Seriously Kelly? Audacy, Cumulus, and iHeart constantly skating near bankruptcy.
Name any media stock that's top of it's game. Just because a stock trades low, doesn't mean it's close to insolvency, no more than any station group success is measured by a single station' 6+ ratings.
It's not a growth industry, that's for sure.
Nope, hasn't been since 2007
From what I read here, and from some of your other posts, it sure sounds like you are considering it useless. Not only is AM not growing, it's withering, and not likely to come back.
Learning from the past, I'd say it's on a track similar to SW.
Well then, if there's no more space to migrate to FM, and no one buying radios, than why doesn't AM bite the bullet and migrate off the dial and onto the web already?
Most of the major syndicated shows carried on AM are also available on-line. Evolution of any media source isn't binary on/off. Eventually when the AM band ages-out completely and it simply can't support itself through advertising.
I threw the expansion idea as a bone, and most people here shoot that idea down like a Korean airliner over Russian airspace.
Where I live there are at least six places on the FM dial that simulcast Relevant radio. A true waste of a resource, as most could be heard throughout the market. Oh, of course they can be heard clearly online too. I guess all these stations are used for fundraising, and legal expenses for the Catholic church.
As it is with any public or religious radio. The more coverage, the better the chance you have to find donors. Religious radio groups are the only ones with free cash available these days to buy up stations. I've sold two of my stations to religious organizations.
It sounds like you want this both ways. If no one is buying radios, than who the hell is listening to terrestrial stations now anyway?
Nobody is buying radios, because they already have them, in their car, kitchen, wherever. Expanding the band means either consumers have to replace their existing radios to hear the new frontier, or like FM-HD, it takes 20+ years for 10% the general public to find it, when they eventually purchase a new car that has the expanded band. If you're a radio station owner who migrated to some expanded band, you can expect to have no listeners for potentially 10 to 20 years? Radio has become a bad enough business model anyway. Spending hundreds of thousands of millions to move to a band where nobody goes, is a terribly bad idea.
I realize that AI will be voicetracking. Maybe they can market to a certain AI demographic instead of people. Like 2001's 'Hal' from the Windows 98/XP/Vista era.
HAL from 2001 was from 1969. Windows XP/Vista was in the 90's. Please explain how AI will be voice-tracking. This should be interesting.
After a couple of decades, DAB, like HD here, isn't doing so well, or as intended. God love those Europeans and Australians for trying though.
But what you suggested was essentially a DAB model.
It's clear that the brightest minds aren't in terrestrial Radio or Television these days. Stevie Wonder can see that.
So, in your view, smartphones, streaming, or changing consumer habits have nothing to do with it?
