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Cumulus Surrenders Suburban New York Digital AM(WFAS) - Radio Insight
- Thread starter speer360
- Start date
its going to be damn near impossible there because of NIMBYs and costs. I'd b e shocked if that station has many listeners and is turning a profit.
The first mistake of the FRC/FCC was restricting all AM stations to low powers of 50 kw or less. Along with this, they created super low power local channels (Class IV) of 250 watts day and night as well as very limited (up to only 5 kw) "regional" channels. Much of the limitation came from political influencers who did not want to have super-powerful radio stations influencing large regions.
The next failure was the licensing of daytime only stations. Before FM, they could give some secondary service, but the profusion of FMs made them nearly useless. Fortunately, Canada only granted a few and the Mexican interpretation was "6 AM to 7 PM" all year long. I don't think there are any daytimers anywhere else in the world.
And today, a huge percentage of AMs are on the air only to justify a translator. I'd bet that, were it allowed, about 1000 AMs would go off the air in a few days if translators were allowed stand-alone status and license permanency.
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I'd love to see an opinion by Scott Fybush or other expert who understands the legal, technical and operational aspects of radio as to how many AM's with translators would turn off the AM were it allowed.
Having a translator hasn't been enough to keep local programming on WCTC. I bet that's true for a lot of low power AMs. Especially in suburban towns within earshot of big city radio.
The bigger issue with stations like these is the collapse of retail in those suburban and near-urban areas have made those stations non-viable economically. This is an economic issue as much as a technical one.
But going directly to the stations themselves: a lot depends on the translator's facility. There are translators in Albuquerque, a Top 100 market, that are doing quite well due to the antenna height, for example. There are many other examples of translators at 500 feet or more that are doing quite well.
My first FM, in a market of over a million, ran happily at #2 in Upper S/E level listening at 250 watts... but at over 1000 feet. Later, we moved to 2800 feet and did not increase power.
Yes, there are some translators that are limited to poor heights which even cover less than the supporting AM. But many are as good as of better than their sister AM.
I’ve always wondered about this myself. I’m assuming that this dates back to the efforts by the FRC in 1927 to clean up what had been a chaotic standard broadcast band: hence the multiple share-time agreements in the days before effective directional antennas and the relegation of some stations to daytime-only or limited-time-only status. But I’ve never seen an explanation of the logic or the criteria used to pick which stations got stuck with less than full time facilities. Nor have I seen an explanation for the rationale of allowing new daytimers to come on the air well after that clean-up period was over. Any ideas?
The concept of a daytimer is unknown in Europe, but medium wave there, except for Spain and later the U.K., was mostly for governmental use with a relatively small number of stations. So a comparison is difficult.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Most of the good coverage translators are up on Sandia Crest, alongside full-power FMs and the market's TV stations. From there, the maximum allowed 250w ERP covers the major population center of Albuquerque with no problems. Given that most of the rest of the market is very lightly populated (unless you count the cacti) the average signal strength is fine.
The best of the Sandia translators were engineered by Don Davis, the guy whose stations I consult in ABQ, so I know a lot about them.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I think I can answer the second part of that: Given that AM has never had an allocation table per se with frequencies assigned to communities, it was left to the applicant to propose facilities that would not cause interference to already-licensed stations. If someone was proposing to serve a community with little or no existing service, and no frequency was available that would not cause nighttime interference at the then-lowest TPO of 250 watts, it was either propose a daytimer or not bother.
Most of Europe, including the UK, did not have commercial radio until the 70's or later. The former Soviet block nations did not get it until Gorbachev "tore down that wall" and the economies became more Western.
But Monaco, Andorra, Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg had commercial AMs. Except for Spain and Portugal, the rest were high power and aimed at surrounding areas.
Then there were the pirates... mostly medium wave (what we call "AM") and mostly aimed at England but with exceptions for the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.
Plus a generally hands-off approach by the U.S. government. It was citizen outrage which stopped disastrous projects like Robert Moses' superhighways and the Jersey Jetport, not government regulations. By the 1980s, it was NIMBY which stopped many unneeded, destined-to-fail AM stations from being built, not the FCC.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
While I feel like you are comparing apples to oranges, I do believe your last statement is largely correct, just not for that precise reason.
Land use plans began to promulgate in the 1970s, and there was rarely any undeveloped land in most areas to construct multi-tower arrays to create the directional patterns that would become necessary as the AM band grew more crowded. I think you can call that a "form" of NIMBYism but the reality is that potential new AM applicants were dissuaded from filing their applications ... and no application means nothing for the puvlic to object to.
Another consideration: KRKE's AM is one of the few new daytimers to sign on in recent years, and it was downgraded to 1kw non-directional from 50kw directional two frequencies higher with a five-tower array, simply because going to the expense of acquiring the real estate and constructing that array wasn't worth it ... especially since the AM was only going to exist to be the "originating station" for the FM translator.
Some of the syndicated talk shows that aired on WFAS are now on WLNA 1420 AM (and its 94.3 FM translator) in Peekskill NY. RadioInsight is reporting that Pamal flipped its AM stations in the Hudson Valley from simulcasts of FM music stations to syndicated (primarily conservative) news/talk programming. The article in RadioInsight also states that WLNA and the other Pamal AM stations in the region will be carrying NY Knicks, Rangers and Army football games.
News/Talk on WLNA 1490 AM
News/Talk on WLNA 1490 AM
@fybush reported that in his NERW column yesterday (Monday 10/14). I first found that out a couple of weeks ago when I listened to an aircheck of the Army football game on the Varsity Network app (WGHQ is considered the flagship of Army sports on radio). The addition of Knicks/Rangers coverage is new.
I agree. The output power of the 50 kilowatt clear channels should be doubled at the very least. Time for the daytimers to get shut down. I think another grave mistake were the hyper-directional arrangements that needed 6 to 8 or more towers to keep in check. I think if your station needs more than 4 towers to get the signal shaped right, you probably shouldn't exist in that spot.
That train left the station a long time ago. Nobody's going to fix AM with AM. AM has a demand problem, and a supply solution won't fix it.
Directional AM, in general, was probably a mistake. Daytimers exist because some smaller areas didn't have coverage at all when the sun was up, and the thought was that people would just listen to skywave at night. Bad idea? Probably.
That can only happen if many, many other stations on the same or adjacent channels are closed. As long as they are viable, they will not shut down.
And I doubt many current 50 kw AMs want to go to the expense of a higher power transmitter. It takes four times the power to double the coverage area, so to make any significant difference you would need in excess of 200 kw.
A good example is 250 kw XEW in Mexico City. It's now a 0.2 or 0.3 share of audience station, and they reduced power to, reportedly, 60 kw. That is all they need to cover as radio does not get revenue outside its local market any more.
You can't close an ongoing business. Many daytimers are there to support translators.
Why? Those stations made the decision based on economics. Nobody forced them to file for and create the station.
If we look at the first, 620 in Tampa/St Petersburg, we see that a directional system allowed a very good local service in Tampa without harming the coverage of WTMJ in Milwaukee. Directional systems allowed many very viable stations to share channels. Today's issue is that urban sprawl has outgrown those 1930's and 1940's setups.
Actually, many if not most original daytimers were set up to add a signal to a larger market where all the fulltime options were gone. Examples would be KOWH in Omaha (the original Top 40 station), 740 in Avalon / Los Angeles, CA, 1190 in New York City.
1010 in New York was not a mistake.
Or ones like KHJ in LA, WCFL in Chicago, and nearly every AM in San Juan, PR, just to give a few examples. A huge percentage of AMs that are not on the old Class IV channels are directional. Many large markets would not have more than one or two stations were it not for directional patterns; an example is Cleveland, OH.
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