Saving AM Radio

[K.M. Richards]

i dont know anyone who really thinks about data useage on their phone anymore.. they just use it.. theyve got unlimited or a large pool or data on a family plan..... lots of people stream audio on their cell phones using cellular broadband

As near as I can tell from his post, the OP is not in the same situation as you, Paul, because he specifically said he didn't want to "buy more data" in order to stream.

I don't stream much on my phone (in fact, I do very little with it besides texting) so it's not an issue for me ... especially since it switches to Wi-Fi when possible.

 

[louis_p]

Which is why we advise people not to do that. You don't have to sign in to Chrome to use it.

That’s true if you don’t sign-in to use any Google service like Gmail. Otherwise, you should use either Firefox or a de-Googled Chromium browser like Brave or Arc. If you require an integrated experience synced to the cloud, Apple Safari with iCloud Private Relay is the most privacy-friendly.

 

[AMRadioGuy]

Setting aside that BigA explained that 20 minute stopset in the other thread ...

One result of the changes in ratings methodology that the PPM brought about is that stations often all take their breaks at the same points in the hour and for similar lengths of time.

So I am curious: If you aren't going to stay with one station and switch away when the stopset starts, what do you do when every other station you switch to is also in a commercial break?

I'm lucky because there are quite a few stations that play music I enjoy on AM in my area. 2 playing 50s-70s, 1 playing 60s-80s, 2 playing older country, and 1 playing beautiful music.

Of course, these are mostly mom and pop stations so the commercials are not obnoxious. I don't really mind them, actually. Usually if the break is more than a minute, though... I'm outta there. Or if a song I've heard a few million times comes on... adios.

On the rare occasion I'm listening to an iHeart/Audacy station with national spot buys and whatnot... the moment they go to commercials I'm outta there.

And yes, I know I'm an outlier. I'm sure the average person just sits through the six-minute stop sets and just tolerates them. Not me, though

 

[K.M. Richards]

Which is why we advise people not to do that. You don't have to sign in to Chrome to use it.

That’s true if you don’t sign-in to use any Google service like Gmail. Otherwise, you should use either Firefox or a de-Googled Chromium browser like Brave or Arc. If you require an integrated experience synced to the cloud, Apple Safari with iCloud Private Relay is the most privacy-friendly.

I both use Firefox as my browser and access my GMail account via a POP/SMTP mail client. Have for well over a decade.

 

[cc333]

I'm lucky because there are quite a few stations that play music I enjoy on AM in my area. 2 playing 50s-70s, 1 playing 60s-80s, 2 playing older country, and 1 playing beautiful music.

I wish it was like that over here!

Aside from KCBS, local AM is pretty much a wasteland here as far as good old fashioned, English-language music goes, with the few good oldies/classic hits stations (KYNO Fresno, KVMI Visalia, and KEJB Eureka) being too far away to hear except at night, and even then only when conditions are good (KVIN was a good station in that it was close and powerful enough that I could actually hear it in the daytime; my heart sank when they flipped to Punjabi music early last year (how many Punjabi station do we need here?! There are already at least a couple of them, with one notably on 1170).

c

 

[davideduardo]

I both use Firefox as my browser and access my GMail account via a POP/SMTP mail client. Have for well over a decade.

I agree. I use Firefox almost exclusively and have my own email that is not on any of the "free" email accounts. Those "free" services obviously get something in return for giving it to you!

Things that are "free" are not.

Over the air radio is "free" but you have to listen to the ads. But may other free services are not as obvious in how they get a return for giving your something at no charge.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Even with tangents, it's remarkable to see 20 pages of comments about a technology akin to the zombies in Walking Dead. Gradually rotting away but still semi-ambulatory, not really alive but just not put out of its misery yet.

 

[CTListener]

Even with tangents, it's remarkable to see 20 pages of comments about a technology akin to the zombies in Walking Dead. Gradually rotting away but still semi-ambulatory, not really alive but just not put out of its misery yet.

Nostalgia joins forces with wishful thinking, both destined to be smashed by reality.

 

[louis_p]

Those "free" services obviously get something in return for giving it to you!

Things that are "free" are not.

Over the air radio is "free" but you have to listen to the ads. But may other free services are not as obvious in how they get a return for giving your something at no charge.

This is consumer mindset that proliferated during the dot-com bubble of the ‘90’s. Consumers think that services on the internet should be available to them for free since they pay their internet service provider for the bandwidth. When ad revenue shrank after 9/11, Yahoo attempted to convert its user base to premium subscriptions, but that was an abysmal failure. It took almost two decades and incidents like the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal for consumers to realize that their data is the product.

Getting back to radio…if I tune to a station’s frequency on an analogue receiver, the station has no idea that I’m listening. If I navigate to the station’s website to initiate a stream, the station knows details such as my browsing history, age, ethnicity, income, purchasing habits, location, how often I listen, when I stop listening, etc.

Monetizing these data sets is what enabled these tech companies to become the most profitable companies in history.

 

[CTListener]

This is consumer mindset that proliferated during the dot-com bubble of the ‘90’s. Consumers think that services on the internet should be available to them for free since they pay their internet service provider for the bandwidth.

Ah, the oft-misunderstood mantra of "Information wants to be free." That never meant free of charge, only free to disclose and publish. Dang utopians screw up everything.

 

[louis_p]

Even with tangents, it's remarkable to see 20 pages of comments about a technology akin to the zombies in Walking Dead. Gradually rotting away but still semi-ambulatory, not really alive but just not put out of its misery yet.

People reminisce of the familiar “golden years” of radio before the digital age and corporate consolidation era.

Today, transmitters are becoming nothing more than distribution interfaces to augment content available on the broadcasters’ apps and digital platforms.

Using iHeart as an example, the company has transformed from a broadcaster to a streaming service. They use the linear stations as a gateway drug to aggressively drive listeners to their iHeart platform. The fact that the company rebranded as iHeart and eliminated 60 years of brand equity as Clear Channel was not a coincidence.

As for AM radio, I don’t know the monthly OPEX cost for keeping these stations on the air, but I understand that AM transmitters are power hungry.

When an AM signal go dark, I don’t hear of any listener backlash (outside of this board). Companies wouldn’t turn in licenses and write-off capital assets without a strong business case.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

People reminisce of the familiar “golden years” of radio before the digital age and corporate consolidation era.

Today, transmitters are becoming nothing more than distribution interfaces to augment content available on the broadcasters’ apps and digital platforms.

Using iHeart as an example, the company has transformed from a broadcaster to a streaming service. They use the linear stations as a gateway drug to aggressively drive listeners to their iHeart platform. The fact that the company rebranded as iHeart and eliminated 60 years of brand equity as Clear Channel was not a coincidence.

As for AM radio, I don’t know the monthly OPEX cost for keeping these stations on the air, but I understand that AM transmitters are power hungry.

When an AM signal go dark, I don’t hear of any listener backlash (outside of this board). Companies wouldn’t turn in licenses and write-off capital assets without a strong business case.

I’m well old enough to lament some things from my life passing into history. But at the same time, I get that the things I enjoyed replaced or evolved from things that came before and were lamented by others.

Some people when I was a whippersnapper missed the days of radio when there were dramas and comedies and such. How we little ingrates could enjoy those fast-talking people who just played records didn’t compute. Loud jingles. Fast paces. 80s CHR was anathema to them. What they liked was a golden age to them. What I liked was a golden age to me. Neither them nor what exists today is intrinsically bettet or worse. Frankly, I love that we have so many choices and platforms, even if I tend to use them to play songs from back in my day.

 

[SCMcKinney]

You can't tell Alexa to play something until you know It exists, the role of radio could be to introduce Gen Z listeners to new artists and new music they didn't know about.
If you check the ratings for CHR in many markets, the numbers are not bad. Boomers and Gen X are not listening to CHR so it looks like younger people are listening to Radio to hear what's new.

My niece did say that she listens to radio for new tunes. If Bobby Bones does that as a part of his 3 - 4 hour show, I'm back to the question, can a terrestrial broadcaster survive with prime demos listening that little? CHR numbers are not bad in many markets, but how much of the audience are the under 30 year olds? They are the next generation that radio will need. If all radio supplies that appeals to Gen Z is music, broadcasters are going to have to be content with 3-4 hours of listening, largely the morning show. Will the remaining 21 hours be increasingly low margin broadcasting?

 

[SCMcKinney]

Alexa requires a subscription to a music service. The default is Amazon Music, which you get either through a Prime subscription or a separate subscription.


The something different is they offer hosted/curated music as well as non-music formats and local information.

Radio isn't meant as a replacement for a music service, but something used in addition. It requires no subscription, no fee, no user name or password. Just turn it on, and it's there.

I guess I am rolling internet connection and Alexa connection into one. The Amazon Prime we have is for many things, and the fact that music is on Alexa is not the driving factor. It is just a nice addition. In the US, apparently there may be as many as 167 million subscribers in the US. That's a lot of internet/Prime (largely desirable demos?) potential listeners that will not need broadcast music radio unless they deliver something VERY worthwhile to tolerate 6 minutes of commercials. Add in advertising minimal Pandora and Big 615-type 'stations', and terrestrial broadcasters need to start looking beyond music as the main draw NOW.

Regarding non-music formats that might appeal to my nieces, what's out there currently - guy-centric Sports talk, conservative talk, liberal long form talk, and newsradio I don't think will compete for their ears. Something fresh is needed. Maybe Podcast radio could be an idea, but I kind of regard that as what TV listings used to have as "TBA". Radio needs to have regularly scheduled known programming for people to tune in. Therefore the Podcasts need to be the same host, or at least the same kind of hosts on the same time each day. And in deference to the original question, AM radio, largely accessed by the internet by younger demos, could take part in this programming if an FM can't/won't be sacrificed for experimentation.

 

[CTListener]

Bones plays new country releases along with other songs already on the national chart, but what carries his show is his insider status. He has access to the Nashville stars and has them in the studio or on the phone regularly. Without that content, he'd be just another DJ reading gossip headlines off TMZ and there'd be no reason for anyone outside his home market to tune in.

 

[BruceB]

I started this thread which I called Saving AM Radio to find out the opinion of members of the board about how AM could or should be saved.after 20 pages, I've gotten a lot of opinions and I thank you for that.
Now it seems the talk is evolving to whether radio stations, AM or FM, should be broadcasting over-the-air at all.
During the tornadoes, which struck Dayton, Ohio several years ago, large areas were without electricity and internet service, but those people who had portable radios and batteries could still find out what was going on and keep up with services that we're being offered. Broadcasting over-the-air is still necessary now and in the future.
A natural disaster or a terrorist attack could easily knock out internet service, cell phone service and electricity. But it would be more difficult to disable Radio stations with backup power supplies from providing information to people with portable radios and batteries.
In may, in fact, be only FM but the idea of online only with no over the air transmission does not seem prudent to me.

 

[TheBigA]

That's a lot of internet/Prime (largely desirable demos?) potential listeners that will not need broadcast music radio unless they deliver something VERY worthwhile to tolerate 6 minutes of commercials.

It depends on what you want. If you ONLY want music without interruption, then broadcast radio is not for you. There are a lot of alternative music fans who are upset that their radio station dropped music for news. That's an example of how radio companies react and respond to what the audience wants.

 

[K.M. Richards]

This is consumer mindset that proliferated during the dot-com bubble of the ‘90’s. Consumers think that services on the internet should be available to them for free since they pay their internet service provider for the bandwidth.

Actually, it goes back farther than that, Louis. I was part of the "zine" movement back in the late 80s/early 90s, and would occasionally get a request for an article -- and only that article, from a back issue. And the requester would invariably want mt to copy just the article and mail it to them, when buying a copy of the whole issue would have only been a couple or three bucks. And they were insulted (!) by my asking them to do so!

A friend who occasionally contributed to my zine wrote a column about it entitled "TANSTAAFL".

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[K.M. Richards]

During the tornadoes, which struck Dayton, Ohio several years ago, large areas were without electricity and internet service, but those people who had portable radios and batteries could still find out what was going on and keep up with services that we're being offered.

I have a portable radio in the nightstand next to my bed, which operates by charging its internal battery with a hand crank. It can also use AA batteries but I don't trust those to have not gone dead by the time I need the radio.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I agree. I use Firefox almost exclusively and have my own email that is not on any of the "free" email accounts.

I actually have "free" accounts at both GMail and an old one at Yahoo, both of which are POP/SMTP accessible, so no browser used to access mail. Plus I have three "legacy" pacbell.net addresses which came with my original DSL service; when AT&T stopped supporting their old domains, they arranged for Yahoo to maintain those as well, and my mail client happily accesses those without any difficulty.

And, like David, my primary e-mail is at my own domain name.