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7 out of 10 don't tune to AM

raccoonradio

raccoonradio

KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA, which has only been on air since Feb 2, 1922 (exactly 40 years before I was born), will start simulcasting on 92.5 FM tomorrow (news/talk). Clear Channel. Last sentence of
press release:

>>KFBK will now reach the nearly 70% of the market that doesn’t tune into the AM band.

What with WBZ I'm not sure if that's the case with Boston, and maybe some cities like NYC may also
have more listeners tuning to AM than what the statement says. But still, this is why it seems like
every week we hear more and more of stations simulcasting on or switching to FM from AM.
 
CC says: the move "will give a younger audience access to one of the most influential stations in not only Sacramento, but all of Northern California"

What, their radios don't have an AM dial?
No, they just never seem to want to go there.
 
raccoonradio said:
CC says: the move "will give a younger audience access to one of the most influential stations in not only Sacramento, but all of Northern California"

What, their radios don't have an AM dial?
No, they just never seem to want to go there.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sure "there's a younger audience" out there just waiting to hear Rush Limbaugh on FM.
 
Boston and New England are also the lands of "steady habits." We as a people tend to do things just because that's the way it's always been done. In RI I listen to PRO-FM because my mother listened to PRO-FM. Yes, it's gotten lame, yes, there are better options. I still listen to PRO-FM every day.

In CT, I listen to 'TIC because that's what my parents listened to for news. That's what my grandparents listened to. Heck, that's what my great-grandparents listened to. It's just what you do!

I think a lot of the "steady habits" people keep tuning to AM, at least for the big guys, and at least for now.
 
raccoonradio said:
KFBK 1530 Sacramento, CA, which has only been on air since Feb 2, 1922 (exactly 40 years before I was born), will start simulcasting on 92.5 FM tomorrow (news/talk). Clear Channel. Last sentence of
press release:

>>KFBK will now reach the nearly 70% of the market that doesn’t tune into the AM band.

What with WBZ I'm not sure if that's the case with Boston, and maybe some cities like NYC may also
have more listeners tuning to AM than what the statement says. But still, this is why it seems like
every week we hear more and more of stations simulcasting on or switching to FM from AM.
Click to expand...

WBZ is an old Class 1A station. It, and those like it (WGN, WCBS, KFI, etc.) will probably be able to survive for several more years running Ancient Modulation, at least until the core listeners (age 65+) die off. But KFBK, while also running 50 kW, is at the other end of the band, and has about the same coverage as a 5000 watt station at the low end of the band.

92.5 (a Class B station running 50 kW at 449 ft. HAAT) doesn't have the range of 1530, but will do better in office buildings in and around Sacramento. Ancient Modulation doesn't work well inside steel and concrete, unless the radio is next to a window and the window faces in the right direction. How well do the Boston AMs do downtown?

And, I thought it was more like 80-85% of listeners don't bother with AM anymore.
 
Our 2 AM's serve a niche audience (Brazilian and Russian).
They know where to find us! These listeners are extremely loyal -
and many of them listen all day, every day....
 
raccoonradio said:
What, their radios don't have an AM dial?
Click to expand...

Certain component tuners have come without an AM band for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if the radios in some car models are FM/Satellite/Aux Input only by now, if not as OEM then certainly as aftermarket. Honestly, if the Red Sox (currently on WTIC-AM) and ESPN and Clear Channel/Premiere's exclusive sports content (currently on WPOP) were to move to FM, I'd probably never turn to AM for actual programming again, only for DXing. Sirius XM gives me all the out-of-market play-by-play I want, without the skywave fade.
 
>>Don't their radios have AM?

I was joking but of course some mp3 players come with an FM radio. No AM.
And agreed about WLYN/wazn's listeners, etc., very loyal but CC is saying what is happening all
over: the move to FM.
 
>>"there's a younger audience"

Well, younger than the 65-to-death demo, I guess.
And Rush--and the former WRKO morning host John "Ozone" Osterlind--are on FM in N'awlins.

http://www.wrno.com/main.html

Agreed with KeithE4 about KFPK's dial position and how it hurts them; Ancient Modulation (good
nickname!) etc.
 
I prefer "Angel Music" because if you've ever heard C-QUAM stereo, you'll know it is! Nobody is giving anybody a reason to tune into A.M. and even the F.M. stations are weak, programming-wise. Although I've put WERS in one of the slots formerly held by a station now running Xmas music and heard a great song this morning I'd never heard before. But there was no D.J. to say what it was.

I like checking out the trailer for "Power 1490" which was a rap station in Tucson in the early-mid '90s which had a sizeable audience, many of them teens. I don't know of any teens now tuning into radio, period. F.M. will soon become the A.M. band: dollar-a-hollar hucksters, colon cleansing ads, foreign language & religion. Check out WJXR/92.1 in Jacksonville, Fl.. All Tradio all the time!
 
N1WVQ said:
F.M. will soon become the A.M. band: dollar-a-hollar hucksters, colon cleansing ads, foreign language & religion. Check out WJXR/92.1 in Jacksonville, Fl.. All Tradio all the time!
Click to expand...

Yup.

The dial in many places is getting more and more devoid of music programming and ultimately will suffer the same fate as AM. As soon as talk radio runs its course, you'll have the privilege of more loud preachers, ads for the latest weight loss product played 14 times an hour.
 
The trouble with a lot of these stations, which they don't want to admit, is that the programming doesn't interest, or in some cases may actually repel, younger listeners. Angry old guys in full rant mode don't draw young audiences, period.

KFBK also has a signal problem in the northeastern part of its market, especially on night and pre-sunrise pattern, because it has to protect a co-channel station all the way east in Cincinatti, Ohio. This issue of patterns that miss growing areas of the market is increasingly common as populations spread out further from city centers. Some stations (like WTOP and WMAL in Washington, WSYR in Syracuse, and WBT in Charlotte) have had to either flip to FM or simulcast on a suburban or rimshot FM to fill nulls in their AM coverage patterns as suburban sprawl has hit with full force in their respective markets. A few others have launched simulcasts to bolster workplace listening in downtown office towers that act as Faraday cages screening out AM signals, especially if the transmitter sites are deep in the burbs (like WGY in Albany/Schenectady). This hasn't been a problem in cities like New York simply because all the AM transmitter sites are unusually close to the population center but it is a worry in some other markets...and may or may not be a problem for some stations in Boston as well, but evidently isn't for WBZ.

A few stations which DON'T have significant signal issues in their markets have also tried FM simulcasts, apparently to try to expand their demos; WBEN in Buffalo comes to mind. But a couple of books into that experiment don't show any significant impact on ratings or demos.
 
KeithE4 said:
WBZ is an old Class 1A station. It, and those like it (WGN, WCBS, KFI, etc.) will probably be able to survive for several more years running Ancient Modulation, at least until the core listeners (age 65+) die off. But KFBK, while also running 50 kW, is at the other end of the band, and has about the same coverage as a 5000 watt station at the low end of the band.
Click to expand...

An AM on 1530 in California is not an AM on 1530 in New England. Ground conductivity is better there than here and AM signals have far better coverage in California than they do here.

In the end it's content that drives listening. Radio stations largely stopped targeting teens in the 1980's; is it any wonder, then, that younger people don't listen as much as their elders? And if there's little on AM to interest anyone but surly curmudgeons, why do its creators think it will interest anyone else on FM?
 
Some younger teens might like a bit of Radio Disney music etc (on AM) though I'd think they'd prefer pop stations on FM (if not mp3 stuff). I get the feeling Radio Disney may skew slightly younger than the TV version which seems to go heavy on teens (and pre-teens of course). But again that's an exception

(Radio Disney's countdown show
http://radio.disney.go.com/music/top30.html )

>>more and more devoid of music programming
AM might have some True Oldies outlets; the very occasional easy listening (WJIB, WJTO), Christian
Contemporary, and foreign language music (sometimes via pirates). But most of the action and money
is on FM.

Some AM stations in town that feature music
WJIB 740
WNNW 800 (Spanish...but note, simulcast on 102.9 which I noticed came in very well on my FM/HD
portable last night)
WCAP 980 (at night)
And various ethnic stations like WLYN, WAZN, WNSH, WESX, WJDA
And Radio Disney on 1260
But obviously the heavy hitters are on FM: WMJX, WODS, WROR, WBMX, WKLB, WXKS-FM, WJMN,
WBOS, WZLX, and so on

>>An AM on 1530 in California is not an AM on 1530 in New England. Ground conductivity is better there than here and AM signals have far better coverage in California than they do here.

Good point--admittedly it was low on the dial but when visiting Calif. a few years ago a country station
on 540 was doing well as I drove north toward San Luis Obispo etc

>>Radio stations largely stopped targeting teens in the 1980's;
Again, other than poss. Radio Disney and even then... (I'm thinking 13-14 yrs olds, etc. at least)

>>Angry old guys in full rant mode don't draw young audiences, period.

What about WEEI-FM 93.7 and WBZ-FM 98.5? :) (Or maybe the likes of a Graham on 96.9--OK maybe he's
middle aged...)

>>to fill nulls in their AM coverage patterns as suburban sprawl has hit with full force in their respective markets. A few others have launched simulcasts to bolster workplace listening in downtown office towers that act as Faraday cages screening out AM signals

Indeed, and I wasn't the only one complaining about having trouble hearing WEEI 850 at work (or
even WRKO for that matter)
 
4CX1000A said:
An AM on 1530 in California is not an AM on 1530 in New England. Ground conductivity is better there than here and AM signals have far better coverage in California than they do here.
Click to expand...

Moreover, KFBK is in a unique position with regard to antenna efficiency. (And I mean unique--not merely unusual; unique and unusual are not synonyms.) Both of its towers are true Franklin radiators--center-fed sectionalized antennas whose length is 180 degrees per section. No other US AM (and probably no other AM anywhere) uses a Franklin DA. The antenna efficiency (daytime, anyhow) yields a pattern RMS inverse-distance field that is greater than 500 mV/m/kW @ 1 km. That's 25% more than you get with 200-degree towers of conventional design and is equivalent to using 56% more power than you get with 50 kW into 200-degree towers. Compared with a minimum efficiency antenna for a Class A station, the efficiency is equivalent to running almost 100 kW, not even including the effect of the directional pattern. Compared with a minimum-efficiency radiator for Class B AMs, the power gain is greater than three times. IOW, KFBK's 50 kW are equivalent to what most AMs would put out if they were allowed to run more than 150 kW. In addition, the soil conductivity in California's Central Valley is nearly as good as the phenomenal conductivity of the Great Plains. KFBK has a killer signal.
 
That stat is nothing new. I first heard it at least 15 years ago. In fact, the first stat I heard was 2 out of 10. Maybe things are lookng up for AM!
 
4CX1000A said:
In the end it's content that drives listening. Radio stations largely stopped targeting teens in the 1980's; is it any wonder, then, that younger people don't listen as much as their elders?
Click to expand...

Who are the CHR/pop, CHR/rhythmic and hip-hop stations targeting, then? What sort of music is the teen audience listening to that radio isn't providing? Rock? Dying genre in the teen demo, has been for years. Seems to me the teens are still listening to the sort of music the aforementioned formats are pushing, but on their iPods or via the Internet, commercial- and live-talent-free. Radio can target teens all it wants and create deep, hip playlists for them, but unless they fire all the DJs and stop running commercials, the kids will stay away, IMO.
 
Bob1370 said:
KFBK also has a signal problem in the northeastern part of its market, especially on night and pre-sunrise pattern, because it has to protect a co-channel station all the way east in Cincinatti, Ohio. This issue of patterns that miss growing areas of the market is increasingly common as populations spread out further from city centers.
Click to expand...

Yes, but it is not an issue for KFBK. The KFBK site is 25 miles north of Sacramento in Sutter County. The null to WCKY is entirely outside the Sacramento Arbitron metro. Thanks to its Franklin antenna (as explained above by Dan), there are few AMs in the country that put a more spectacularly strong signal over their markets - their entire markets - as KFBK(AM).

http://www.fybush.com/sites/2005/site-051028.html

What's more, Sacramento is a low-rise town, so there's not much issue with in-building signal penetration. This move is being made entirely for psychological and marketing reasons, not because there is anything at all wrong with the 1530 signal.
 
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