FreddyE1977 said:
If you look at what happened in the U.S., as audiences for music radio began to abandon the AM dial and move to
FM in the 1980's, a need was created for something to come onto the AM band and fill the void.
FM overtook AM in share of listenining in 1977. By the early 80's, so little music listening was on FM that the eventual approval of AM stereo was yawned at at the station level and rejected at the listener level. AMs were either doing something with music that got no ratings or had already moved to talk.
KABC was in the top couple of stations most of the 70's in LA with talk... so nothing new here. Just more of it.
That "something's" name was Rush Limbaugh. And he inspired an entire genre, nee, industry of political talk radio that very quickly took over and dominated the AM band (
Limbaugh was not a huge national success until he went national following his debut in 1988 on WABC. So the big success came as the 90's opened.
The benchmark event was the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine... by no mere coincidence in the year prior to Limbaugh's start at WABC in New York. "Fairness" tended to stifle the more agressive type of talk we are now familiar with, and the repeal of the rule,which had been in effect for 37 years, made talk radio much more unfettered.
Enlightened members of the political elite in Canada, Mexico, etc., saw this happen and did not wish to have a repeat episode on their own turf. Hence they hatched a plan to force AM for FM swaps, so there would be no vacuum left on the old and for another Limbaugh to surface and fill at their expense.
Mexico does not haved a two-party system for starters, and talk has been on FM along with AM for the better part of two decades now... many of the first talk networks in Mexico started moving to FM simulcasts in the late 80's or early 90's, and now FM has most of the talk listening.
Interestingly, there is an ongoing trend for US AM-band news/talkers to simulcast on FM or to move entirely to FM, abandoning the AM to a lesser format. The reason is, of course, that two generations of Americans have grown up on FM and barely know what AM is, and have no use for its audio quality, the noise and other issues.
