Is AM dead?

[Tom Wells]

And since biblical days, ownership has been nothing more than an illusion, or a temporary condition.

To use the phrase as used by Albert Einstein, an annoyingly persistant illusion.

When we get past such a divisive concept as "owning", we'll have progress.

"Values" are not of any standardized dimension in this dimension, so I must assume you mean only lucre,
or monetization capacity.

When you want to discuss the values of radio as regards bringing enjoyment, growth, empowerment, or education,
you won't be keeping your eye on the ball for lucre anymore.

And that would be real progress.

I admit money has historically been a "somewhat" useful trading medium of "value" within humanity, but altogether
too corruptible to continue as a meaningful or respected measure of worth,
especially within a medium of no *actual material substance*, as radio.
(TV has pictures and is easier to imagine as having substance. )

Supposing original oil paintings became illegal to own privately, or whatever "artistic indulgence".
A supposed death of AM mediumwave would be similar.
No, that's not quite right because you're right, Big A, it IS like air, and we all alive "own" it as a commons resource,
that "common sense" would not allow us to begin to think we own it.

So shall we now figure out how to make breathing one of the charge-able occurances in life?

It's a big market, allright, Makes you want to pollute so you can sell fresh air, no?

 

[davideduardo]

Neither can you own physical resources or things, you are given the use of them for but a short time.

That is not true. For example, if you are granted the petroleum rights to a piece of government land, you make a payment of some kind and use your money to, hopefully, extract oil. That oil, to the extent you find any, is yours to sell and profit from. Yours, as in "you own it."

The fact that, if you misbehave and spill oil or damage the environment, you can have that property right revoked is no different than the police empounding "your" car if you use it to commit a felony.

Same thing with radio: you are granted a license, and you get to keep any money you make running the station that the license covers. You stay out of trouble, you keep on getting the money.

"Ownership" concepts lead eventually to the situation we currently enjoy, where debt slavery is all that matters anymore.

Changes in productivity such as a recession, and the inability to pay debts, have been part of most recessions and depressions throughout history. Except for war and plague, these are the root causes of all economic blips.

There are many wrangling steps of competition, profit and market control that led radio into the mess.

Radio was handed a triple whammy in the form of revenue stagnation followed by a recession followed by the Internet. That sequence of events, unpredictable both individually and collectively, hit what was a very successful business model extending well beyond the years surrounding consolidation and debt acquisition.

But 50,000 watts is only 47 horsepower.
Most grocery stores have more refrigerating capacity than that.

So now you are comparing electromagnetic radiation with refrigerator compressors? I fail to get the point.

If radio (and the rest of the world) weren't "at gunpoint" to serve the debt note, there could be whole different world.

And you don't think that the Paley family borrowed money to finance the purchase of the rudiments of CBS? And to buy out the other partners eventually?

Did I get around to sayiing bad things about the bankers yet?

Unless I missed the renaming of this board to bank-info.com, you will need to go elsewhere to continue in your adaptation of the Eugene Debs routine.

 

[MickeyD]

AM will become a 'hit' after we are hit with EMP.

Get out the blue blade razor, a safety pin, some wire and a headphone. Find a buried pipe close to a tree and listen to the feds... oh wait; no FEMA, they'll be digging their own latrines, too.

Yes providing the station has their own power source and a tube transmitter and the listeners do too.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Tom: It is interesting to watch as various participants in this thread try to picture what are the forces that are in play as we analyze and maybe lobby for changes as to how the broadcast spectrum is regulated (or de-regulated if you please).

Who is going to fight to achieve the status for broadcasting you are asking for? The business and investment community has exerted influence to bring the regulatory status to where it is today. (Which you don't like.)

You have used the unique word "lucre" which is a word that most of us would not have in our vocabulary if it were not for the clergymen who have found it a useful word for their goals and aspirations... as in making lucre a pejorative word. But I don't think you can count on the preachers and the churches to come and rescue broadcasting and return it to the utopian concepts of the rules of the 1930s and the 1940s. You see the church people have encumbered or mortgaged their influence and vote to the very investment crowd that has brought radio to a place you find offensive.

And what did the church people get in return for their mortgaged influence? We have this "Mother of all Political Fights" now going on in Congress and state legislatures over who owns the vagina of my grand daughter. But it is a two-way mortgage. The investor class who usually would be expected to lobby that "we don't want government between the patient and the doctor" have agreed to give the church people what they want: State ownership of all vaginas and the power to put a government-designated doctor and a bureaucrat between a woman and her own precious parts.

So who in this whacked-out 21st Century version of civilization is going to lay awake at night figuring out some way to give AM broadcasting the status that you visualize.

I think I want to own an old-style clickety-clack keyboard for my computer, but retailers tend not to stock them, and certainly won't put one out on the shelf for me to touch, to feel, to type on. Surely that is some kind of perversion of what I should expect from the FCC. After all, I'm use my keyboard to communicate on the Internet and they seem to think they own the right to regulate the Internet.

I want the cellular phone industry to add to their phones I can choose from a senior-citizen friendly phone that is simple and has big keys... like the Jitterbug. But I want to use that phone on the network my other phones are on and enjoy family-plan pricing. Surely the FCC should tell ATT and Verizon and others they have to serve the public and offer phones with big keys if they want them. Who cares if they can make a profit doin so.... Right?

If we are dependent on the FCC to make the world safe from evil practices, some of us "ain't gonna git" what we want. And that includes AM radios unfortunately.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

Recent quote "But 50,000 watts is only 47 horsepower". Shouldn't that be 67 horsepower? Seems like I recall a conversion of 746 watts per hp. And AM isn't dead yet, but it's dying more each day.

 

[TimeIsTight]

Gentlemen, I think that when somebody's granddaughter's vagina becomes part of the discussion on a "Radio Business" board, things have gone way too far "off topic." In an attempt to bring things back to a discussion of AM radio, I wonder what you're thoughts on this are:

If we had fresh spectrum to start a new broadcasting service how would you set up the business model to avoid what you see as problems with the current system?

Example: rather than allowing private ownership of a broadcast license, what about only allowing leases of the frequency with the federal government as landlord. Some broadcast companies now prefer LMA arrangements from private license holders so this is not a wild idea.

What has happened in radio, especially in the last 20-years, is that there was a feeding frenzy for station licenses after deregulation in 1996 as speculators were able to flip licenses in short periods at huge gains, where before they had to hold the licenses for a number of years before selling again. That resulted in a bubble in station prices, a huge amount of debt, and cost cutting to pay the debt. The losers were the listening public who got less live and local radio services, and all the radio employees who were automated, clustered, and networked out of the business.

Leasing the frequencies for a fixed period would not only eliminate those station price ups and downs, but would keep the money generated by radio, working for the benefit of listeners and tax payers. What happened with the license ownership model is the former mom-and-pop owners, and some speculators who followed them, made huge gains that they took away from radio. And they left the station licenses in the hands of new owners, often heavily leveraged, who were forced to do things on the cheap to the detriment of the listening public, and the local economies, because station profits and salaries previously would stay in the local markets instead of being shipped off to corporate headquarters. And ultimately we have this pattern of station-owner bankruptcies where debt is being written off at the expense of investors, tax payers and the US treasury.

Also, if station license leases were renewed every X-years, operators who weren't serving the market to a maximum could exit without great loss, and there would always be space for new players, new formats, and overall new ideas and adjustments to changes in population and public taste and preferences.

So, if we were starting AM MW all over again, possibly with digital transmission or narrow band FM, what kind of business model would work best for listeners, employees, taxpayers, and the owners or operators of the stations?

 

[TheBigA]

Example: rather than allowing private ownership of a broadcast license, what about only allowing leases of the frequency with the federal government as landlord.

The federal government is prohibited from owning a broadcast license. And I'd imagine politicians on both sides of the aisle would have reason to object to giving them that ownership, regardless of who operates the stations.

The biggest problem with "fresh spectrum" is that the general public would have to buy new radios to receive it, and they've demonstrated that they are, for the most part, satisfied with the service they get from existing spectrum.

If the issue is corporate ownership of radio, that could be dealt with in existing regulations, prohibiting companies from profiting on the sale of licenses, requiring that profit be given to the licensing agency (the FCC) rather than a private corporation. That would, however, change the nature of the license. Licenses ARE in fact renewed every few years, but they're usually rubber stamped. No reason to believe leases would be any different.

 

[davideduardo]

Also, if station license leases were renewed every X-years, operators who weren't serving the market to a maximum could exit without great loss, and there would always be space for new players, new formats, and overall new ideas and adjustments to changes in population and public taste and preferences.

Unfortunately, going back perhaps 55 years, half of all US radio stations have broken even or lost money. Leasing spectrum would be very hard on the smaller stations and smaller markets where owner operators essentially have somewhat guaranteed employment, even if the return on the investment is not high.

If we add an additional tax, fee or payment, the effect on perhaps thousands of stations would be even less money spent on programming and equipment, resulting in even less "service" (however we define that) to the listeners.

For every crappy station that ought to go away, there are several of these marginal but valuable stations that would be missed.

 

[TheBigA]

If we add an additional tax, fee or payment, the effect on perhaps thousands of stations would be even less money spent on programming and equipment, resulting in even less "service" (however we define that) to the listeners.

Exactly...the general assumption is that the cost of a station license is preventing small owners from entering the industry. I was fortunate to be the recipient of a donated license, but within a year, I was more than a million in debt, due to the cost of equipment, building, staffing, insurance, legal, and engineering fees. Operations can be a bigger impediment than obtaining a license, especially in small markets.

 

[Tom Wells]

Yes. it is interesting to see how we reassess "new" wavelength, and how we decide who the discovered assets will serve.

As usual, the bankers feel their capital, for past and future, deserves the highest returns on the investment.

Anyone and everyone following the banker's scarcity/entitlement system favors feeding the bankers ultimately
over all others, regardless of their particular employment or level of employment.

And it IS part of an argument over "whose body is it anyway?".

But look at this from another angle:
In one case it's an argument that we are all alone, on the other that we are totally connected and all separation is illlusion.
Looking at it this way turns most argument splits sideways.


Try these on for size:
Regardless of issue or situation.
It's quite empowering.

"How much of this am I responsible for?"
"Why do we keep doing this to ourself?"



Leasing still supports the idea that as defined by physics, a behavior of a subspecies of light, really, can
be bought and sold, exactly as the USPTO permitted Coca Cola to trademark a "Red" as theirs!

When service to debt makes all too fearful to create, we are in damn deep doo-doo.

 

[TheBigA]

When service to debt makes all too fearful to create, we are in damn deep doo-doo.

You're fortunate. You are a hobbyist. You work a "real job" that makes your hobby possible. For most who work in broadcasting, that is their real job. They can't simply take the fruits from their 9 to 5 and use it for broadcasting. But your situation would be very different if you actually had to deal with an actual professional broadcasting operation. You'd find out what debt was, and how quickly it can accumulate. But as long as you operate your Part 15, everything is hunky dory.

 

[TheBigA]

Let me also suggest that for those who live to create, debt is not something to fear. It's merely a means to an end. Read Steve Jobs' book.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Gentlemen, I think that when somebody's granddaughter's vagina becomes part of the discussion on a "Radio Business" board, things have gone way too far "off topic."

I totally agree with you, and I gambled that I could use what was obviously a shocking comparison to point out that some of the logic being used to shoot down parts of our broadcasting process in this country were as off-base as my comparison to the current political mood of our country.

The system we have, the rules we have are what we have to live with for now. If you want to be a part of the game, understand the rules. If you have 30 to 40 years of spare time to spend on it, go on a crusade to change the laws and rules, but understand that other people may be spending their lives to negate the rules you hope to change.

In 1975 I sat at the table in a lunch time board-of-directors meeting of a trade association where we were deciding what political opportunities, if any, we had to change the circumstances of our business. (Automotive repair and service along with gasoline retailing.) I admired the man sitting next to me but was shocked when he said: "My goal is to be one million dollars in debt by the time I am 40." And the it hit me. Why should he or I plan on paying rent for the next 25 years. We had operating businesses that were going to use real estate. We could pay rent, or we could pay mortgage. I wonder what his 1975-1980 million dollars of real estate now paid off is worth. I suspect he has retired in better shape than have I. I moved on to other types of work where owning my own real estate was not part of the formula.

I hope we have helped Tom to begin understanding that being the licensee of a broadcast property is a lot more complicated than a one-person Part 15 neighborhood station tends to be. At least he doesn't have to worry about a doctor and a bureaucrat getting in between him and his personal parts.

P.S. I devoted four years of my life to being a volunteer lobbyist to the state legislature and I did get a state tax law changed which was one of the reasons for our lunch time committee meeting in 1975. Maybe Tom can be as effective as I was and get the FCC turned around.

 

[secondchoice]

It is unfortunate such a powerful and useful medium has been prostituted into debt slavery so completely.

I wish I had said that.

 

[GeneSavage]

So, if we were starting AM MW all over again, possibly with digital transmission or narrow band FM, what kind of business model would work best for listeners, employees, taxpayers, and the owners or operators of the stations?

That's a tough one... as has been suggested by others, the problem with "new" spectrum is no receivers already in the hands of the listeners.

I go back to my idea of the station giving away hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of receivers... but the cost of such a project becomes overwhelming quickly. (However, that's not far off from how some of the early AM stations were basically ads for the retail stores or newspapers that owned them.)

For the listeners? Crystal-clear transmission to boxes they already own... which I don't believe is really possible.
Employees? Profitable programming to boxes listeners already own... which is what most stations are trying to do now.
Taxpayers? Shut down the FCC, and let the highest-wattage pirate win!
Owners & operators? Shut down the FCC, send crystal clear profitable programming to boxes listeners already own, and win!!

On a more technical standpoint: I'd use wideband digital to try to get robust signals out of the band. That's it.

The bigger, bigger, biggest problem I hinted at above: little to no current radio programing... not rock, not pop, not oldies, not classical, not country, not hip hop, not religious, not political talk, not sports talk, not ethnic, not jazz, not blues, not NPR... is compelling and unique enough to listeners to make them want to buy a new radio of any kind, no matter what the band, no matter what the technology.

While people are buying bigger and better HDTVs almost faster than the factories can make them, radios sit on shelves and collect dust.

I don't have any answer to this. I know how to make radio that is appealing enough to get people to turn on a radio they already own; I don't know how to make radio that is SO appealing that people will go out and buy new radios to listen.

 

[klutch00]

INSIDE RADIO has reported that the NAB Labs will be evaluating the 'health', viability and future for AM radio

http://www.insideradio.com/

 

[Tom Wells]

When service to debt makes all too fearful to create, we are in damn deep doo-doo.

You're fortunate. You are a hobbyist. You work a "real job" that makes your hobby possible. For most who work in broadcasting, that is their real job. They can't simply take the fruits from their 9 to 5 and use it for broadcasting. But your situation would be very different if you actually had to deal with an actual professional broadcasting operation. You'd find out what debt was, and how quickly it can accumulate. But as long as you operate your Part 15, everything is hunky dory.

I've been holding back a while to think on this. My "real job" suffers from the same constraints that hobble radio, and
every speck of what I take care of is based upon electronic behavior that I see as indistinguishable from radio/electronic theory.

I'm not so darn fortunate I'm getting ahead.
My profession has also been officially devalued by the marketplace, while relying ever more upon electronics/computers/etc.
I am fortunate to have stepped into another job I had cultivated when the economy went whoopsie 3 years back.

Now, back to the real issue, which is the question of whether something is dead only because some are allowed to define life as
being positive on the lucrative/profitable divide, preferably in a regiulated environment.

I maintain that what we've collectively signed onto for the banker-trust-debt for our debt has never been worth the gambling/profit they seem to think they are given indulgence to simply because of position/power.

I refer to a defintion of banking as defined by GRC in another thread, turned now into modern derivative banking collapse and debt service.

And if the definition of life for the medium is purely from a position of profit, as an engineer, I see usefulnes and profitability in
sometimes in separate, often conflicting worlds.


I have more to say but will follow up those thoughts in the "What is Radio For" thread.

 

[TheBigA]

And if the definition of life for the medium is purely from a position of profit, as an engineer, I see usefulnes and profitability in
sometimes in separate, often conflicting worlds.

If you have a way to feed and house yourself without being a part of the for-profit system, then you've got a point. Otherwise you're just another tool in someone else's world. Rent and food can't be bought in your world.

 

[semoochie]

I just had a thought: Let's say it's now 2022, you have a successful AM station but you need a new transmitter. How do you purchase one? Transmitters are expensive and with no outlook of success, for the vast majority of AMs , there wouldn't be enough demand, to justify the transmitter companies continuing to make them.

 

[Chuck]

I just had a thought: Let's say it's now 2022, you have a successful AM station but you need a new transmitter. How do you purchase one? Transmitters are expensive and with no outlook of success, for the vast majority of AMs , there wouldn't be enough demand, to justify the transmitter companies continuing to make them.

Since transmitters are pretty much a custom made device, I think you'll be able to have one built for a very long time. You may be buying "yesterday's technology" but that's probably OK.