(my idea, may be slightly off-the-wall)
Kirk Bayne
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
(my idea, may be slightly off-the-wall)
Kirk Bayne
Horrible comparison. Everyone knows that there is water in lakes and rivers and oceans. First graders know that! But people under 30... even under 40... who grew up on streaming and iPods and MP3's and now use Spotify and friends do not have radio as an immediate thought when in an emergency.
But many never used radio, many more "graduated" from it to new media. And most under 40 never, never, ever, ever, used radio for news and information. To those generations, radio is "where they play songs with lots of commercials." It is not where they ever went for news as younger people, in a vast majority, don't seek news that way.
n = 3. And we don't know the age of the people. You are grasping for straws.
And those without radios in the home (over a third) will not turn on a device they do not own. The first choice for anyone today is the web, then TV. A few will "remember" radio and most of them are in their 50's and beyond.
People under 50 who use radio don't use it for news. Why would they think about their "music station" when they want storm information.
I have written over and over about how the hurricane 8 years ago in Puerto Rico took out all utilities, all cellular, all TV and all but one of the 130 radio stations there. Power was out for nearly a week for some, over a month for many. Landlines took months to come back for most. Cellular came back in a few days in some areas, weeks and months in others. Cable TV was out for many months in areas that had it. TV stations came back with reduced power in a few days, with very limited coverage and few people had electric service to watch.
People used radios as the word spread that there was information there. The few stores that were open sold out their stock of radios and batteries.
And a storm like that had not hit the Island for over a century. Now, more people have an emergency radio and six year old batteries stored with it.
Yes, older people. Young people did not have radios. If they even knew their neighbors (out of my 6 nearest neighbors, I only "know" one well enough to chat with and have as an emergency contact). Anecdotal stories don't make up for the fact that people in the younger demographics like 18-34 use very little radio and some don't use it at all. It is not a top of mind source of information in any case as they never use radio for news... they use it for music and, maybe, for a fun morning show that "winds them up and gets them going in the morning".
And after the storm recovery period, they will not use radio any more than they ever did. And in the younger demos, they will be back to streaming music sources and, if they care about news, online news sources.
I skipped your pseudo-political dissertation as being irrelevant. The fact is, after this is over, radio listening will return to the exact same levels as before. And with declining radio revenue, stations will make further cuts in programming expenses and there will be fewer and fewer stations with any news staff at all.
In fact, we see in many areas that the RADIO stations that did the best job worked with a local TELEVISION station for news and information because they have no news reporters or staff at all.
Gee, in the last three decades of my life, I can think of just a few cases where I immediately put on the radio: Northridge earthquake in 1994. 9/11 as soon as my American flight aborted right at take-off and I had my radio in my briefcase. Nothing since then. And I work in radio.
You are forgetting that EAS is like an upside down centipede. There are hundreds of government agencies and departments that can activate it but no central "EAS Master Control". EAS is a system, but not an organization.,
To do what you suggest, there would have to be EAS staff and operations HQs in every state and region, running 24/7. And still, they could not create content as that would have to come from government, police and military authorities in the local, regional and national zone affected by an alert if it needed to be called.
The "pro" column for EAS is that the alerts are called by the people who are at the center of the event that warrants an alert. The "con" column is that people at the center of things may not even remember to activate EAS or not remember how to do it if they want to.
And with an "EAS Center" you envision, if the local authorities don't notify the "command center" there still will be no alert to radio listeners.
Your idea adds bureaucracy to a system that works best without it.
I skipped the rest of the post that seems to be a defense for verbosity. You lost me after the second long sentence.
Well, here we are on page 55 of The Thread That Wouldn't Die and if we pre-internet geezers (me and the majority of others here) can agree on one thing, it's this: It's nearly impossible to wrap an older mind around the mindset of someone who's never known a day in their existence without the internet.
But if we take the 50 kw non-directional former 1-A clear channels ( 640, 650, 660, 670, 700, 720, 750, 760, 770, 780, 820, 830, 840, 870, 880, 890, 1020, 1030, 1040, 1100, 1120, 1160, 1180, 1200, 1210) all but one or two of those are profitable and still viable stations... although most have added an FM simulcast. One is the "landmark" station for the Grand Ole Opry, another (880 in New York) just went through a transition and maybe one more is borderline profitable.
Those stations have a long time to go before all would be available enabling the base for a national-coverage operation. And then many areas would need fill-in stations, such as Florida, the entire Pacific NW, AL-MS-AR, the upper Rockies, etc.
And even then, you'd have limited night coverage and no day coverage at all over much of the nation. For example, the 50 kw station in Atlanta has daytime coverage that is viable for only the few surrounding counties nearest to Atlanta. It is useless elsewhere in the daytime.
Again, in daytime hours, those stations don't cover much more than their immediate areas. Even in regions with huge ground conductivity, stations like WHO in Des Moines don't even cover all of Iowa in the daytime. And WSM in Nashville has a good signal only for maybe 80 miles or so around that city. It is not useful in Huntsville, AL or Knoxville or Memphis.
Yet those stations with higher power are, today, the least likely to be available as they are, for the most part, profitable.
Again, those stations are among the few AMs that are viable as stand-alone or FM-paired facilities today. They would be the last to go among all AMs.
Useless at night, too, from May through September in many areas because of atmospheric bangs and crashes from lightning near and far.
^^^
When the power is out and the internet doesn’t work, this hand-cranked radio keeps you connected to the world.
I do have a (about 10 year old) hand crank AM/FM radio, the one in this sales/article looks interesting, I may get one.
Kirk Bayne
When the power is out and the internet doesn’t work, this hand-cranked radio keeps you connected to the world.
I do have a (about 10 year old) hand crank AM/FM radio, the one in this sales/article looks interesting, I may get one.
Kirk Bayne
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Those really do work well. I still have one I bought over 25 years ago, which includes a flashlight, which I keep in a plastic bag in a heavy end table that is next to my futon (for some inexplicable reason, every earthquake I have experienced happened while I was in bed).
I had thought about changing it out for one that includes USB charging capability, but since cellular service is likely to be non-existent for a while after a quake I figure I can try sending texts for help if needed and if it doesn't work I'll just power down the phone and save the remaining juice in the battery for when service is restored.
(Actually, I am less worried than I used to be about earthquakes after the property management company retrofitted my building to better withstand same; some of the steel reinforcement inserts are between my ceiling and the floor of my upstairs neighbor.)
Excellent vid, really. Thanks for posting this. Very pertinent to the discussion.
The supreme irony of this is that CBS News, a mainstay in US news media for almost 100 years (started in 1929) may disappear for the same reason AM Radio ultimately will disappear -- internet streaming, and infinite competition and endless changes in the media landscape. We're already seeing the dilution of importance of the great networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, and even CNN (started in 1980) -- everything has a lifetime.
It's the only programming that seems to work, it would seem.
Y'know, like enough to keep the transmitter energized with juice...rudimentary things like that.
Progressive don't like to admit that liberal talk never worked on radio but they love to complain about conservative talk radio even though they had a chance to suport liberal talk and didn't.
It depends on who you talk to. A lot of conservatives like to view NPR as liberal talk. At least when they're trying to defund it.
Your point is well taken BigA, but I and the person I was responding to are referring to stations that must sell time to pay the bills.
Owners know they can't sell Liberal talk but they can sell conservative talk.
It's business not politics.
It isn't necessarily "liberal" talk. Talk radio wasn't always about politics, and ONLY politics, all day, all night, and one-sided.
Sure, I may not have agreed with a "liberal" or "moderate" host, but it was always interesting to listen to.
Now, it's only a partisan echo chamber.
That's what I've never understood about the appeal of right-wing talk radio. Aren't its listeners confident enough in their opinions that they don't need to have them regurgitated at them every single day on the radio? I'm liberal on more issues than I'm conservative, yet I never listened to Air America and only occasionally do I listen to NPR; most of my public radio listening is to musical programming. I try to stay informed on the issues that interest me, and once I've determined where I stand on those issues, listening to others make the same arguments on the radio is just about the most boring way to use radio that I can think of.
It's actually both, as you can tell when you hear the commercials. Many are advertisers who are committed to promoting the politics. They're not afraid of being associated with these hosts, and see it as good for their business.
It's part of being in the community. No different from a group of people who all love the same artist or music. Or attend the same church.
You can say the exact same thing about cable news network MsNBC. They never have a pro Trump person on their network and I mean NEVER.
Only Progressives and Trump hating Republicans. It's the same thing. Preaching to the choir.
That's right, it's business.
If an owner of a station decides they're selling an hour for $200 (or whatever the price is in that market...) and it's not illegal or immoral, that person/entity gets 60 minutes of time to spew whatever they choose. That's how this works.
$170 goes to pay the power bill, while $30 goes to my pocket.
...and repeat.