I predict that the AM radio band will cease to exist in 10 years time. When that happens, the FM band will be totally digitized with most-if not all-of the small radio stations in the USA either driven off the air or to extended FM bandwiths. All the clear channels will shut down their legacy frequencies and broadcast on HD2, HD3 or HD4 channels, or whatever new frequencies will be developed in the future. AM radio has disappeared in Canada outside of the large markets, and lots of small AM radio stations are failing or shuttering up. (Unless, of course, they are relocated to expanded FM band frequencies or stream online, of course.) Any reactions to this?
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It's just a matter of time...
- Thread starter blackgold
- Start date
Canada established a migration path for AM stations to move to FM. It is not that the AMs failed... it is that given a path to trade AM for FM, they moved to the better band.
Mexico has migrated 80% of its AM stations to FM and no longer licenses new AM station except for rural indigenous population areas. No stations closed; they just moved.
The US has already overpopulated the FM dial, thanks to things like Docket 80-90. So there are no channels on which to put the AM stations except for low power translators.
The move in the US is not to new frequencies or HD channels, it is to streaming. And many traditional stations are growing their streaming efforts and trying to make the content platform neutral.
Now if we can just get the revenue model to be the same across all of the platforms...
That started to happen to AM's here in the United States in the late 80's, until political talk appeared
and became the lifeboat that they all jumped into.
As that had broader political implications, perhaps the governments of Canada and Mexico sought to avoid
that by going with migrations to FM?
and became the lifeboat that they all jumped into.
As that had broader political implications, perhaps the governments of Canada and Mexico sought to avoid
that by going with migrations to FM?
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
No, as David pointed out earlier, the bugger culprit was the Docket 80-90 implementation. Prior to that, there was a fairly ordered and engineering-sound process for adding FMs in a region. Certain parties who sought a way around the traditional supply-and-demand model lobbied Congress to change that process so that additional FMs could be added via directional antennas and other methods. Had that not happened, there might have been FM frequencies available to migrate a large percentage of AMs.
As it stands now, the best hope is to get as many translators rebroadcasting AM stations (I personally am in favor of forcing the religious "satellators" to sell out to AM broadcasters, so as to have those precious frequencies providing local service rather than airing a national feed from California via satellite) as possible. Sadly, the place where that's needed the most -- the large markets -- have no frequencies available for anything but the lowest-ERP translators, so those AMs are going to have to make do with interference continuing to erode their coverage until it gets to a point where they have to go silent out of financial necessity.
As much as I would like to see the proposal for repurposing VHF television channels 5 and 6 to a digital expansion of the FM band (with an ultimate goal of making that entire 76-108 MHz band non-analog), it's a non-starter as long as LPTV needs somewhere to transmit after the auction.
Not in Canada's case, at least. There, you have to have regulatory approval to change formats.
That's spot on.
But the stations I listen to are doing the opposite. They're paying no attention to who their listeners are, what kind of peripheral content would appeal to them, and the reliability of the stream. For example:
- They're filling commercial breaks with outdated, repetitive filler that's inappropriate for the audience. For example, you can listen to the WABC stream every day and learn that, "Google today launched Google Photos." That was almost a year ago. Many of the features on talk station are clearly aimed at young women - the demo least likely to be listening. Like it or not, talk radio listeners are likely to be males seeking news-related content and controversy ... not fluff like most of these Cumulus and iHeart features. An example is Cumulus' "The Core ... everything good for your mind, body and soul," voiced by a smiley, giggley young woman. iHeart runs these kinds of fluff features interspersed with an aging Tom Brokaw doing his best to sound relevant by pontificating about social media, smartphones, etc. Is anyone minding the store when it comes to talk radio streams? I don't think so, and that's a shame. Maybe music station streams are different.
- The fluff features often keep running when the show should be re-joined. A couple of days ago, online listeners to WABC's 5 am News Hour heard only a continuous stream of fillers for much of the show.
If streaming is the future for AM radio (and I believe it is,) then the streams should be treated as important, not afterthoughts, and the listeners treated with some degree of respect.
1000% agree with DavidEduardo, as data plans get cheaper and bigger and cars start to offer wifi hotspots as standard, tendency will be to Internet streaming.
Also true, and not only the AM, FM also. Most broadcasters give small to no importance at all to the online stream. Having a big popup player full of ads that make it impossible to actually listen to the stream, not a smart move, geofencing? IMHO not a smart move either, and let's not talk about the looped fillers like the one you use as example.
Curious that many broadcasters don't seem to understand how Internet is changing their lives and the media industry. Online streaming lets you know EXACTLY who is listening to you, how many they are, their location, how much time they spend at your station and even what things they buy.
Also true, and not only the AM, FM also. Most broadcasters give small to no importance at all to the online stream. Having a big popup player full of ads that make it impossible to actually listen to the stream, not a smart move, geofencing? IMHO not a smart move either, and let's not talk about the looped fillers like the one you use as example.
Curious that many broadcasters don't seem to understand how Internet is changing their lives and the media industry. Online streaming lets you know EXACTLY who is listening to you, how many they are, their location, how much time they spend at your station and even what things they buy.
Only problem is that no one, including Pandora, is making a profit from streaming. If you want to know why some broadcasters haven't embraced it, that's why.
Precisely. When an advertiser can deliver an ad right to my zip code, what difference does it make whether I'm streaming KABC or WABC?
But if the advertiser is only paying to reach a specific zip code, then the other listeners are just freeloaders.
I don't see streaming, at least music content, as any sort of panacea for AM radio or anyone else. The former stream I admin'ed, The Renegade Roadhouse was all well and good when it cost us $40/month to run, but when it looked like $150/month for this year, we shut down. We could afford to stream at 3¢ per 100 songs or .0003, but when we were bumped up to .0017 just like the big boys pay, it was game over. And I don't know how many small broadcasters are actually paying the .0017 rate, which is a reduction from the rate prior to 1/1/16, .0021 (I think).
Beware the digital counter-revolution, when people decide they don't want the world knowing all of their business. But I think we "sheeple" won't be able to give up the convenience of the digital age...
I know one broadcaster, a good friend who owns a small town FM and works in IT for a community college so he can afford health insurance, who has understood how computer technology has been changing things for over 30 years. He didn't like ATMs when they first came out. Too much "digital shadow" he said. Better to just pay cash. More anonymous. FF to today, he has been reluctant to let his kids have smart phones and be on Facebook.
Beware the digital counter-revolution, when people decide they don't want the world knowing all of their business. But I think we "sheeple" won't be able to give up the convenience of the digital age...
Your friend sounds like a low information paranoid.
Perhaps you meant credit cards instead of ATM. The bank that hosts an ATM knows exactly the same information about you they always did. They kept records and could track your withdrawals and deposits just as can the ATM. No difference except perhaps a bit of speed. If you use a credit or debit card to buy things now you are telling each business what you buy, how often, how much, and that allows them to (a) better plan their inventory for their customers and (b) tailor advertisements and specials for their valued customers. Although that is more than was known in the past it isn't a lot more. The grocery in days of old generally knew what you bought and tended to advertise to the customer base nearest them geographically. It wasn't rocket science.
As for smart phones, just what is new about someone knowing where my teen is? His or her friends always knew that so all I had to do was call one of them if I needed to know. It does allow one to perhaps get into more trouble than in the old days but it really hasn't changed parenting that much. I kind of like my kids having phones so I can get hold of them when needed (and they can call should they need me). So far the advantages outweigh the problems. You still have to pay attention to what they are doing and with whom. That hasn't changed.
And that goes for Facebook or any other social medium as well. I monitored who my kids hung out with and while they were living at home and underage I also controlled their social media activity. Just as in the old days when mom went through your room ostensibly to clean it but looked for forbidden material along the way. Kids are kids and monitoring and verifying is necessary no matter what century you happen to inhabit. In fact, modern digital appliances make it easier to do today than ever before.
While we as a civilization need to get a handle on the ease with which devices can be hacked they really do add a lot of convenience and safety to our daily lives. No need to be scared of them.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
I think (I hope) you meant cars start to offer the ability to access WiFi hotspots. Cars cannot themselves offer a hotspot since the creation of one requires traditional wired or fiber Internet connectivity at the origin point.
The problem going forward, I think, is going to be the same one confronted by urban transportation planners. Just as in the major markets at rush hour creates congestion and traffic jams on the freeway, whole bunches of users wanting to be connected to wireless Internet at the same time will create a capacity shortage. That is one reason why streaming is going to have to adopt some kind of transmission system paralleling radio ... each of those individual streams takes its own bandwidth and eventually congestion will make that unreliable.
The apparent solution is just as problematic as the situation itself. There is always going to be a limit as to how much WiFi access can be created. The resources, like freeway lanes, are finite. And as with congested freeways, the instant you increase access (by adding a lane on the road or additional bandwidth to the hotspot) the demand will grow almost immediately to use it. Then you're back to square one.
Radio survives primarily because it is the opposite of streaming. It is broadcast. One signal accommodating a literally infinite capacity of listeners. Streaming has a very long way to go, technically speaking, before it gets there.
Actually that's not true. I can create a hotspot with my phone using it's data plan. But I do get your point.
The traffic analogy doesn't cut it. Real estate is finite but data delivery, although not infinite, has already been, and can further be, expanded beyond what we can imagine today. It's not just the pipelines but the data structure as well. Moore's Law and all that.
Much streaming happens through wired connections with wireless being the "last mile" inside the home or building. And audio streaming takes far less bandwidth than video.
There's a lot to be said for broadcasting but in a decade or two it probably won't look much like it does in 2016. Back in 1979 could you have imagined most people getting their TV delivered over wires? There were people said it would never happen.
Maybe, but streaming companies can't continue to lose money forever. That may be why Pandora just replaced their CEO.
Pandora, from what I read, is in trouble largely due to the music royalties they have to pay vs. what they're able to bill in advertising. The advertising will take time to build. I personally know a car dealer who advertises on Pandora and says it works for him but he may be at the cutting edge.
Amazon, like Pandora, keeps losing money year after year but that doesn't mean it's not a viable company. Amazon is probably the future of commerce. Pandora? We'll see.
I avoided owning a smartphone for years because I couldn't justify the monthly cost but with WiFi so readily available that's changed. It didn't happen all at once -- change often isn't that way.
Wireless broadband where I live is at a point where my wife and I never come anywhere close to approaching the 2GB/mo data limit of our 2-phone cell plan. Our cable provider has hotspots all over the place, as do other providers I can see on my phone. I'm nearing point where I can stream audio pretty seamlessly using more WiFi than data.
Amazon, like Pandora, keeps losing money year after year but that doesn't mean it's not a viable company. Amazon is probably the future of commerce. Pandora? We'll see.
I avoided owning a smartphone for years because I couldn't justify the monthly cost but with WiFi so readily available that's changed. It didn't happen all at once -- change often isn't that way.
Wireless broadband where I live is at a point where my wife and I never come anywhere close to approaching the 2GB/mo data limit of our 2-phone cell plan. Our cable provider has hotspots all over the place, as do other providers I can see on my phone. I'm nearing point where I can stream audio pretty seamlessly using more WiFi than data.
Building advertising means more commercials. You know what that means. Plus the law is written in such a way that when revenues increase, so does the royalty. So no matter how much you bring in, you're always behind. As I said, Pandora is the most successful in terms of attracting advertisers, and it's still losing money. That's not a Pandora problem. That's a streaming problem.
The problem is best stated by saying that advertising in the limited amounts that Pandora sells, sold at traditional and standard costs based on delivery, can not be profitable. The subscription model has slightly better potential, but at the rate needed to be profitable, user growth would flatten or decline.
Amazon had 2005 income before taxes of $1.5 billion, and EBITDA of $8 billion. Despite heavy reinvestment in the business, Amazon is profitable.
But I agree, change happens more slowly than the media would have us believe. However, among Millennials even the way money is spent is viewed differently.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
We were talking about in-car streaming, until you changed the focus in order to declare my analogy invalid. If, as seems likely, radio is gradually replaced in the car with streaming, that "last mile" is going to be the one most highly competed for by all the vehicles using it.
Of course there will be an expansion of bandwidth, but the question becomes: Given the increased level of demand, can it be provided cheaply enough to become as ubiquitous as radio ... and in what timeframe? Keep in mind that the highest percentage of radio listening already takes place in the car and suddenly it's your "last mile inside the house" that becomes irrelevant to the question.
Yyyyyes.... And no... If you have the time, read this short article, it has a user point of view, nothing technical at all, but it makes the point.http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/03/i-took-a-ride-in-onstars-4g-lte-wifi-chevy-colorad.html
Hotspots in cars is like when the first cars came with cassette, or FM, or even radio itself, some went bananas about it and loved it, some where skeptical, but almost everybody in the end took the change for good.
Internet is here and it already changed our lives, I don't pay cable anymore, instead, I pay 10 bucks/ mo for Netflix. I'm just waiting for the moment when Netflix starts inserting ads (remember back in the early 90's how the cable was a paid service because it was "commercial free"?)
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