Safety standards were another issue that got pushback for a long time. Pinto and Crown Vic, anyone? GM saddle tanks, anyone? Japanese light trucks from the 70's and 80's that were able to shirk safety standards because they were 'trucks'? There's another case of automakers finding a workaround for maybe a decade. Seat belts and lap belts only became standard after the Government regulated them. Same with child seat requirements. Some people thought those requirements, and others, were overkill and they didn't want to pay for them. They did anyway.

The Federal government, and state governments, rule the highways. They determine what gets to be driven on them. And they also regulate key aspects of nearly every system that vehicles today have, from the type and color of headlights you can have on a new car, to the type of mufflers you can install on your car, either after you buy it, or the type that is installed at the factory.

So if the Federal government deems it important to have AM, or FM, in a vehicle, then it has every right to do so, and it's just an example of Government regulation of vehicles, something that automakers must abide by whether they like it or not.

 

[semoochie]

Paraphrasing Adolf Hitler now, are we?

delete

 

[semoochie]

Huh? Just stating a fact that AI picks up a profusion of inaccuracies and “thinks” it is true. This is one of the reasons I continue to build my website so that actual data is available.

Generally, at the point where Hitler is mentioned, rational argument is over.

You said, " If a lie is said over and over and over on the Internet, it seems to be considered "truth"." That's paraphrasing Hitler. I didn't mean anything beyond that!

 

[cc333]

You said, " If a lie is said over and over and over on the Internet, it seems to be considered "truth"." That's paraphrasing Hitler. I didn't mean anything beyond that!

This concept (repeating lies endlessly until they're accepted as true) is also known as "gaslighting," which has roots in the movie Gaslight, released in 1944.

Here's the Wikipedia article on gaslighting. Many of its references look reputable, for what it's worth, so I'm inclined to believe that it's relatively accurate. It goes without saying, however, that one must not take any single article as absolutely definitive without doing their own research.

c

 

[semoochie]

This concept (repeating lies endlessly until they're accepted as true) is also known as "gaslighting," which has roots in the movie Gaslight, released in 1944.

Here's the Wikipedia article on gaslighting. Many of its references look reputable, for what it's worth, so I'm inclined to believe that it's relatively accurate. It goes without saying, however, that one must not take any single article as absolutely definitive without doing their own research.

c

I'm sorry. I got the wrong nazi. It wasn't Hitler. It was Hitler's propagandist. Hitler must have borrowed the line.: Joseph Goebbels: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic andor military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

 

[wadio]

It's mainly car radios that will be required to have AM, and the chips in the car radios all have the capability already. It won't cost you a dime if the bill passes. When Ford changed their minds on the two vehicles they 'removed' AM capability from, all they had to do was reprogram the switch in the car radios' firmware to turn AM back on.

You hate AM radio, we get it by now. If there were a big market for FM radios, they'd be on the store shelves, too. They aren't. So ultimately everything you say about AM applies to FM as well. They both have a lifetime.

Phones are the future of broadcasting. No more moving your FM around in the house trying to get rid of the crappy reception. Move it one foot and you get nothing but hiss and distorted mono. No more picketfencing as you're driving down the highway.

Both AM and FM are headed for tough times. Everyone's using their phone for audio entertainment.

The AM bill won't cost you anything. There are hundreds of other laws that will cost you more. The AM inclusion bill isn't one of them.

What you say is true. The problem is that the manufacturers need to support AM radio. When a buyer complains about a particular aspect of the car creating intererence, such as stepping on the brakes, then they have to try to resolve it. That's a big time-waster, and a lose-lose situation.

 

[wadio]

Puerto Rico is small and very densely populated. It sits 1000 miles out in the Atlantic in what seems to be a hurricane highway. Its needs are much different than the mainland. No one is going to get there for sometime when the big storms hit. On the mainland it is much faster to assemble and move infrastructure into place following an event. With Puerto Rico, the low band station you mentioned could probably cover its land mass. On the mainland it is a different story. FM is line of sight. TV, I've never even considered for weather type emergencies when the lights go out. AM would have a bigger reach, but dial around and you'll see that not much effort is going on to make most local AM stations relevant. I still question the ability of most broadcasters to respond to disasters with limited staff to go live during events. Portable phone and satellite receivers can be brought in to effected areas to restore that kind of communication with a fair amount of speed after a mainland weather event. You even stated that most AM stations today are useless because of their technical facilities. Very true. In the Hudson Valley we have had a number of stations with tower issues. WRKL, New City, NY lost a tower a while back because of lack of maintenance. WGHQ Kingston, went omni directional at lower power in order not to have to maintain a three tower directional array. I question if a lot of undermaintained AM stations would lose towers in a big weather event. Except for some skywave, rural areas will probably not have much information until the national guard brings in the portable cell service. People know a storm is coming for some days in advance. They tend to have stocks of things they need and they also have a choice to leave the area Earthquakes and wild fires come with little warning so that is a different set of issues, as is the circumstances of the densely packed isolated island of Puerto Rico. In any event there will be loss. It is unavoidable, but I don't think you can honestly depend upon local radio stations and I don't think the skywave signals are going to serve rural effected areas to the degree you seem to believe they will.

Another question is, "What's the value of the information transmitted?" It's one-way! Whether from AM, FM, a bullhorn or whatever, does it really help those in need?

A cellphone provides a way to get advice and ask for help. Bolstering cell service might be a better objective.

 

[KilowattKat]

I'm sorry. I got the wrong nazi. It wasn't Hitler. It was Hitler's propagandist. Hitler must have borrowed the line.: Joseph Goebbels: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic andor military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

President elect Trump also borrowed the line.....

 

[Dondd]

I disagree. Automakers didn't like a lot of stuff that became required, and still balk at some of it. But they don't solely determine what gets put on a vehicle. Governments do.

A friendly disagreement..
Disagree all you want, but it's the height of hypocrisy for "conservative" talk radio to demand the "strong arm of government" (how many conservative hosts overuse that phrase?) short-circuit "market rules" and protect their narrow partisan profession?
If almost no one listens to AM, why force automakers to do something not in their economic interest?

And "conservative" is an accurate label for the once great talk radio... Dems., "leftists", "wokes," never-Trumpers, moderate Repubs- essentially, anyone different from their narrow partisan views -- need not apply.

Let's be consistent and let the market decide.

 

[TheBigA]

Disagree all you want, but it's the height of hypocrisy for "conservative" talk radio to demand the "strong arm of government" (how many conservative hosts overuse that phrase) short-circuit "market rules" and subsidize their narrow partisan profession?

The government isn't "subsidizing" their profession because the government isn't paying for it.

 

[Dondd]

The government isn't "subsidizing" their profession because the government isn't paying for it.

Requiring automakers to include AM .... like must-carry cable TV rules ... is an indirect benefit or protection ("protectionism," anyone?). A narrow rule that benefits a narrow group.
Maybe subsidy isn't the best word.

 

[TheBigA]

Requiring automakers to include AM .... like must-carry cable TV rules ... is an indirect benefit or protection ("protectionism," anyone?). A narrow rule that benefits a narrow group. Maybe subsidy isn't the best word.

There's no benefit if no one listens. The result is the same.

The government's job, as outlined in the constitution, is to manage the public resources. The spectrum is one of those resources. Having the government keep AM available in cars is simply managing the public resources. The taxpayers aren't paying for it. Nobody's required to use it.