But we are about 4,715 stations away from that right now. 80 of those are silent at the moment, many in towns too small to support local media.
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But we are about 4,715 stations away from that right now. 80 of those are silent at the moment, many in towns too small to support local media.
A
Avid Listener
Guest
Big freakin' deal. We're at point A. We're moving towards point B. The pace of movement started out slow, but is starting to accelerate. Keep your head buried in the current quarter's results. You can point out what it at point A all you want. The descent to point B is inevitable, even if you refuse to believe it. Time will prove who was right about Amplitude Modulated broadcast radio withering away to almost nothing.
You don't need to do one of your famous "holier than thou" lectures. I have been posting here for years before you arrived about the decline in AM listening to the point that most of it (save the religious, sports, and ethnic options) is now concentrated in the 45+ and even 55+ demographics.
But there is still plenty of time for AM stations to make money. If there is no debt or low debt service, we can treat them as MLP type investments. An MLP (Master Limited Partnership) is a form of ownership often used for depletable resources where each year the underlying assets are worth less but the return on investment is still good based on a high ROI each year.
In other words, keep in mind that AM stations will have a declining value but as long as they produce cash flows, can be a valuable part of a company portfolio.
Anecdotally, my first AM, which I built in 1964, HCRM1, would be 50 years old next Friday. I say "would" because it is no longer on the air. Like nearly half of the AM's in its market, it went off the air in the last decade as FM took over virtually 100% of the listening. And my first FM, which was the first FM for 1000 miles around, went on the air 48 years ago and is still operating most successfully. So you can see I hedged my AM bet half a century ago, because I did see some of the changes that were coming.
HMMM David, you been teaching at CC/iHeart and Cumeless??? LOL.....
(could NOT pass that one up!)
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
If AM eventually dies, it will be because the listeners do not like the formats offered enough to support the stations advertising revenue.
The history of AM's decline had nothing to do with formats.
But then how will people who don't like the political bent of the hosts on the AM stations and the people who still think AM is viable for music have something to complain about?
R
Rebel Rouser
Guest
That will NEVER happen! The Federal Government is broke, and each year, they make all TV and Radio Stations pay a "Regulatory Fee", which is a "Tax" that started when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act was signed in 1996. You have made the stupidest statement anybody that has made! The Feds would loose millions of dollars if that was to happen. Just look at the debt the Feds are in. They don't want stations going dark. In addition, if a person or corporation just has a Construction Permit and the station is dark, the licensee still has to pay a Regulatory Fee.
I know of a few off the top off my head, "Class D" daytime stations that run 50,000 watts during the day and go off at night. The fee is based upon coverage and population in the signal. AM will be around in the United States for several decades to come. The FCC IS NOT going to set a date and all Class D and Class C stations to go off the air. Even in Canada, AM is still important.
People in the sparsely rural area depend on their local AM Station to this day! Once again, you want the Federal Government to make it harder on us taxpayers by shutting off AM Stations? You must know nothing that goes on in Washington! Even Obama would be dead set against that happening!
BTW: Yes, there are still many AM "Class D" Stations that have very low power at night. I have heard 3 to 7 watts cover a small town with a decent signal!
Obama has spoke about this, and he said we need to keep all the AM Stations on the air we have, no matter the class, all the way down to a 250 watt daytimer!
I know of a few off the top off my head, "Class D" daytime stations that run 50,000 watts during the day and go off at night. The fee is based upon coverage and population in the signal. AM will be around in the United States for several decades to come. The FCC IS NOT going to set a date and all Class D and Class C stations to go off the air. Even in Canada, AM is still important.
People in the sparsely rural area depend on their local AM Station to this day! Once again, you want the Federal Government to make it harder on us taxpayers by shutting off AM Stations? You must know nothing that goes on in Washington! Even Obama would be dead set against that happening!
BTW: Yes, there are still many AM "Class D" Stations that have very low power at night. I have heard 3 to 7 watts cover a small town with a decent signal!
Obama has spoke about this, and he said we need to keep all the AM Stations on the air we have, no matter the class, all the way down to a 250 watt daytimer!
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Back in the 70s the switch of listeners to FM was primarily based upon radios having FM and the formats being duplicated or evolving from AM that were compelling enough to pull in listeners looking for a cleaner sound and obviously in many cases a signal that reached 40-80 miles. Prior to the rock formats rolling onto FM, most FM stations were kinda one step above educational (classical, beautiful music, etc.) right? Now there is just not enough interesting mass appeal stations on AM to get folks to flip over and satellite radio has all but given AM last rites. DE and BA, feel free to correct me on this, because I have never really been around AMs that were stand alone stations or formats since like 1980 or before, so I don't remember a damn thing.
Though not widely adopted by broadcasters and listeners alike, there IS stereo AM radio. I owned one car that had an AM stereo receiver and it had a GREAT SOUND... not like tinny crap.
Apparently the consumers were willing to shell out a few extra dollars for FM stereo receivers.... but never got the itch for shelling out for AM stereo.
If you stumbled across a station broadcasting AM stereo today and you liked what they were doing, you might have to go to an auto salvage yard to find a good receiver at a reasonable price.
A
Avid Listener
Guest
Yeah, there was a lame attempt at creating AM Stereo. It failed in the marketplace. Even though it had two channels, the very, very few people I've talked to who ever heard it said it still sounded as bad as any other AM broadcast, including static and lack of fidelity. It just had two channels of bad sound instead of just one. At the time it came out, in the city where I lived, the only station broadcasting AM stereo had a boring, lackluster music format. At the time, there were lots of good FM stations that not only had left and right channels, they also sounded good and they played music worth listening to.
What's the point of even mentioning the failed attempt to introduce AM stereo several decades ago? That's like pointing out that a revival of Betamax might bring about a return of VCRs.
And seriously, what do you think the chances are of stumbling across an AM stereo station that plays a compelling collection of music?
I had 2 AM stereo radios at one point. A home tuner and a walkman. Both had a noticeable increase in fidelity, but in my opinion the bass wasn't quite as loud as a conventional AM radio. The separation was a lot better than FM stereo. I was fortunate enough to hear a lot of Canadian top 40 rockers, oldies and classic rock station in AM stereo. It really was night and day. The only person who ever told me that he didn't like the sound was a salesman who just hated AM radio. If it wasn't progressive rock FM. he wasn't interested...and as a teenage boy I sure wasn't interested in dad rock fm stations that played steely dan album cuts. I wanted the latest hits, and alternative rock...both of which were available to me on AM.
The big change came when the FCC mandated that most AM-FM simulcasts had to end. That was in January of 1967. The existing cash cow AM stations did not want to do anything that would hurt the AM revenue, so they picked formats that did not encroach on the big AM formats. These tended to be album rock and Beautiful Music, and later grew to include pure oldies and more mainstream formats.
In all markets, there were more stations on FM with total market coverage than there were AMs. So in most areas, folks in suburbs went to FM because the signal was much better.
So you had better coverage plus different formats. Then the owners of independent station began putting Top 40 and AC and Country on FM and they further undermined AM, so by '77 FM had more listening than AM.
The quality of sound "sealed the deal" but was secondary to better signals and more formats.
The attempt was not lame, it was just too late. Wrangling and legal actions among the five companies that each hoped to have their systems approved delayed the introduction of AM stereo beyond the time when AM still had a music audience. Any chance that AM could hold its existing audience by achieving parity with FM sound-wise was lost in the roughly five years of litigation.
CQuam AM stereo sounds better than monaural AM, with considerably better fidelity. Plus it has two channels for stereo. Had it been allowed in '77 rather than well into the 80's, the AMs with big signals could have effectively competed with FM. On such a station with a widebanded antenna or antenna system, there is not that great a difference in sound and AM is free of multipath and other FM artifacts (static on AM is mostly limited to weak signal areas).
You do admit that you did not hear it, so you are taking inaccurate second hand opinions as fact. Those opinions are wrong. You correctly identify the marketplace as having determined the fate of AM stereo, but for the wrong reasons.
Nobody said it did. A question was asked by Tibbs and I replied. If you are not interested in history, then skip the post.
A
Avid Listener
Guest
BFD. That was then, this is now. Whatever happened then is water under the bridge. It's too late for any new technology to save AM, so whatever the details were about AM stereo decades ago, they are moot now.
The fact that AM broadcasting has lasted this long before declining is pretty amazing. One of the original pioneers of broadcasting, Edwin Armstrong, predicted and lobbied to move away from AM back in 1933. In 1933 Armstrong took out four patents on FM and presented David Sarnoff and RCA with his invention, hopeful that his friend would take the lead in promoting the revolutionary new medium. That same month RCA announced its allocation of $1,000,000 for television tests.” TV was the new rage; nothing more about FM was forthcoming from RCA for another four years. Armstrong was angry over being induced to waste his time by a company that had no interest in developing his invention.
Determined to show the value of FM, Armstrong asked the FCC for spectrum space for further FM experiments and sought permission to build his own station. At hearings in 1936, Sarnoff confirmed Armstrong’s suspicions. He testified against allocating space to FM and urged that it be given to television instead. The company stood to keep a greater share of any profits to be made from television than from FM radio. Moreover, since it was a vastly superior radio service, FM represented a threat to established AM operations—in which RCA, as the parent company of the NBC network, had made great investments.
Regarding the use of VLF or HF for communicating with submarines? You do realize the baud rate that is used for VLF is something like 5-baud. Anymore subs release a satellite communication buoy for timely messages. Therein is another problem with using VLF, HF, or MW for digital communications. Beside the propagation, terrestrial (impulse) noise, and the amount of power required for long distance communication, we're talking Hertz or Kilohertz here folks. Modulated bandwidth capabilities just aren't up to modern needs.
Determined to show the value of FM, Armstrong asked the FCC for spectrum space for further FM experiments and sought permission to build his own station. At hearings in 1936, Sarnoff confirmed Armstrong’s suspicions. He testified against allocating space to FM and urged that it be given to television instead. The company stood to keep a greater share of any profits to be made from television than from FM radio. Moreover, since it was a vastly superior radio service, FM represented a threat to established AM operations—in which RCA, as the parent company of the NBC network, had made great investments.
Regarding the use of VLF or HF for communicating with submarines? You do realize the baud rate that is used for VLF is something like 5-baud. Anymore subs release a satellite communication buoy for timely messages. Therein is another problem with using VLF, HF, or MW for digital communications. Beside the propagation, terrestrial (impulse) noise, and the amount of power required for long distance communication, we're talking Hertz or Kilohertz here folks. Modulated bandwidth capabilities just aren't up to modern needs.
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In other words, when presented with the facts, you find you were wrongly informed and you dismiss the subject which you posted about.
A
Avid Listener
Guest
No, when presented with irrelvant facts that have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject at hand, that are merely pedantic distractions that mean nothing in terms of the discussion taking place, I treat them as the irrelevant trivialities that they are. Not a damn thing about what might have happened several decades ago regarding possibly, maybe taking AM radio on a different course from what it is on today, in 2014, means a damn thing about what is likely to happen to the entire AM broadcast band in the future.
Can I assume the following extensions of your system of logic and facts?
1. What happened in Palestine 2,000 years ago is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction when what is likely to happen in life today.
2. What happened because of the Columbus voyage in 1492 is irrelevant today and need not understand what happened.
3. What happened in Philadelphia in the late 1700s is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction to understand how politics works today.
4. What happened socially and economically in the late 1800s in this country (The Gilded Age) is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction to understand how our economy works today.
I think the list is already overly long... but can you image how long such a list of examples could become?
Broadcasting always needs some innovators and creativity people who are not bogged down with remembering the past. But they need to be teamed up with some innovators and creativity people who have their feet planted in concrete of the decades gone by.
1. What happened in Palestine 2,000 years ago is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction when what is likely to happen in life today.
2. What happened because of the Columbus voyage in 1492 is irrelevant today and need not understand what happened.
3. What happened in Philadelphia in the late 1700s is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction to understand how politics works today.
4. What happened socially and economically in the late 1800s in this country (The Gilded Age) is irrelevant today and is a pedantic distraction to understand how our economy works today.
I think the list is already overly long... but can you image how long such a list of examples could become?
Broadcasting always needs some innovators and creativity people who are not bogged down with remembering the past. But they need to be teamed up with some innovators and creativity people who have their feet planted in concrete of the decades gone by.
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