Did "FM" kill AM radio?

[Gatekeeper007]

I remember when I was down in Florida back in the 70's everything south of Ft Lauderdale had to listen to AM if they wanted to hear country music. I hated AM with a passion no stereo sound and all that static from electrical noise drove crazy. I will say my favorite AM station was WGMA 1320 in Hollywood but I felt like second class due to WIRK FM up in West Palm Beach with it's better quality sound. Needless to say I tried to convince a couple of the smaller FM's to go country, all they did was laugh and tell me everything from country music didn't have sound good enough for FM to that country music would never be anything that would make any money it's for poor people. Well I guess time has painted a picture in the face of those radio experts, I gave up on them in 1979 and for me I was never so glad to leave an area and I dought I could be objective on both AM and FM's positions on the dial ever again.

 

[davideduardo]

People will tune to wherever what they want is located.

No, they won't. The many, many cases of AM talkers that have moved to FM prove this. WIBC in Indy was not even top 10 in 25-54 as an AM. They moved format to FM, intact. They went into the top 5 25 54 with the same exact format. The under-55's would just not listen to AM.

If they want a baseball game and it's only on AM, that's where they'll go.

Except for a very few teams and markets, sports does not have the ability to get the under-35 demos onto AM... and a limited ability to get 35-44's there.

And even that is assuming that there is an AM that covers the market in question. Most US markets only have one or two full coverage AMs by day and by night. Some have none. And the man made noise from CFLs and computers and such is so bad that it takes 15 mV/m to be listenable in many larger cities.

I've long thought that if you're going to put live sporting events on FM they should be broadcast in stereo if at all possible.

Most FM listening is not in stereo. It does not matter. It's not that FM sounds so good... it's that AM sounds soooooooooo bad.