OldChicago said:
This is yet another sign of the deterioration of broadcasting in this country. More and more duplicated signals. What a waste of spectrum! Ridiculous. The FCC should outlaw this.
You can blame the Republicans and the Telecommunications Act of 1996
for this.
Simulcasting was re-allowed when the FCC realized that the goal of prohibiting it, way back in 1967, had been achieved; FM could stand on its own legs.
On the other hand, the FCC realizes that AM is in deep trouble. Most AM allocations, based on the original frequency plans from the late 20's and early 30's, are now way to low powered for the urban sprawl of the later decades.
For example, in those around-1930-days, a power of 5 kw day and 1 kw night was considered very adequate to serve large cities. 250 watts on one of the 6 local channels was thought to be enough for the smaller population centers, ranging from Bakersfield to Atlantic City.
Today, those levels are inadequate even in smaller sized metros.
And the FCC thought that having enough stations in each large market to carry each of the major networks was really enough... meaning two or three stations per larger market around 1940.
Many more AMs were licensed post-WW II, and the majority of them were daytimers or fulltime stations shoehorned into the original allocation plans and most suck totally. As a side effect, the ones that are fulltime add tons of interference to the band.
Then the FCC ruined the local channels by allowing first 1 kw daytime, then all the time. After that, they broke down the clear channels, allowing many new facilities on the clear channels.
There's more... but the main point is that none of this happened due to reregulation in 1996, none had to do with the Republicans and all ended up making the AM dial congested and pretty useless to most Amercians.
The FCC did not enforce rules against man made interference, so in most places where 2 to 5 mV/m was enough signal to listen to AM, now it takes 15 mV/m to overcome the dimmers, CFLs and microprocessors. Man made noise has reduced the effective coverage of metro area AMs by as much as 75%.
Canada realized there is no turning back, and has graudually allowed about 65% of all AMs to move to FM. Mexico, in an act of congress, has declared that AM is not economically sustainable and that as many as possible of the nation's 860 AMs should move to FM and the AM channels permanently deleted; all but 170 AMs are now moving to GM and the band will be totally empty in most of the nation soon.
It's easy to blame the 1996 legislation or a particular administration or party. The fact is that AM is 100 year old technology that has been superseded by, first, FM and now by new media distribution channels.
