Evangelicals will continue to use FM to spread their message until there's no one left to convert.
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AM Radio is dying
- Thread starter Ronnie Milsoup
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Crap, I remember those binders to put 45s in
I think, should over-the-air broadcasting go completely the way of the dodo bird, society might regret it.
Dealing with the FCC is one thing if you're a programmer. If XfinitySpectrumAT&TCast, or Elon Musk, controls all audio content, it may actually not be the best thing.
Adding to the etymological information at Wikipedia, the -io suffix is used in many languages to create nouns (or new nouns) from non-noun roots, in this case from a verb like "radiate" or a noun like "radius." Obviously, new nouns would be desired when existing ones like "radiation" had negative loadings (Röntgen/Curie) or were in such generalized use that your use could never overshadow the existing ones' definitions. But the -io suffix also connotes a cute, feminine tense to the nouns it creates, and there was a period around the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was in vogue for coining and christening new things. Undoubtedly that's how Mercadier came up with radio before suggesting it to Bell. (-lux was another suffix commonly applied to tons of stuff back then ... I guess to imply luxury and premium grade.)
I was just about to finish the paragraph above by thinking outloud that someone back then should've sold premium radio receiver equipment by suffixing the -io suffix and calling it "radiolux." Sure enough, Google revealed that someone then, in fact, had that same thought. https://hifihaven.org/index.php?threads/amplion-radiolux.10218/
Then radio will die the way it was born -- with another Reginald Fessenden broadcasting "Oh, Holy Night" and reading passages from the bible.
And what's wrong with doo wop and standards?
This doesn't sound good. In order to listen for the names of the DJs, I started listening to a station and the manager of the station was listing upcoming sports events. He said if you're going to the game, get the app on your phone and you can listen to the game. He didn't say bring your radio. That's a game the AM station (and its translator) is airing.
Sometimes the sporting events are out of town and outside the range of the station. And people don't want to carry a radio with them. We promote the app too, because it doesn't cost us listeners but bolsters the number of listeners because without the app, that game 60 miles away that we are carrying is beyond our coverage area. In the reality of all of this, it's listening that matters because those listeners are the ones that will spend dollars with our advertisers. So, in our mind, it doesn't matter if they listen on the app or the radio so long as we reach them with our advertiser's message.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I am going to remember that the next time someone argues for more deregulation, and then add the old quote from Aesop: "Be careful what you wish for, or you might get it."
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I thought of the possibility that it was a road game, but how far away would people travel to attend the game?
I think the lack of airplay would give you an indication of what most people think about both genres.
Welcome to the 21st Century, already in progress.
I'm inclined to agree with you on FM radio lasting -- in a way, I think that radio is kind of the cockroach of media, able to survive almost anything in some form.
That said, it might not survive in a form that looks like the sort of radio stations that many of us grew up with, or even in the somewhat gutted version that is hanging on today. But it won't disappear, either.
Terrestrial radio as we know it today, once it is no longer commercially viable in any form, will probably become mostly dead like shortwave is now, with the few remaining stations being some combination of hobbyists, state-run propaganda, and religious somethingorothers catering to the dozen or so who would still bother to listen, if for no other reason but to satisfy their curiosity for the way things were.
Aside from that, the masses won't care because nobody will have AM/FM radios, not even in their cars*
*I expect that the auto makers will eventually stop shipping cars with any kind of AM/FM radio; Ford, for example, has already demonstrated a willingness to try removing AM (FM undoubtedly wouldn't have been far behind, had they been successful) but contrary to their research that suggested AM wouldn't be missed, broadcasters, the NAB, and even Congress voiced strong opposition to Ford's plan, so Ford reversed course. Whether and when Ford or any other maker will try something similar is anyone's guess, but for better or worse, it is inevitable.
c
Aside from that, the masses won't care because nobody will have AM/FM radios, not even in their cars*
*I expect that the auto makers will eventually stop shipping cars with any kind of AM/FM radio; Ford, for example, has already demonstrated a willingness to try removing AM (FM undoubtedly wouldn't have been far behind, had they been successful) but contrary to their research that suggested AM wouldn't be missed, broadcasters, the NAB, and even Congress voiced strong opposition to Ford's plan, so Ford reversed course. Whether and when Ford or any other maker will try something similar is anyone's guess, but for better or worse, it is inevitable.
c
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As WISN has its best book since 1969...
For a station with no analog FM simulcast, getting a 14.1 is mind boggling. How is this happening? Do people in Milwaukee just hate music?
IMHO, AM and FM receivers in vehicles should be part of the baseline of safety equipment. An IC could be developed to include a noise blanker for AM (and maybe some sort of AI directed variable audio bandwidth for AM too) and a stereo to mono blend for weak FM signals. 1 inexpensive IC, which could be used in all vehicles.
"...radio is kind of the cockroach of media..." (I like that)
Kirk Bayne
"...radio is kind of the cockroach of media..." (I like that)
Kirk Bayne
That is in “share”. But the actual number of average listeners is about 70% lower than it was two decades ago.
No, but the younger music listeners have left, leaving the talk stations with a bigger share of the smaller total number of radio listeners.For a station with no analog FM simulcast, getting a 14.1 is mind boggling. How is this happening? Do people in Milwaukee just hate music?
20-25 years, maybe. Once the ad revenue drops even further -- and it probably will -- and streaming becomes THE defacto audio entertainment and information source (hello, younger Millennials and Zoomers!), the ROI for maintaining and keeping the FM infrastructure alive won't be there. The oldest Zoomers will be in their 40's in 20 years. Do they listen to FM radio now? Will they listen to FM radio then?
All one has to do is look at SW. It took a long, long time to die. There are still signals out there, years after it became irrelevant as an international broadcast medium. But there are still some SW stations on the airwaves. The bands are mostly empty, but there is still some activity. AM will probably be like that in 15-20 years, but FM will probably have a steeper, quicker drop when it declines, whenever that occurs. If you have no listeners to your OTA signal, you have no revenue. And if your OTA signal is a liability to the combined streaming/OTA station's bottom line, the OTA is going to have the plug pulled.
It's that simple.
The holdouts, both on FM and AM, will be religious and maybe some ethnic broadcasters, and maybe some public radio stations in rural areas where cell service is spotty due to terrain. They may survive a while. Of course, that depends on whether people will still have 'radios'.
All these are guesses, but I think the writing is on the wall.
So, then, *all* of radio is dying, is what you're saying? Seems to me WISN is at least going down swinging.
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