In the United States, music on AM is dead because research has shown that nobody would tune to AM for music. In the Philippines, however, there are still AM stations that play music. Manila, for instance, has a powerhouse on 774 AM (DWWW) that plays Adult Standards. That powerhouse puts in a good signal to Olongapo City, which has only 3 FM stations and 1 AM station. IMHO music on AM is beneficial because it enables people in rural areas, e.g., rural South Dakota, to listen to music. It's a shame that the US AM stations have switched to News/Talk/Sports formats. The US AM music stations are few and far between, e.g., KCMN AM 1530 in Colorado Springs, KEZW AM 1430 in Denver, and WRIV AM 1390 in Riverhead (Eastern Long Island). The big US radio conglomerates ought to consider folks in rural areas and consider returning music to AM. In the meantime, in the US, you must live in the city to have access to the FM music stations.
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Music on AM in other countries
- Thread starter IBadget1
- Start date
The problem with music on AM is that (almost) nobody can make any money.
The big US radio conglomerates aren't considering folks in rural areas; they're considering their bottom line!
(And that's true of EVERY successful radio station in the US.)
The big US radio conglomerates aren't considering folks in rural areas; they're considering their bottom line!
(And that's true of EVERY successful radio station in the US.)
NightAire said:
Almost all rural areas of the US have local radio; the FCC has made it a policy since the 30's to promote local radio and to maintain relatively limited power levels for stations in the larger cities. There certainly is not a great need to provide music services on AM to rural areas, as ownership of iPods and smart phones and such is not restricted to major markets and nobody really wants to hear, yuuuuuchhhhh, music on AM.
Ivan Badget said:
Well, it's a bit deeper than that. In the US, AM attracts nearly nobody under 55 or 60. The only exception seems to be for sports, and as that format and genre moves rather rapidly to FM, the only AM listeners will be those looking for religious or niche ethnic offerings.
Have you looked at the coverage of the Class C FMs up on all those 2000' towers? There is a lot of music on FM available in the gas fields and in those neat air conditioned tractors, too.
The business model of media and radio in the Philippines may be different than in the US. Advertisers may buy regional powerhouse stations to cover wide areas. And they may buy formats like Standards that are dead in the US because they reach ages that advertisers here don't want to reach.
In the US, if it targets 55+, it won't work well on AM or FM or CB. If it has coverage outside the local market, it won't bill any more because of that, because advertisers buy city by city (except for the thin slice of network, wired and unwired) and just don't look at outside coverage.
Add to that the fact that most AMs, even in the Dakotas or northern Maine, don't have any decent coverage outside of their little towns or cities. For every KRVN, WNAX and WMT or KWMT, there are 500 stations that barely cover their home market.
There is no business model and no available revenue for this.
Pull up the FCC coverage of the FMs around the great plains states. The 60 dbu of the C's in Bismark is about the same as the 5 mv/m of KFYR, so there is certainly a lot of music being offered. Then, look at the audience on the #1 12+ station, KBMR... a music AM. It is barely Top 10 in 25-54, and is among the market's lowest billers while stations with a quarter of the 12+ but good 25-54 beat them by double, tripple in billing.
There can be no major re-start of music on AM as long as it sounds so inferior to that which is on FM. I listen to music on AM on 3 different stations (one of them out-of-market) and it doesn't bother me, but the audio quality is just not there. What could bring music back to AM noticeably? Well, if internet stations really take off and the technology is there and has sufficient penetration so that you everyone can listen easily in the car, or where ever, a successful company might want to have an AM for simulcast purposes.
By the same token, Radio Disney has a number of AM stations that keep chugging along, and they primarily play music.
By the same token, Radio Disney has a number of AM stations that keep chugging along, and they primarily play music.
J
jhguthlac
Guest
Radio Disney remains, for some reason, a major source of Top 40 music on AM. Probably the only place you can hear it. But since it is designed for 6 year old kids, it has little potential.
AM doesn't sound ANY particular way, except exactly that which we have engineered.
Nothing has to sound or look any particular way.
We get what we'll put up with.
Do not worry. we're upping microwave penetration enough that
we'll kill off all the bees and die of starvation long before the FM radio can't work from overload.
Unless something even better happens sooner.
Nothing has to sound or look any particular way.
We get what we'll put up with.
Do not worry. we're upping microwave penetration enough that
we'll kill off all the bees and die of starvation long before the FM radio can't work from overload.
Unless something even better happens sooner.
The radio makers killed AM. What you hear is nowhere near what AM can sound like. Mind you, I am not suggesting that it could sound like FM, but when quality AM tuners existed (Delco made some back in the day), an AM Stereo station sounded quite nice.
chriscollins said:
The biggest issues are not about the sound. After W.W. II, the FCC's well-intentioned idea of " a station in every pot" to enforce localism caused them to license thousands of AMs that are not viable today... as cites sprawled after the war, they left the AM signals behind. In many top 100 markets there is not a single fully coverage AM.
But in the last 30 years, we have added a dramatic increase in RF noise of the man made kind. With signals that were inadequate since the 40's in many cases, the noise further reduced the useful coverage area of AMs.
With FM, listeners learned that it wasn't necessary to put up with noise, static, interference, fading and such. Now, two generations of Americans have grown up without AM.
Manufacturers put into AM radios exactly what they think consumers want. More and more, that is FM incorporated into another device, with no AM at all.
The station in every pot was fine as long as the newcomers were daytimers.
Radio is too important to continue along the current path of spectrum mismagement.
I am fully sure FM will become as non-viable.
No, the biggest issue is not the sound. It's about doing away with all the nasty "radio-ness" that permits
instant wide-area communications free of meddlesome "concerns and interests".
The intention is that one day no one remembers live, analog, real time anything.
Everything must be officially distributed and only broadcast on short-hop optical-path methods like 100 mhz FM BC.
The big issue is establishing controlled distribution and therefore content.
Muddying up the AM with loss of channel protections goes a long way toward undoing MW's best advantages.
There is a big difference between misunderstanding and DISunderstanding.
I believe the current state of AM is a managed outcome that's working exactly as planned.
Otherwise the FCC would have meaningfully addressed discontinuous current devices back
when they were first developed back in the late 1960s.
Radio is too important to continue along the current path of spectrum mismagement.
I am fully sure FM will become as non-viable.
No, the biggest issue is not the sound. It's about doing away with all the nasty "radio-ness" that permits
instant wide-area communications free of meddlesome "concerns and interests".
The intention is that one day no one remembers live, analog, real time anything.
Everything must be officially distributed and only broadcast on short-hop optical-path methods like 100 mhz FM BC.
The big issue is establishing controlled distribution and therefore content.
Muddying up the AM with loss of channel protections goes a long way toward undoing MW's best advantages.
There is a big difference between misunderstanding and DISunderstanding.
I believe the current state of AM is a managed outcome that's working exactly as planned.
Otherwise the FCC would have meaningfully addressed discontinuous current devices back
when they were first developed back in the late 1960s.
Seems like this has been discussed elsewhere, but I don't remember what others said about this:
If part of AMs' problems is getting over the noise of all the non-radio interference, why not crank everybody's power 2x, 4x, heck even 10x or more?
Yes, where the signals are equal, they'd be fighting each other for the radio's attention... but wouldn't that be better than fighting garage door openers, cell phones, and florescent lights?
There may be a very logical reason why this wouldn't work... but if there is, I'd like to hear it.
Personally, I'd rather get a station (or two, or three; I know...) on every frequency instead of hum-hiss-hum-hiss up & down the dial.
It seems to me that being able to CLEARLY serve even just your local small market / town & being drown out outside the city limits would be preferable to not getting interference from other stations on the road into town... but being drown out in almost every home in town by everybody's gadgets.
Opinions?
If part of AMs' problems is getting over the noise of all the non-radio interference, why not crank everybody's power 2x, 4x, heck even 10x or more?
Yes, where the signals are equal, they'd be fighting each other for the radio's attention... but wouldn't that be better than fighting garage door openers, cell phones, and florescent lights?
There may be a very logical reason why this wouldn't work... but if there is, I'd like to hear it.
Personally, I'd rather get a station (or two, or three; I know...) on every frequency instead of hum-hiss-hum-hiss up & down the dial.
It seems to me that being able to CLEARLY serve even just your local small market / town & being drown out outside the city limits would be preferable to not getting interference from other stations on the road into town... but being drown out in almost every home in town by everybody's gadgets.
Opinions?
NightAire said:
I might guess... that at many smaller stations, there just isn't a way to make it work financially. The utility bills will go up more or less proportionally to the power increase; you'll need to replace the transmitter; and in most cases, antenna tuning units and phasing equipment as well. It's possible many stations would need to replace their tower(s).
I don't see the revenue increasing enough to cover the costs.
And really, it has to work at every station, if it's to work at any station. If five of the 57 stations on 1350 can't afford the increase, they're going to get blown off the dial by new interference. It will also affect the stations on 1340 and 1360 that can't increase.
Add international issues. Canadian & Mexican stations are still entitled to protection from interference; either the treaties get renegotiated, or stations that would interfere across the border aren't allowed to increase. (and the issue above kicks in) (since AM interference is additive, the vast majority of stations are potential sources of interference to foreign operations. It's not like FM where you only have to worry if you're within 250 miles or so of the border.)
Finally, in many cases even 10x the power isn't going to help! Especially at night, where most Class D stations would need probably 100-1000x the power to just match their daytime coverage, let alone cover the noise.
Where I am, speaking of AM, at night I can only pick up 2 local stations clearly, and they are both 50,000 watters.
The other 5 ... 7 if you count ones that I listen to from the next County ... always have other stations on the same frequency in the mix making it a mess to listen to.
One thing for sure, it sure is taking a looonngg time for AM radio to die as has been predicted for so looonngg. Until stations of note start signing off for good, I'm not joining the chorus.
The other 5 ... 7 if you count ones that I listen to from the next County ... always have other stations on the same frequency in the mix making it a mess to listen to.
One thing for sure, it sure is taking a looonngg time for AM radio to die as has been predicted for so looonngg. Until stations of note start signing off for good, I'm not joining the chorus.
I agree with just about everything written in this thread.
However, I think the future of AM is the niche, specialty, experimental broadcasters, and limited mass appeal formats like Talk and Sports. But, how will those broadcasters support themselves? Here in Cincinnati, I don't know if there are enough FM signals for the AMs to migrate, so AM will be alive for quite some time until stations have completely moved to digital delivery of some sort. I also don't believe AM will die as quickly as some think. There are millions of AM radios out there, and the carmakers continue to include them in every vehicle. Those station owners will have to provide some compelling content to keep the listeners' interest, and it will likely be an older demo.
I have heard AM Stereo that sounds as good as, if not better than, FM. Back in the mid-80s, we had an AM/FM simulcast on 94.1 and 1360. Listening on a Sony SRF-A100 AM Stereo radio (which I still have), the wideband AM Stereo sounded warmer and fuller than the FM. Of course, the nighttime interference and whine required that you switch back to narrowband, and that was not so great. But daytime was unbelievable.
However, I think the future of AM is the niche, specialty, experimental broadcasters, and limited mass appeal formats like Talk and Sports. But, how will those broadcasters support themselves? Here in Cincinnati, I don't know if there are enough FM signals for the AMs to migrate, so AM will be alive for quite some time until stations have completely moved to digital delivery of some sort. I also don't believe AM will die as quickly as some think. There are millions of AM radios out there, and the carmakers continue to include them in every vehicle. Those station owners will have to provide some compelling content to keep the listeners' interest, and it will likely be an older demo.
I have heard AM Stereo that sounds as good as, if not better than, FM. Back in the mid-80s, we had an AM/FM simulcast on 94.1 and 1360. Listening on a Sony SRF-A100 AM Stereo radio (which I still have), the wideband AM Stereo sounded warmer and fuller than the FM. Of course, the nighttime interference and whine required that you switch back to narrowband, and that was not so great. But daytime was unbelievable.
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