How Boston AM's will either go silent, or already are?

[Least]

I get that. How about the rest of my post?

That was my whole point! What does someone put on AM to grow an audience?

"I think programming is the biggest issue. There has been little to attract anyone to AM in years. Now "it sounds like FM." Ok? So how do we attract listeners who can pick it up? How do we attract listeners who can't pick it up to get HD radios that pick up digital AM? Or, do we let AM go? I vote to let it go."

 

[TheBigA]

That was my whole point! What does someone put on AM to grow an audience?

It won't matter. THAT'S the point. As I said: There WAS great programming on AM in the 60s & 70s, but the audience deserted it for FM because it sounded better. That hasn't changed. If fact AM sound quality has gotten worse. It DOESN'T sound like FM. Its obvious that better programming won't change anything unless the audio quality improves. Too many better options. There is NOTHING anyone can put on AM that consumers can't find on a better sounding platform. That's why music disappeared from AM 45 years ago.

 

[raccoonradio]

Though there are some runming oldies or standards and maybe ethnic or religious music.
WMEX, WBMS, WJIB..though some have FM
translators.Still these are oddball exceptions.

A few yrs ago WSNO 1450 Barre VT got an FM
translator and put on top 40 in place of conservative talk, "Vermont's Beat 105.7". Emphasis on the FM, and music on the AM only
to make it happen.

But if anything people CAN hear this music on better sounding FMs (possibly), HD radio, satellite radio, apps like youtube etc. Sounding better...Music still on AM in some cases but other options do exist.

 

[TheBigA]

Though there are some runming oldies or standards and maybe ethnic or religious music.

Have those stations brought mass audiences back to AM? Or the same demographic that listens to talk on AM?

For example, would playing modern rock on an AM attract people in their 20s and 30s to AM? I don't think so. Especially since most of the AMs have very limited signals.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Name me ONE AM HD station in this market?

WBZ-A shut off their HD encoder long ago

There are none left here on AM. WBZ was the last to shut it off.
The five Boston market AM stations that ran HD at some point:

800 WNNW (Lawrence)
1030 WBZ
1090 WILD (very briefly)
1260 WMKI (now WBIX)
1430 WKOX

All Boston market FM stations that ever ran HD still do on their main (HD1) channel as far as I know (though a few no longer run subchannels), with one exception. 92.5 WXRV briefly ran HD some years ago, but dropped it.

 

[raccoonradio]

As far as massive audiences go WRKO and WBZ AM do pretty well but most stations are niche followings including oldies, religious, foreign language.
The only sports station left on local AM is WEEI 850 which draws minuscule ratings running ESPN. WJIB may do fairly well with its niche audience but it's an unusual operation being
listener funded instead of commercial (even if licensed as commercial). WMEX may not necessarily subscribe to ratings and may get a lot of older listeners but it's still a niche format.
But FM is still the preferred band. MEX may get an FM translator; WJIB has one with a half decent reach but both can only cover limited areas. WRCA 1330's translator at 106.1 has very good coverage and a prime location.

That fun Red Sox game last night was on 93.7.
For years the likes of 850 ran the Sox but the station migrated to FM in 2011, after 2 years of losing listeners to 98.5. The Sox championship teams of 04 and 07 had their games on AM.
Entercom was probably pretty happy making money with an AM sports station despite signal problems to the west at night. It took a challenge from an FM station to get them to move but despite taking its lumps in the ratings, they probably are a good earner for what is now Audacy, on the FM dial. Mike 93.7 was probably cost effective and made some money but had to be sacrificed to put WEEI on FM.

 

[raccoonradio]

HD radio's website isn't totally accurate as usual when it comes to local listings.They still list 800 and 1430 as being on HD (not so), and the listing for 1430 is for the former Mia format. WZLX's HD3 is still listed as being K-Love but that recently changed to Talk 1200. They do correctly list WKAF with Rumba now.
105.7 not doing HD2 at the moment, I believe.

WKVB probably has no HD2, at least none is listed.

 

[Least]

Which

It won't matter. THAT'S the point. As I said: There WAS great programming on AM in the 60s & 70s, but the audience deserted it for FM because it sounded better. That hasn't changed. If fact AM sound quality has gotten worse. It DOESN'T sound like FM. Its obvious that better programming won't change anything unless the audio quality improves. Too many better options. There is NOTHING anyone can put on AM that consumers can't find on a better sounding platform. That's why music disappeared from AM 45 years ago.

Which is a roundabout way of where I was aiming to go. It won't matter. However, this thread is about which AM station will vanish. The point is that AM is DOA, and aside from WBZ and WRKO, there isn't anyone listening.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

105.7 not doing HD2 at the moment, I believe.

WKVB probably has no HD2, at least none is listed.

105.7 WROR has had a blank carrier (signal with no audio) on its HD2 for months, still there.

96.9 WBQT, 97.7 WZRM, and 102.5 WKLB no longer appear to have any subchannels on last I checked recently.

107.3 WKVB had different K-Love programming streams on their HD2 and HD3 last I checked them a few months ago.

 

[jonsmth62]

As one poster mentioned above, it appears that AM is going the way of Shortwave Radio. I think in the end, the cost of maintaining an AM Transmitter and antenna array for many owners is just not cost-efficient. From what I've read on this forum, the maintenance and refurbishment required to re-vitalize an AM Stations antenna and grounding system is very costly and is just to much for many owners to even consider worthwhile. In some cases, selling the land that the AM antenna(s)/grounding arrays are on, is more profitable than trying refurbish the antennas systems. I get the nostalgia of listening to AM radio. It's very cool to DX AM stations, especially at night, which I did when I was a kid, but today I'm afraid AM radio is a dinosaur who's time has sadly come to an end.

 

[raccoonradio]

WROR's blank carrier has said Men From Maine on display which is what they had run in the past. 96.9 had tried another rap-R&B channel on HD2, the Vibe?--it's listed on the HD Radio site.

The whole cost factor is what made WMEX go dark for a time. Daly XL was losing a lot of money and if Ed Perry hadn't come in it would have been deleted. Now it's up to Larry and his
partner to keep it going. The Quincy transmitter costing less than the Waltham one; they're running from the WATD studios, not building their own.
Wasn't one of the selling points of HD radio "makes AM sound like FM and FM sound like CDs"?

 

[TheBigA]

Wasn't one of the selling points of HD radio "makes AM sound like FM and FM sound like CDs"?

That was 20 years ago, and didn't mention that AM HD caused interference problems. That was particularly an issue for WBZ.

Beyond that, then there was the issue of receivers with HD, and even after 20 years, it's not very good.

 

[CTListener]

As one poster mentioned above, it appears that AM is going the way of Shortwave Radio. I think in the end, the cost of maintaining an AM Transmitter and antenna array for many owners is just not cost-efficient. From what I've read on this forum, the maintenance and refurbishment required to re-vitalize an AM Stations antenna and grounding system is very costly and is just to much for many owners to even consider worthwhile. In some cases, selling the land that the AM antenna(s)/grounding arrays are on, is more profitable than trying refurbish the antennas systems. I get the nostalgia of listening to AM radio. It's very cool to DX AM stations, especially at night, which I did when I was a kid, but today I'm afraid AM radio is a dinosaur who's time has sadly come to an end.

The DXer is at best, a non-factor, at worst, a nuisance to operators of AM stations, because advertisers, even national ones, are buying time on terrestrial radio to reach LOCAL listeners. If Honda advertises on WBZ and someone in suburban Washington hears the ad and winds up going to Honda of Silver Spring or Alexandria Honda and buying a car, that's not what the ad on WBZ was purchased to accomplish. Honda spent the money to put its brand top of mind for Boston-area listeners and get them to buy their next car in Burlington or Braintree. AM stations are wasting effort and energy reaching people who don't contribute a cent to their profits, because advertisers only think local and won't pay extra for the DX coverage AM provides. Eventually, they'll all have to move to FM. If no FM frequencies are available, they'll have to throw in the towel. No radio station is too big to fail.

 

[Wimmmex]

AM stations are wasting effort and energy reaching people who don't contribute a cent to their profits,

Not much effort is spent on the DX aspect......it's a natural occurrance.

 

[nowradioguy]

The DXer is at best, a non-factor, at worst, a nuisance to operators of AM stations, because advertisers, even national ones, are buying time on terrestrial radio to reach LOCAL listeners. If Honda advertises on WBZ and someone in suburban Washington hears the ad and winds up going to Honda of Silver Spring or Alexandria Honda and buying a car, that's not what the ad on WBZ was purchased to accomplish. Honda spent the money to put its brand top of mind for Boston-area listeners and get them to buy their next car in Burlington or Braintree. AM stations are wasting effort and energy reaching people who don't contribute a cent to their profits, because advertisers only think local and won't pay extra for the DX coverage AM provides. Eventually, they'll all have to move to FM. If no FM frequencies are available, they'll have to throw in the towel. No radio station is too big to fail.

You sound as if you can't wait for AM to disappear. Other than NPR, news and talk don't do well on FM. There are those who feel the increased audio bandwidth available on FM is not needed for "spoken word".

 

[davideduardo]

Other than NPR, news and talk don't do well on FM. There are those who feel the increased audio bandwidth available on FM is not needed for "spoken word".

Yet stations like WSB, KCBS and KSL, to name just a few, have become much more significant players once they added FM simulcasts to their AM offering.

News and talk do very well on FM when they keep the format relevant.

As more and more cars come without AM radios, the AMs that don't have FM will slowly die.

 

[TheBigA]

News and talk do very well on FM when they keep the format relevant.

We should also point out that sports is a talk format, and it is one of the most dynamic formats on the radio today. WBZ-FM is not only one of the top rated stations in Boston, but it is #1 in demos that are normally held by music stations. This is very different from other forms of talk radio. So sports talk is a very viable format on FM. Thankfully there are things other than politics for people to talk about on the radio.

 

[philsirkin]

Yet stations like WSB, KCBS and KSL, to name just a few, have become much more significant players once they added FM simulcasts to their AM offering.

News and talk do very well on FM when they keep the format relevant.

As more and more cars come without AM radios, the AMs that don't have FM will slowly die.

Perhaps the best example, WTOP wasn't exactly struggling at 1500AM, but was far from dominant.
On FM, they're solid #1 in the market - and the top billing station in America.

 

[JBraddock]

As more and more cars come without AM radios, the AMs that don't have FM will slowly die.

You've mentioned in the recent past that the only cars eliminating AM are a few EVs that have a miniscule market share. Is the trend to remove AM from vehicles spreading?

 

[Retro]

It won't matter. THAT'S the point. As I said: There WAS great programming on AM in the 60s & 70s, but the audience deserted it for FM because it sounded better. That hasn't changed. If fact AM sound quality has gotten worse. It DOESN'T sound like FM. Its obvious that better programming won't change anything unless the audio quality improves. Too many better options. There is NOTHING anyone can put on AM that consumers can't find on a better sounding platform. That's why music disappeared from AM 45 years ago.

I believe that you have forgotten that WRKO was still broadcasting a Top 40 format up to the first 6 months of 1980. Other perrinial stations WHDH and WBZ very slowly dropped music ecentually all together too.