Could future dashboard entertainment systems be engineered to override any non-AM/FM use they are being put to at a given time (satellite radio, streaming, prerecorded music files or discs, etc.) to deliver EANs to the driver? Or even, should the driver be driving in silence (or in conversation with a passenger) with the dashboard unit turned off at the time the notice goes out, turn itself on in time to jolt the driver into awareness of the tornado, flood, incoming missiles or whatever with a loud screech and further information?
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
If the majority of AM listening is in autos, yes, it would have a negative effect on listening.
And there is the redundancy in disasters and emergencies aspect of it. It's better to have more redundant communications in disasters available, not less. The chips already are AM capable that are installed in every car. It's odd how corporate greed and profit motive seems to be championed in cases like this. The car companies want to eliminate AM because it saves them a couple bucks, but they'll still charge the consumer thousands of dollars more for their vehicles each year anyway. They say that the inclusion of AM in EV's is not cost effective, but all the spyware included in cars today is apparently just fine, and automatic backup and side cameras and the spyware to run it isn't cheap.
The NAB wants AM to remain in cars because of the few AM stations that have large audiences, and because they are afraid FM will go next. They're looking out for the industry as a whole. They see the writing on the wall. If car companies are too cheap to include AM, they may cut FM next, whether it's 5 years from now, or 10 years from now.
I'm on the side of redundancy in emergency communications, and the continued existence of Radio in vehicles -- FM or AM -- over corporate greed.
Possible, but I haven't heard of that happening, or being developed. Mostly it's entertainment apps, along with data gathering stuff like GPS which can be used to track your movements and highway speeds, and the like.
The limitations for use of tech like you mentioned, for safety, are minimal, but I am not aware of anything you mentioned being developed. Maybe in the future, once AM and FM are removed from vehicles, such systems will exist. They'd have to be standardized, of course. Maybe satellite based, like a version of Starlink.
RDS has an "alarm" function that can theoretically do this. It's coded as a programme type, so if a station sets its PTY code to the relevant setting for "alarm", radios tuned to other stations or playing a CD (or even muted/turned off) should automatically tune to the station transmitting the "alarm". I've never seen it in action, and it's obviously FM-only, but it does exist.
That happened for a short period of time. A few stations won the competition, and a bunch lost. The losers had weak signals and no money. They're still losers today. Competition only works when you have a level playing field, and radio isn't level.
And yet, that's why people subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and all the rest. It's just music. No DJs. That's what people want.
It's not that simple.
Depends on the station. WINS has a full staff of people to cover any emergency. But that's not what this is about. The government requires radio stations to turn over their signals to local emergency officials who provide the information. No radio staff needed. It all happens automatically.
The government can't force people to do anything. It's easier to mandate radios in cars. Once again, the mandate is for the big car companies. Why are you so worried about them?
This thread is 'Saving AM Radio'. 'AM In Every Vehicle' will not save AM Radio. Nothing will.
The reason political and sports talk radio dominate AM? It's barter. Cheap, filler programming. No royalties, no local staff needed, and most importantly, it fills the commercial breaks that local advertisers aren't buying that running PSA's tells everyone listening that your AM is barely generating enough revenue to cover it's own electric bill. Period.
It's usually the cheapest for a new operator to purchase. You can buy an AM in a lot of markets today for less than the cost of a new car. If an FM was available for the same price, you can bet the AM would never be bought and the FM would be snapped up in a heartbeat.
Everyone keeps talking about disasters. I'll grant you that AM works well in a natural disaster. But how many households have an AM Radio? If your car is destroyed in a flood or fire, there goes your only AM Radio. During a tornado or hurricane, are you going to be in your car listening to AM or huddled in the strongest room in your house? After the disaster, are you going to waste gas sitting in your car listening to AM for updates while your house is flooded or destroyed and you're picking up the pieces? No. You're going to save your gas for getting to shelter or supplies until gas stations are up and running. If the average household doesn't have a portable battery or crank radio when there's no power after a storm, then a thousand AMs broadcasting aren't getting their message to those affected. You can't listen to something if you don't have a device to pick it up on.
We on this board all have AM radios because we live, sleep, eat and breathe Radio. The average person doesn't. When the power goes out, they're looking for blankets, candles, flashlights, food, etc.. They're looking at their phones waiting for cell towers to come back up. Radio, whether AM or FM, isn't top of mind. It is to us because this is what we do.
Yes, there are AMs that still have a place. Yes, there AMs that do well financially, but most, if not all, have an FM translator. I want to see the books of those AM stations that are daytimers without translators. I have looked at the financials of dozens of stations over the past few years. Most of the AMs are only billing enough to cover their own bills, not turning a profit. It's cheaper to turn them off. The land they sit on is their biggest asset, and in quite a few cases, the only reason to buy. Turn in the license and sell the land. If a broker calls me and leads with an AM for sale, I end the call. Not interested. And I'm not alone.
Let them pass 'AM In Every Vehicle'. It won't save AM. Better programming may extend it a bit, but will not save it. You can't make a couple of generations raised on the internet, streaming, cellphones, and satellite Radio suddenly turn to a century old technology that is saddled with noise from power lines and other man-made technology and become devoted listeners. You can't make people stop dying of old age just to keep something from their youth from going extinct. Without new listeners, even FM won't last.
The reason political and sports talk radio dominate AM? It's barter. Cheap, filler programming. No royalties, no local staff needed, and most importantly, it fills the commercial breaks that local advertisers aren't buying that running PSA's tells everyone listening that your AM is barely generating enough revenue to cover it's own electric bill. Period.
It's usually the cheapest for a new operator to purchase. You can buy an AM in a lot of markets today for less than the cost of a new car. If an FM was available for the same price, you can bet the AM would never be bought and the FM would be snapped up in a heartbeat.
Everyone keeps talking about disasters. I'll grant you that AM works well in a natural disaster. But how many households have an AM Radio? If your car is destroyed in a flood or fire, there goes your only AM Radio. During a tornado or hurricane, are you going to be in your car listening to AM or huddled in the strongest room in your house? After the disaster, are you going to waste gas sitting in your car listening to AM for updates while your house is flooded or destroyed and you're picking up the pieces? No. You're going to save your gas for getting to shelter or supplies until gas stations are up and running. If the average household doesn't have a portable battery or crank radio when there's no power after a storm, then a thousand AMs broadcasting aren't getting their message to those affected. You can't listen to something if you don't have a device to pick it up on.
We on this board all have AM radios because we live, sleep, eat and breathe Radio. The average person doesn't. When the power goes out, they're looking for blankets, candles, flashlights, food, etc.. They're looking at their phones waiting for cell towers to come back up. Radio, whether AM or FM, isn't top of mind. It is to us because this is what we do.
Yes, there are AMs that still have a place. Yes, there AMs that do well financially, but most, if not all, have an FM translator. I want to see the books of those AM stations that are daytimers without translators. I have looked at the financials of dozens of stations over the past few years. Most of the AMs are only billing enough to cover their own bills, not turning a profit. It's cheaper to turn them off. The land they sit on is their biggest asset, and in quite a few cases, the only reason to buy. Turn in the license and sell the land. If a broker calls me and leads with an AM for sale, I end the call. Not interested. And I'm not alone.
Let them pass 'AM In Every Vehicle'. It won't save AM. Better programming may extend it a bit, but will not save it. You can't make a couple of generations raised on the internet, streaming, cellphones, and satellite Radio suddenly turn to a century old technology that is saddled with noise from power lines and other man-made technology and become devoted listeners. You can't make people stop dying of old age just to keep something from their youth from going extinct. Without new listeners, even FM won't last.
For the same reason I don't want the government to force CVS to carry a certain brand of hand cream. Let the marketplace make those decisions.
Agreed. I just don't want something that few people want to raise the cost of a car, even if it's just a dollar, because you think I should have AM whether I use it or not. If I want it, I'll buy it. If I don't, and fewer and fewer people use it every year, I don't want it force fed. Marketplace decisions should choose.
I'd be perfectly happy if they had those as options and let consumers decide if they wanted them included. Make your preferences known to let the marketplace decide.
When an emergency gets that far out of hand, local first responders work to evacuate you far from the burning cell towers to sites where the molten metal parts won't be falling. They will also keep you informed of what you need to know and feed you. We can not prepare for every possible scenario, but we can let hundreds of AM stations no one cares about die a natural death and let the survivors live on a less cluttered dial.
I agree, except about expense. If you pay more than $150 a year from Serious XM, you have not negotiated with the difficult to understand fellow in India who answers the phone when you call to cancel. I also suggest that MOST local radio sucks in getting real news on the air. Little Julie the college intern reading wire copy and plagiarized stories from the newspaper is not real news and when a real emergency happens, there won't be much better coverage. When the government takes over the broadcast it will probably be less relevant to the local situation than little Julie adlibbing about it. We've all heard the EBS tones and then the mechanical voice talking about a dangerous thunderstorm approaching a city a hundred miles away from the unfortunate local station that had it's programming (and commercials) interrupted for that nonsense courtesy of the government you seeming believe will keep you informed..
One could argue this from the other side, too: that the NAB is engaging in corporate greed by seeking to prop up a medium operated by its members for profit that's viewed by a substantial number of its potential audience as either irrelevant or obsolete.
The term "corporate greed" is just more empty calories.
AM radio is not a brand. It's a device. Like seatbelts and brakes. The government can force businesses to have bathrooms for example. That's not a marketplace decision.
It won't increase the cost of the car. There are a lot of things in the car the government already mandates that you don't even know about.
The car companies want to make that decision for you. The government wants to keep the choice. You seem to support big corporate car makers instead of choice.
I don't see either going away altogether, but they will exist in much-diminished forms, and the business models will be quite different. What's happened with newspapers may indicate a similar path for AM and FM radio.
In the meantime, the saying about leading horses to water comes to mind.
Every other media and format has had to adapt. Time for AM and FM to, as well.
The big signal almost always wins. In many markets where only two owners have all the stations, there is no real competition and they continue to broadcast dull and unlistenable garbage just to keep the poorer signals on the air. It's bland
OK. Then you'll agree that current music radio is pointless because everyone wants music without the 20 minutes of commercials. Let's stop that and find a winning format to attract listeners to free radio in greater numbers. Let Spotify have the market in which they lead and come up with something advertisers will flock to in droves because people love it and can't get it elsewhere And no, I don't know what is is, but I know I don't hear it anywhere up or down the current dial
WINS and a few others with a real staff are exceptions to the rule. You have to agree with that. Once again, the government will more than likely not do a reputable job when they do seize the private business for what they consider an emergency. I enjoy their mechanical voice tell me about a dangerous weather condition 100 miles away from the local stations they seize when their computer senses a weather event. It humors me
i don't want the government to tell CVS what brands of hand cream they must sell. Let's let the marketplace make determinations for both CVS and GM. I agree the government can't force people to do anything, but they sure do coerce folks to become robots. Anthony Fauci comes to mind
Because. as you say, the big signal wins. That kills your competition argument.
That's what they're doing now. You don't like it. But that's why they do it.
Something is better than nothing. What you're proposing is they do nothing. That's not acceptable.
AM radio is not a brand. The car companies can use any brand they want.
Because of the HD loophole in the AM in Every Vehicle Act, only AM stations that run hybrid HD would benefit. The proposed law allows a car maker to include AM that only receives HD. It does not require analog AM reception. If more AM stations add HD at night, it will re-create the same nightmare we had years ago.
To quote "Gladiator": "Are you not entertained?"
For their employees, not their customers or anyone who just walks into the store with an urgent need to "go." That's been the policy at many businesses I've patronized. There are signs up saying "Restrooms not open to public."
I didn't mean the audio quality, I was referring to the static. If the engine, the brakes and other components are causing obvious interference, AM listeners (no matter how few there are) will complain. They'll blame the car, not the AM.
"Marketplace" includes government regulations, being that nearly everything sold in the marketplace is regulated one way or another by government. Whether you want or don't want something that raises the cost of a car is increasingly immaterial. The days of special ordering your 1972 Ford Maverick with AM radio, AM/FM radio, or no radio; AC or no AC; whitewalls vs. regular tires; and or a choice of stick shift vs. automatic were long gone 20 years ago.
As I just said, modern day vehicle shopping doesn't have as many options. Providing options costs the manufacturers more money. On the other side of the coin, you don't get to choose which natural disaster may hit your town or region, either. I live in earthquake country. I suppose I could move to Texas -- then I'd be in tornado or hurricane country. But you don't generally get to choose when a disaster strikes. And when such disaster strikes, often such media as AM radio is helpful. You can bet that more people in LA's fire prone areas were listening to KNX 1070 than trying to get info via the cell system, especially when the cell towers were looking like torches, exploding into flames and melting into blobs of plastic and metal parts.
My local cell tower is a just over a mile away. Another one up the hill serves a several mile radius. Cell towers can cover a lot of diverse territory. And if you are solely dependent on your cell system, that's putting all of your information sourcing in one box, and no information 'box' is without problems, be it AM, FM, TV, or cellphone based internet. As far as "AM stations no one cares about", obviously some in government and in the US do care about them, just as others care about public radio, which has a lot less stations, and relies on a certain amount of Federal support. Right now the AM bill seems to have been looked at again, and public radio tax support is also being looked at. There are millions who couldn't care less about someone else's favorite public radio station, just as there are people who don't care about someone's favorite AM station. On one side, proponents want mandated AM receivers in cars. On the other side, proponents want a continuance of taxpayer funding for CPB's 1220 stations. Everybody has their pet media they want to save.
Agree mostly, except a lot of news is going the way of AI ripping and reading, because of the increased costs of having actual staff, and soon enough that sort of news reporting will spread to TV. It's already taken place on the internet. The days of actual news departments are fading. I just listened last night to an AM radio station which is the only remaining local news media in its county. The newspaper went under in September of last year. Social media can only fill so much of the news void. The entire field of news is changing.
As I understand it, to make AM work well in modern cars, it takes a lot of noise reduction, RFI reduction from car computer systems, etc.
The issue that car manufacturers have is that sure they could include AM radio, but it wouldn't work very well.
Same goes with AM/FM in cell phones.
At home, I can barely hear local AM stations at home on my desk because of all my computer and electronic gear overloading it with RFI. (It's true I'm an outlier and most people don't have as much digital gear on their desks as I do, heh!)
So simply enabling a chip feature alone doesn't solve the problem.
That being said, with more receivers moving to a SDR approach, you can do a lot more filtering of noise and cleaning the audio. But that's going to cost money too.
You should probably read the law, because as I recall, it made accommodation for that.