Yes, yet look at how many do donate. NPR and PBS would not exist without it. Even when they were getting govt funding listener donations + underwriting was the bulk of the revenue.
Let's see how well NPR and PBS are doing 10 years from now.
Yes - I know you will all brow beat me for saying the above but it is really one of the most negative industries I can think of. Suggesting trying something new is met with scorn yet I have more data to back up that what I propose may work than anyone here has to indicate it won't (with WJIB as the example).
That's one station. Can you give me any data which shows what their donations were last year vs. expenditures? For all we know, John Garabedian may be funding most of it himself. Show me what they're bringing in vs. what they're spending and who's funding them.
Just because one station or person decides to fund their own stations like it's a personal jukebox, doesn't mean they're successful. Ted Tucker has a ton of stations across the west, and he self-funds a bunch. He seems to be one of those owners who lives for the thrill of the upgrade. Ted Tucker gets licenses and spends untold dollars moving them hither and yon. That's great. Doesn't mean he's successful. It just means he has a lot of money and too much time on his hands.
Radio has been a free medium for over 100 years. You can't suddenly ask people to pay for something they've been getting for free. If McDonald's had started out giving away hamburgers, and then 50 years in decided to start charging, people would walk away and stop eating there. Same thing for Radio. If we ask listeners to start paying for something they've been getting for free, we lose them.
Oh, by the way, the electronic noise on AM is just one reason it's dying. For some, it's operating daytime only. It's the limited nighttime signal of some. It's the fact that FM sounds better, as has been pointed out. AMs operating in mono are okay for news-talk and sports. Guess what? That's what a lot of operators are using their signals for. It's the fact that AM tower sites are a copper thief's dream. Oh, and don't forget municipalities and government agencies eyeballing tower sites. If a tower falls in the dark, the first people to hear it are people looking at ways to utilize that land for more lucrative commercial projects, or the DNR stepping in to keep the tower from being rebuilt in order to save the yellow-bellied three-toed cross-eyed salamander that somehow only mates where that darn AM tower was. A shopping mall or a housing development is worth more to the tax base than an AM tower site is. Know how I know? I have plenty of friend's who have shut down their AMs rather than fight City Hall.
AMs are cheap. If anyone was beating down the owner's doors to buy them, they'd sell them.
It's okay to have ideas. Thinking that us dinosaurs don't want to change is wrong. Most of us over 50 started on an AM. We loved them then. They were beautiful. Now, though, we see them for what they are and, most importantly, are not. They're a burden financially and technically, and if we are going to fight Spotify, SiriusXM and the like, they're not equipped to go into battle long-term. We fight with what suits the battle best.
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