How long will it be before AM radio fades away?

[tothedj]

For anyone in the United States and Canada, we are slowly seeing the demise of AM radio as we know it, many
stations, especially those in larger markets, are suffering from audience losses, and in some places, revenues
have caused many to go silent; could there be any hope to keep this side of the band alive?, I can't see this
taking place, especially with the advent of the internet, and those who are News/Talk outlets itching to move
operations to FM, and with this format one of the top draws right now, it would be economically feasable to
do this, but don't be surprised if more places switch to talk here, and sooner or later moving to FM as a whole.

 

[quadraphonic]

All stations moving to FM would require a lot more stations to go dark silent.
Most areas are FMed out already for anything but a few translators, aren't they?

 

[TheBigA]

As I said in another thread, unless something happens, the band as we know it will begin to disappear in ten years. All that needs to happen are for a few major national talk show hosts to retire. There aren't any major new shows launching on AM that will attract new audiences to the band. Once the current hosts leave, and their audiences leave with them, there will be no reason for those people to continue to listen to AM radio. The boomers are the last generation to grow up with AM, and they'll start to die out in about 10-15 years. So there you have it.

On the FM side, only a handful of music formats will survive as audiences seek narrower and narrower genres. Those music formats won't attract enough of an audience to interest advertisers. So you'll have a handful of major music formats: AC, CHR, Urban, and Country. Rock and alternative will continue to attract smaller audiences. So that will free up frequencies on FM for news, talk, and sports. It's already begun in some markets.

 

[TomT]

While PPM seems to favor music stations over talk, one of the conundrums facing music programmers is the merging or melding of formats. "Classic" examples are the evolution of oldies stations into what are essentially AC stations with a heavy 70's and 80's mix, and AC stations with heavy classic rock elements. Smooth jazz is dying; AOR is mostly gone or morphed into classic rock.

So, in many markets, I agree that we will see the second or third ranked music stations in a given format being converted into FM outlets for news/talk and sports/talk AM stations. However, since these AM stations are usually the most viable signals in that market, they will live on as shadows to their FM offspring.

The other AM's --the second tier talkers, music for the afterlife formats, probably should die. But the group owners whose clusters include these dud AM's will keep them going, even at a loss, for fear that someone might actual use them to compete against them. Then there seems to be an endless supply of preachers waiting to pour money into running (though not necessarily maintaining the physical plant) these zombie AM's.

It may be years before AM fades away.

 

[radiotower40]

This is definitely an interesting question. One that has been discussed a lot over the last 30
or 40 years.

As much as I wish it was not the case, I can't disagree with the folks who say AM is fading.
I also can't disagree with the folks that say AM will be around for some time to come. This
to a great degree can also be the case with FM.

We have a lot more choices now, just look where we are discussing the issues now. We now
have MP3 players, I-Phones, I-Pads, internet streaming, sat. radio, and the list goes on.

All of the things I've talked about have been mentioned as the death null for radio, it hasn't
happened yet. Will they be in the future, I don't think we can say just yet.

I know many will probably disagree with what I'm going to say here, the problem is not just
AM or FM or HD or Clear Channel or Citadel etc. A big problem is also the people that pay
the bills to keep these services going, advertisers.

Without advertising, whether national or local, we would not be having this discussion.
Advertisers want younger numbers, they want the most bang for the buck, who can blame
them? Station owners, whether Mom and Pops, or corporations need to make a profit in
order to keep a station going.

With that being said, we have seen stations become more or less the same format, from
market to market. I mean to say that listening to a Jack or a Kiss or a News/Talk station,
is about the same experience in New York as it is in L.A. When I say that I mean in terms
of presentation and music. There is also voice tracking, which I won't give an opinion on
here, that makes it very possible that you could very well fly from Cleveland to South Bend
and hear the same talent on the same formatted station. Most people probably don't notice
it, yet, some do. When we are talking about the syndicated talkers, most people know their
not local, when it comes to music stations, I know a lot of people think that the host is live
and local to their market.

Now to get back on track, what could we do to get younger people to listen to an AM radio?
If you put on a format such as dance, rap or heavy metal, would they listen to hear music
that was not on the radio elsewhere? Would it work? I believe it could. Would it be easy?
Probably not.

Stations don't want older listeners, because advertisers don't want them. Is this something
that will change as folks are living longer, and there are a great amount of older listeners
that haven't left radio, yet radio has left them. What I mean by that is most cities don't have
a nostalgia station, a lite hits station or a smooth jazz station anymore. Even NPR has pulled
a lot of jazz, blues and classical off their main signals. Talk stations such as WGN in Chicago
are trying to shake off the older demos.

Is there a way to get the advertisers to pay for older audiences? Is there a way to attract teenagers
who barely know what AM radio is, to turn it on?

I know I asked more questions, than I gave answers. I believe these are questions that must be
asked in this situation, and carefully thought thru. Some will say all these questions have been
asked and already answered. To a point they have, however I find a lot of these answers are the
result of over-analyzed research, and not looking at the whole picture.

I will say that these are my opinions, and things that must be looked at, especially in regards
to the AM band.

I sell an EZ Hits format on a small AM station. Is it easy? No it takes a lot of persistence and
hard work. Is it worth it to me? Yes.

Feel free to disagree with what I've said here, so we can discuss it. If you agree with things I've
said, please let me know why.

 

[TheBigA]

I sell an EZ Hits format on a small AM station. Is it easy? No it takes a lot of persistence and
hard work. Is it worth it to me? Yes.

That's interesting...it's rare to find a music format on AM. So how does the station do compared to FM with similar format?

 

[johnbasalla]

Re: Music formats on AM

Radio Disney is basically a music format and many of the affiliates are small to mid sized AM's.
Their target audience is the real young. I hear a number of oldies formats on AM, with, if they are locally programmed, the competition from them coming from the wider and more interesting playlists. They are playing to the music people of their era. Down in the South, aren't there Country Gold stations? I would think there would be a number of those on AM.

As for Dance, Metal, and other youth-based specialty formats, the problem will be the audio quality of AM, I think. That would slow the growth.

 

[Tom Wells]

If there is an app to get the attention of youth, an app to get the FCC to begin enforcing pt 15 unintentional radiator rules,
there is surely a market for AM radios optimized (as in AMAX)... for MUSIC.

Did anyone else hear the AMAX promos in the 90's?

It won't fade away, but there will always be those who wish to bury it.

The same way when I got an 11 year old car in 1977, the naysayers were plentiful and caustic.
Now, they'd all like to have it.

I believe the advantages of AM far outweigh FM. FM is now just as old fashioned as AM, really.

Ask any 10 year old who has always had high speed internet service.

The trick will be to put something cool on that you can only hear on AM, APPEALING to youth,
not repellent.

Then, someone will need to introduce a properly engineered AM radio into the market.
It WILL cost more, and be worth it. The marketing people WILL, as with every other new product, have to figure out
to make people salivate for them.

If they don't there will still be listeners for as long as someone cares to modulate.

People still knit, build boats, and do leathercrafts.
If comercial interests abandon 530-1700, I can't wait to hear what the hobbyists do with it.
It could be very good, volunteer radio.
Even if it's bad, a change from the seamless beige model of radio would be welcome.

 

[landtuna]

It appears to a casual glance that most mobile devices (used by our advertiser-coveted youth) do not even have AM band capability.

I'm guessing the only "youth" listening is at the breakfast table where the kids are stuffing Cheerios while enjoying Radio Disney. Once they graduate to hot cereal they'll be done with AM.

 

[butlerguy03]

It appears to a casual glance that most mobile devices (used by our advertiser-coveted youth) do not even have AM band capability.

I'm guessing the only "youth" listening is at the breakfast table where the kids are stuffing Cheerios while enjoying Radio Disney. Once they graduate to hot cereal they'll be done with AM.

I now teach at a high school fm radio station. We do things "like the real world" (except let go 50% of the staff). When I teach AM waves and the importance of AM in the history of the US and world, I can't even tune in a station inside the building to let them hear an example of modern AM. This would be the first time for many to hear it, but I can't even show them without logging on and streaming an AM signal. That is the best example and reason that AM will fade quickly in the next few years (as boomers begin to age).

I love radio, I love FM...but AM's time has passed. FM's will too if they don't keep up with technology by adding things like live rewind, go all digital like TV and begin requiring more localism. Localism is the only advantage FM currently has over internet and satellite.


Radio Disney would have done better had they aquired higher grade FM signals in major markets. I like it, I hear parents say they like it, and it has helped develop the parent/kid friendly music that is very popular. Never understood why they were OK with AM and poor graded signals in a lot of places.

 

[TheBigA]

Localism is the only advantage FM currently has over internet and satellite.

And it's only an "advantage" if people really want it. Given the growth in internet radio, it's obvious there isn't much value being placed in the localism that currently exists. Ask your students about localism. They'll tell you they don't need local radio because they get their local information from the phone and Twitter. Why? Trusted sources. They trust their friends, not local radio.

 

[butlerguy03]

And it's only an "advantage" if people really want it. Given the growth in internet radio, it's obvious there isn't much value being placed in the localism that currently exists. Ask your students about localism. They'll tell you they don't need local radio because they get their local information from the phone and Twitter. Why? Trusted sources. They trust their friends, not local radio.

True, and this is usually a topic that comes up in our class discussions. I disagree with phone and twitter. Where do they get the originating local information? It has to come from somewhere. Cell phones don't exist anymore...so called "smart phones" are multi-media devices. If you took the "phone" off the phone, most kids wouldn't notice. Yes, internet is huge, facebook is king. So....why not use your station's facebook to become the SOURCE of local information that gets "shared" with all of your P1's friends? Oh wait, that may take money or fresh ideas. CHR's would benefit huge from hiring a couple of high schoolers just to update the PD's on what is cool and what is going on locally that would soon make that station a SOURCE of information.

I can't wait for some sort of truely interactive radio. Not sure how or when it will happen, but someone will find a way to win with modern multi-media. Pandora doesn't score well with the students in my intro classes, and I had to tell them about Slacker! These kids are 14-17.

Using the "we can't compete because they have low attention spns" arguement doesnt work for me. It's just not true. They will pay attention to something that is worthwhile.

 

[TheBigA]

So....why not use your station's facebook to become the SOURCE of local information that gets "shared" with all of your P1's friends? Oh wait, that may take money or fresh ideas.

No, I think if you look, you'll find out most stations have Facebook pages that are updated regularly. And Facebook isn't really a fresh idea anymore.

Maybe not in your market, but the major radio owners understand the power of Facebook, and they've invested money in staffing local Facebook, Twitter, and station home page sites. They're uploading fresh content hourly. I know a lot of DJs that run a more personalized show on Twitter while they're on the air. The Twitter show includes reTweets of interesting information, premieres of new singles, and photos from backstage at local concerts. But it's a chicken and egg thing. If students don't trust or listen to a radio station, what makes that station's Facebook page any different?

CHR's would benefit huge from hiring a couple of high schoolers just to update the PD's on what is cool and what is going on locally that would soon make that station a SOURCE of information.

Talk to your guidance department, and I'm sure that kind of program can be worked out. It's being done in some places right now.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Localism is the only advantage FM currently has over internet and satellite.

And it's only an "advantage" if people really want it. Given the growth in internet radio, it's obvious there isn't much value being placed in the localism that currently exists. Ask your students about localism. They'll tell you they don't need local radio because they get their local information from the phone and Twitter. Why? Trusted sources. They trust their friends, not local radio.

Please cite a single credible study that agrees with you on this. Radio still reaches the ears of over 90% of the audience. You discount localism at every turn, yet a multitude of studies indicate that people want relatable people delivering content targeted toward them and their concerns. In most markets, the leading stations are the ones with the greatest amount of locally-produced programming.

If today's youth doesn't trust radio, it's because there's precious little credible content targeted toward them. We tell them hour after hour, day after day, that any interruption in the music is "bad". So, they turn elsewhere for information. Yet, when there is a disaster, the Internet goes down, and radio becomes a major source of information. People of all ages flock to radio for information, and the band doesn't matter as much as the content.

AM may survive because talk works on AM, and there's no dearth of people with opinions.

 

[TheBigA]

Please cite a single credible study that agrees with you on this.

A USA Today/CNN survy says only 35% of the public trust the media. Then again, that survey is done by the media, so how can we trust it's true?

Radio still reaches the ears of over 90% of the audience.

Yes I know. What percent actually listen? We don't know because PPM doesn't measure that. We just know that it reaches their ears. Not their brains.

If today's youth doesn't trust radio, it's because there's precious little credible content targeted toward them.

Maybe. Yet when people look at what's on their iPods and cell phones, it's the same stuff played on the radio. So its not really the content they don't trust...but the device that conveys it.

Yet, when there is a disaster, the Internet goes down, and radio becomes a major source of information.

When the internet went down in my area, my cell phone service was fine.

 

[TheBigA]

Where do they get the originating local information? It has to come from somewhere.

That's a good question, and I'm glad you're discussing it in high school. I can tell you it's a subject at journalism schools and media conventions as well.

The answer is as diverse as the people themselves. Certainly blogging is having an effect. People trust and believe blogs even though there are no journalistic standards covering them. I just read a poll that showed 20% of the American public believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. Even though it's clearly not true. How could this be? It's a real issue in this country right now. We have a journalism system that is struggling to survive, and a public that distrusts it. They also don't trust their employers or the government. Not much left.

 

[quadraphonic]

It appears to a casual glance that most mobile devices (used by our advertiser-coveted youth) do not even have AM band capability.

I'm guessing the only "youth" listening is at the breakfast table where the kids are stuffing Cheerios while enjoying Radio Disney. Once they graduate to hot cereal they'll be done with AM.

Dude, you gotta be in your 60s to eat hot cereal. ;D

 

[dismuke]

I have a hard time believing that it will simply die completely. What may die is AM radio as we currently recognize it - just as the AM radio of its 1930s and 1940s heyday died with the advent of television.

It may be that existing AM stations lose most of their audiences. But there are towns that only have a few thousand people and historically have been able to support an AM radio station. Go to a big metropolitan area such as Fort Worth/Dallas and there are all sorts of demographically oriented "communities" that have more members than most small towns. Perhaps there there will be AM radio stations seeking to serve immigrant communities that, in the past, were considered too small to have their own local radio station. Heck, in this day and age, there are some huge churches that have weekly attendance that is larger than some small towns which support AM radio stations - maybe such a church will have its own station. And perhaps some politically focused group or organization would be interested in owning a radio station as a means of airing its opinions and motivating its hard core supporters.

There's no shortage of people who could make use of the airwaves and would be willing to do so. The problem for most such people has always been that the very high cost of buying the frequency pretty much limited one's formatting options if one had any hope of earning enough money to pay the cost of acquisition. But to the degree the medium loses popularity, the value of the licenses will continue to fall placing the stations within reach of people who previously could not afford them and more niche oriented uses that were not previously economical.

It is sort of like older shopping centers that have long since fallen out of fashion. The big name merchants that used to occupy such shopping centers move out long ago to larger and newer shopping centers that have been built elsewhere. In some cases, the older shopping centers end up being abandoned and boarded up. But very often they attract a more low rent tenant mix such as discount grocers, rent to own stores, check cashing stores, pawn shops, thrift stores, etc - tenants that could not have afforded or have been allowed in such a shopping center years earlier. In some markets, stations may go dark. But in other, larger markets, I think you will see AM frequencies taken over by more "low rent" type uses.

 

[Tom Wells]

And oh how do I wish one of the multiple foreign language stations in the Chicago were part of a Radio Dismuke network.

No, I'm not 95 years old. Why does this format appeal so much to me? I'm not alone in wishing it were on RADIO, instead of just being a choice for streaming. Instead I have multiple choices of "lite", sports-yap, and a lot of the AM dial sounds
like I must be living in eastern Europe.

We have many "choices" that are the same thing duplicated over and over, that I'm not interested in.

Some other weird abscences around here..(In the CITY of Chicago, meaning NOT the suburbs )

No Dairy Queens, or Tastee Freeze...No Steak-N-Shake.. no REAL donuts shops at all anymore, etc.
One of the reasons I live in Chicago was to be able to avoid ever setting foot in shopping malls or a Wal-Mart.
I still go to Kresge's (K-Mart), because it's not dead yet.
Economics dictates that such choices will not be available, or become less so.



Fortunately this is offset by a great diversity of other choices which are simply not available in suburbs or rural areas.
I enjoy lots of choice in restaurants from many nationalities.

Streaming audio on a computer is a good thing, but it's not radio and never will be.

We could really use a good country station, Radio Dismuke, another big band station for 1930s-1950s music,
another for 1940's-1960s "adult" (read mellow, a la The AVENUE) full time, and another for Rock music from 1950's to the present, another with hard-core fast-n-loud rock from 1960's to the 1990s, but all these don't exist.

Or even one station or two station which divided up some of the above choices.

I guess I can't wait for AM to die so it can come back as a low-rent neighborhood with choices I care about.
I supply a good mix of what I suggest above on my pt 15, and it can be heard by several thousand witihin the half mile
it covers. Now if only I had a whole WATT to play with, it could be tens of thousands.
Easy for naysayers to suggest no one hears it, but with most of the AM being all talk, anyone who tunes a dial and hears music will stop for moment to hear what's going on there.

Best of luck to you Dismuke, and when "my ship comes in", I will be contacting you to become
an outlet for Radio Dismuke on the air.

 

[TVradioguru]

There's no shortage of people who could make use of the airwaves and would be willing to do so. The problem for most such people has always been that the very high cost of buying the frequency pretty much limited one's formatting options if one had any hope of earning enough money to pay the cost of acquisition. But to the degree the medium loses popularity, the value of the licenses will continue to fall placing the stations within reach of people who previously could not afford them and more niche oriented uses that were not previously economical.

Your concept isn't new, it's currently barely breathing on life support in dwindling numbers known as LPFM. LPFM was established, among other things, to allow local communities their own local media voice. Many have gone silent, while those which remain, are generally funded by various nationwide religious broadcasters as translators of sorts, licensed with a local church acting as a 'strawman'.

AM radio is not only poor quality for various technical reasons, but in order to provide relevant coverage to a community, the most expensive to construct and operate. The point being; if LPFM isn't making it, AM wouldn't stand a chance.