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AM-FM Parity?

Just did a quick search on this story. Here's why the Senators wrote these letters. Last year, a group of radio owners filed a brief with the FCC to eliminate the AM-FM ownership subcaps. They give all the same statistics given by the Senators. You can read their brief here:

http://www.mediaservicesgroup.com/articles/Joint%20Reply%20Comments%20-%202010%20Quadrennial%20Regulatory%20Review.pdf

Careful reading of their filing will show that the reason they want to eliminate the subcap is so they can buy more FMs.
 
The Senators do have a point in a small handful of locations -- certainly nowhere in Minnesota or South Dakota.

David Eduardo would be able to give better numbers, but the number of markets where an AM is in the top 5 6+ is small. In the top 10 markets: New York (WINS), LA (KFI), Chicago (WGN, WBBM) San Fran (KGO), Philly (KYW), Boston (WBZ). Seven AM stations rank in the top 5 out of fifty surveyed. I also sampled ten medium markets (between 50 and 100). They had a total of five highly-ranked AM stations.

Out of 100 rating slots, only 12 are filled by AM broadcasters. Several markets did not have an AM in the top ten.
 
AM's success is mainly limited to 50 KW blowtorches in major markets. They are the exception, not the rule. The majority of AM stations are on life support. Their owners would love to unload them, but there are no buyers. And contrary to what the Senators write, AM stations tend to be more expensive than FM to operate, if you take into account the land needed for the antenna. I really don't expect this FCC to deregulate anything. Even if their motivation was to increase minority ownership, there are lots of other ways to do that. And the FCC doesn't have the budget or the power to do any of them. So nothing gets done.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
David Eduardo would be able to give better numbers, but the number of markets where an AM is in the top 5 6+ is small. In the top 10 markets: New York (WINS), LA (KFI), Chicago (WGN, WBBM) San Fran (KGO), Philly (KYW), Boston (WBZ). Seven AM stations rank in the top 5 out of fifty surveyed. I also sampled ten medium markets (between 50 and 100). They had a total of five highly-ranked AM stations.
Click to expand...

I think this is less about the number of top rated stations and more about the fact that there are very few AMs today that are technically able to cover all or close to all of the population of their market. According to one highly regarded industry source, there are only about 150 such viable AMs in all of the top 100 markets. When we take out the markets like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and LA that have 3 to 5 viable stations, we are left with the fact that not many AMs can win because they don't have competitive signals. This condition has gotten worse in the last 20 years due to noise from computers, dimmers, CFLs and other electronics which make even more signal strength needed to be listenable.

Those stations are generally 50 kw stations or lower powered stations on low dial positions (like KOGO in SD or KLBJ in Austin), making them a limited commodity. In some markets, where none of the AMs is a terrific facility, like DC, Birmingham or Phoenix, the action has already moved to FM.
 
This may not be what those legislators had in mind, but their claims of AM/FM parity are correct in one regard. This is a bit of a stretch, I know, but PTboardOp94's mention of NYC's WINS (Oct 11th) reminded me how this early pioneer of the "All News, All the Time" format also lead the charge of high powered AM stations converting to AM Stereo in the 1980's. Tulsa's KVOO was one of them. Automobiles began rolling off assembly lines in the '80s equipped w/ AM stereo.
 
There's a difference between seeking parity and achieving it. AM stereo was the first of the attempts to seek parity with FM. It came at a time when, for the first time, FM stations were beating AM in the ratings. The attempt was fumbled by both the industry and the FCC. It really didn't solve any of the main issues the public had with AM, in terms of fidelity or interference. So it was never widely accepted. Same with HD Radio. It was an attempt to deal with the fidelity issue, but it created other problems. Plus they needed to buy new radios in order to hear it. So it was never accepted. As a result, neither AM Stereo nor HD radio helped AM achieve parity with FM.
 
I might argue that the closest you come to achieving AM/FM parity is in very small cities outside the range of the big city FM's. That is where there is typically one legacy AM, a conversion to FM, and a couple of translators. The AM is still viable locally in that case.
 
The only parity between AM and FM is when you add iboc to the FM and begin adding pirate FMs , more translators, and
and tropospheric effics. And the dog next door barking.

What we do to the RF environment is the equivalent of satisfying biological excretion functions all over the kitchen counter and food prep surfaces.

Why is it important for anything else to be clean/uncontaminated? Water, air...
Someone explain why this particular form of pollution is not criminal?

Fines are issued for pollution and it is possible to identify the polluters.

From this perspective, I guess I'm in favor of hacking and internet pollution.
Anything that can destroy the 'net as well as ignorance about RF has destroyed radio is a good thing.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, all media should suffer enjoy equal interference to really create parity.
 
Thanx,"...BigA" for your observations. Often wondered what became of that AM-Stero drive. Been out of the business for quite a few years. Til now, all I knew about this subject came from my own experience DX-ing AM stations 30-years ago.
 
Nobody knew what AM stereo was; the kids running the stereo stores didn't have a clue, and the radios were tricky to find. As mentioned, it didn't fix the BIG problem, which was fidelity... a problem easily solved by the radio manufacturers if they had seen fit to build quality AM radios. They didn't see a market, they didn't build them, people didn't buy them... it was a chicken / egg situation.

IBOC is a solution looking for a problem. I've never heard anybody say, " I LOVE what they play on FM, but it just doesn't sound as good as my CDs."

Additionally, FM can sound spectacular if it isn't having the life stomped out of it by the latest hot-rockin' flame-throwin' multiband clipper and dynamic eliminator. The boxes are good, the engineers are usually good, but the boss wants to be louder than the guy down the dial... so the signal is crushed.

Feed that crushed signal digitally to a listener... and it's still crushed.

Feed that processor set to "blowtorch" today's digitally clipped CDs, and you have the potential of nearly pure white noise coming out the other end.
 
NightAire said:
Nobody knew what AM stereo was; the kids running the stereo stores didn't have a clue, and the radios were tricky to find. As mentioned, it didn't fix the BIG problem, which was fidelity... a problem easily solved by the radio manufacturers if they had seen fit to build quality AM radios. They didn't see a market, they didn't build them, people didn't buy them... it was a chicken / egg situation.
Click to expand...

And the reason for all that you describe is the unnecessary delay of about 5 years in the final approval of AM stereo due to the lawsuits and legal actions of Leonard Kahn.

In 1978, when a system should have been implemented, Kahn sued and delayed any action for years. In '78, AM still had, on a national average, about half the audience and that included a lot of music listening. By the early 80's, the table had tipped and FM was dominant, and in music listening the percentage for AM had dropped significantly. Manufacturers and retailers certainly didn't have much enthusiasm for what was obviously a "dead man walking" situation.
 
AM stereo, even done right, would not have changed the move to FM. Frequency modulation and wide-bandwidth trumps AM every time.
 
The Magnavox Decision was in 1980 and the marketplace decision followed two years later. Several years after that, the FCC chose Motorola and then Kahn sued. It was probably closer to 1988 and by then, was too late.
 
semoochie said:
The Magnavox Decision was in 1980 and the marketplace decision followed two years later. Several years after that, the FCC chose Motorola and then Kahn sued. It was probably closer to 1988 and by then, was too late.
Click to expand...

Originally, one of the 5 presented systems should have been selected for late '78 or early '79. I had order #1 from two of the 5 and followed the proceedings very closely. The decision was delayed a year, and Kahn sued. The marketplace decision, which essentially was a "wash our hands of this" FCC decision, came a bit over two years later, in '82. And that was too late... even though by 84 GM and others had AM stereo in quite a few cars.
 
There was so much ruckus, from the other parties, after the Magnavox decision, I'd forgotten that Kahn sued that time also but the FCC pulled back in a hurry. How old is that man? I've been unable to find anything on the internet but Symetra Peak was in the 50s so he must be getting up there.
 
I was just wondering if the car radios have the "HD scan" to scan both FM and AM band for digital signals would that help? The last rental I had just scaned one band or the other. In my personal experience, when I am driving and my preset(s) fade I use scan to "find" something to listen too. If AM HD could deliver a acceptable fidelity (up to 13 or 14 K) with all the compression for loudness who would notice?

This tread got me thinking about the need for fidelity. Just a personal observation (nothing scientific to back it up): the "ear plugs" worn by a lot of folks not that great fidelity wise. I use to work with a guy who took his mp3 player and use only one of the ear plugs, when he went out on smoke break so he could hear any pages for him. He did this at lunch and when driving too. I asked him about the other "channel" he said it didn't "matter"! A lot of computers's speakers have crappy sound too.
 
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