Saving AM Radio

[Robert Douglas]

I live in two cities, alternating every month or two.

City 1, San Antonio (2M people) - at least 30 AM signals all sounding good now and each providing a nice service. Iheart flagship WOAI and Alpha's KTSA are certainly profitable. Salem has two big signals. Several sports stations, Cox has two. Lots of foreign language and religious teaching. AM band seems to be flourishing here.

City 2, Bella Vista AR (small town inside a 500K market) - Basically nothing on the AM dial receivable above the noise. The one that is receivable has no modulation, which would seem to be a money saving scheme to lower the power bill as they have an FM translator and seem to think that just running an AM carrier keeps them legal.

So, what to do? I like all of David's suggestions above. But, why not open up the band to low power small biz owners for the low density areas that have no AM service? Let them set up daytime service with no tower, just a longwire.

 

[KilowattKat]

I live in two cities, alternating every month or two.

City 1, San Antonio (2M people) - at least 30 AM signals all sounding good now and each providing a nice service. Iheart flagship WOAI and Alpha's KTSA are certainly profitable. Salem has two big signals. Several sports stations, Cox has two. Lots of foreign language and religious teaching. AM band seems to be flourishing here.

City 2, Bella Vista AR (small town inside a 500K market) - Basically nothing on the AM dial receivable above the noise. The one that is receivable has no modulation, which would seem to be a money saving scheme to lower the power bill as they have an FM translator and seem to think that just running an AM carrier keeps them legal.

So, what to do? I like all of David's suggestions above. But, why not open up the band to low power small biz owners for the low density areas that have no AM service? Let them set up daytime service with no tower, just a longwire.

San Antonio has a number of AM's that also still play music....Classic Country, Nostalgia,, Gospel, and Regional Mexican. Even with the loss of KONO-AM.

 

[TheBigA]

There are a lot more. Start adding in all the foreign language stations and all the religious ones as well as those that serve vast farm areas like WNAX or KRVN.

Those last two survive on translators. I'll say this: There are a lot more zero audience, boat anchor AMs than there are AMs that attract an audience.

There was no requirement for stations to prepare for emergencies, such as having backup power or an auxiliary transmitter or the like.

I never said anything about preparing for emergencies. I was talking about the funding. Who pays the staff during emergencies? The station, using the profits from normal operations. The requirement is that the station must turn over its signal for emergency purposes.

 

[TheBigA]

Loosening the ownership caps will shut out, not attract new owners.

Right now, how many Buddy Shulas do we have buying AMs? Not many. Somebody has to own these stations, or they go silent. Once delisted, they're gone forever. Cumulus has a 50K AM in San Francisco right now that's already silent. Where are all the Buddy Shulas offering money? At some point, the reality hits that people just don't want to own expensive AM licenses anymore, and that's what this thread is about. The FCC continues to talk itself into believing these are "valuable" licenses. They're wrong.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Right now, how many Buddy Shulas do we have buying AMs? Not many.

How many do we need, though?

Somebody has to own these stations, or they go silent. Once delisted, they're gone forever.

Good. Nobody actually *needs* to own the stations. AM radio is a declining technology and there's not enough interest, either from the ownership or the audience side, to sustain the number of them left on the air now.

Cumulus has a 50K AM in San Francisco right now that's already silent. Where are all the Buddy Shulas offering money? At some point, the reality hits that people just don't want to own expensive AM licenses anymore, and that's what this thread is about. The FCC continues to talk itself into believing these are "valuable" licenses. They're wrong.

I don't know what your point is then, since we agree on this. Attrition is working as expected, just as it always does as time marches on. There's no reason to distress over a sunsetting technology, apart from nostalgia.

 

[TheBigA]

How many do we need, though?

There are hundreds of small AMs that need owners right now.

AM radio is a declining technology and there's not enough interest, either from the ownership or the audience side, to sustain the number of them left on the air now.

So then why do you care if the FCC removes them from the ownership caps? The fact is, even removing them from the caps won't be enough to keep that station in San Francisco.

 

[davideduardo]

Those last two survive on translators.

WNAX and KRVN do more than survive. WNAX covers pieces of 3 states while KRVN covers most of central and western Nebraska. The translators only serve the local Yankton and Lexington towns.

I'll say this: There are a lot more zero audience, boat anchor AMs than there are AMs that attract an audience.

Again, look across the country at ethnic stations, starting with several in Kreyol in South Florida to ones in Chinese, Vietnamese and Farsi in LA. Chicago still has Polish radio on AM. There are hundreds of such stations. Add in Spanish language in markets where a full FM is not justifiable and you have several hundred more. All are nicely profitable.

Then there are the religious stations. Some are pay-for-play, but many are part of "teaching & preaching" national or regional ministries and they are successful by their own standards where ratings are less important than "souls reached with our message".

I never said anything about preparing for emergencies. I was talking about the funding. Who pays the staff during emergencies? The station, using the profits from normal operations. The requirement is that the station must turn over its signal for emergency purposes.

Do you know of any station that has been ruined due to emergency services?

I know of one in Puerto Rico which could not get access to its transmitter due to destroyed roads and, then, lack of power when the road opened. All that took about 8 months, and the elderly owner gave up and had nobody to sell to.

The biggest financial stress on stations is after an emergency when advertisers suspend campaigns while the local economy rebuilds; it can take months to get back to anything close to normal. That affects everyone, from daytime AMs to full power FMs when there is a major incident, whether the New Orleans hurricane or the Paradise, CA, wildfires.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

So then why do you care if the FCC removes them from the ownership caps? The fact is, even removing them from the caps won't be enough to keep that station in San Francisco.

Explain what you think removing the ownership caps would accomplish. If you mean you want an owner to be able to acquire and own an unlimited number of AM radio stations in the market, then sure, why not? They're not going to want to own too many anyway.

But if you mean not counting AM radio stations toward an owner's cap, freeing them up to buy more FM stations to reach it, that's what I'd oppose.

 

[TheBigA]

Do you know of any station that has been ruined due to emergency services?

When AM stations shut down or owners turn in their licenses, those stations are no longer available for emergency services. That's where we are in many cases.

 

[davideduardo]

When AM stations shut down or owners turn in their licenses, those stations are no longer available for emergency services. That's where we are in many cases.

The majority of stations going silent fall into two types:

First: Metro areas where there are too many stations and not enough alternative formats for an inferior facility to find a niche and survive.

Second: Rural areas where the big box effect and web purchasing reductions in local retail have cut available advertising dollars so that even one station in a market can not survive.

While some of those stations may be in very remote places in Montana or New Mexico or West Texas or the like, most are in areas where plenty of other signals are available.

An issue with some AMs that are closing is their complex night directional system. It uses lots of land, is expensive to maintain, both technically and keeping the grounds clear, and engineers with directional skills are more and more rare (and expensive).

A good example is Dalilah's AM in rural Oregon: even with a big infusion of talent and money, there was just not enough ad revenue to sustain the station.

Remember, prior to the 50's, there were 1000 or fewer stations on the air, and most places had no reliable local or semi-local night signal at all. Example: Suttons Bay and Northport, Michigan where the lone Traverse City Class IV AM barely reached by day and not at all at night. Radio listening, if any, went to Chicago clear channel stations and WJR in Detroit. It was not until FMs started building out in the late 60's and 70's that the area I mention got reliable night service.

 

[davideduardo]

When AM stations shut down or owners turn in their licenses, those stations are no longer available for emergency services. That's where we are in many cases.

Again, do you know of any station that has permanently shut down due to the cost of remaining on the air during a local emergency?

 

[TheBigA]

Again, do you know of any station that has permanently shut down due to the cost of remaining on the air during a local emergency?

Go back to what I said at the start. The deal for the public-private partnership was the stations could make money from these frequencies as long as they were available for emergencies. The first part of the deal isn't applicable for many stations anymore. It's in those rural areas where DHS needs AM radio to get the word out because there may not be cell or internet service. Now there also isn't AM radio.

 

[davideduardo]

Go back to what I said at the start. The deal for the public-private partnership was the stations could make money from these frequencies as long as they were available for emergencies. The first part of the deal isn't applicable for many stations anymore.

There is nothing in the original Communications Act or any rules going back to the FRC in the late 20's that specifically talks about coverage of emergencies.

Yes, licenses were supposed to provide certain services, with the most highly regulated period being the later 50's through the 70's when we had to do community ascertainment, run percentages of news and public affairs and even promise a certain amount of PSAs. But there was noting in the rules (I have a good array of Part 73 rules at the site below) about "responding to and broadcasting about" emergency situations.

I suppose you could say that such activities were expected, but they were not specifically required or regulated.

 

[TheBigA]

There is nothing in the original Communications Act or any rules going back to the FRC in the late 20's that specifically talks about coverage of emergencies.

Read Section 706 (a)

Section 706 of the Communications Act of 1934,1 as amended by 47 U.S.C. §606, authorizes the President, among other things, to address national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) telecommunications issues and assign federal department, agency, and entity NS/EP telecommunications responsibilities.

It also comes up in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Title 18

Title XVIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as amended, requires the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) to develop a National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) that provides short- and long-term guidance to address national emergency communications deficiencies.

 

[davideduardo]

Read Section 706 (a)



It also comes up in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Title 18

Neither requires specific actions or even preparedness from individual radio stations. The President, as we well know in present times, can declare anything they want, but that does not mean each declaration will be fulfilled or enacted.

Nowhere does it say "licensed radio and television stations". Nor does it define specific things stations must do in the event of an emergency.

 

[TheBigA]

Neither requires specific actions or even preparedness from individual radio stations.

You're picking nits. If the stations aren't there, they can't be utilized in the ways outlined in the acts.

Nor does it define specific things stations must do in the event of an emergency.

It designates specific agencies that are empowered to define what stations must do.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Actually, the Clear Channel Broadcasting Service began more about 80 years ago. WSM: The campaign for 750,000 watt AM stations

They lobbied to restore the WLW 500 kw power along with increases for the majority of the 1-A clear channels. They finally gave up when the FCC, instead, decided to allow the 1-A clears to be broken down with secondary high power stations in unserved areas of the west being allowed.

At the time, through the early 50's, there were thousands fewer AMs (now 5,000 and in 1940 about 1,000) so stations outside the bigger cities did not have the big network shows at night. As the AM dial became overpopulated and listening moved from nights to daytime hours, the need changed.

Remember, the politicians were afraid of huge-coverage stations with huge influence. That is mostly why the U.S. limited power to the low 50 kw ceiling.

Thanks for the clarification David. For some reason I always thought that the movement for 750 kW started in the 60's and ended in the 70s. Like the doorman at the Emerald City of OZ once said: "Well bust my buttons!"

 

[Mark Roberts]

So, what to do? I like all of David's suggestions above. But, why not open up the band to low power small biz owners for the low density areas that have no AM service? Let them set up daytime service with no tower, just a longwire.

The Dutch low-power AM service is very much like that, though 24/7 operation is permitted. Power can be no more than 100 watts. I believe most are using longwire antennas. Most major Dutch cities have anywhere from one to three such stations available. They can operate on a commercial basis. Whether they are successful probably depends on how you define success. Several have gone off the air due to lack of financial support. Others seem to have found a niche. For example, Radio 4 Brainport in Eindhoven, at 747 kHz, targets the English-speaking expatriate community in Eindhoven (former Philips headquarters with substantial Philips technical operations remaining). I'd say the reception radius is about 10 km. At my mother-in-law's house, about 8 km away, the station is noisy but steady. The station is entirely automated, playing contemporary music most of the time except for occasional announcements and top-of-the-hour news. It now also has a DAB+ channel.

| Radio 4 Brainport

Your international station from the City of Light ! New low bitrate AAC stream for mobile devices ! See our Latest News High bitrate MP3 : Low bitrate AAC : Also available on DAB+, 747 kHz AM in the Brainport region. And we have more ways to listen to our programs, including through Tune-In...

www.radio4brainport.org

 

[ted chittenden]

One of the suggestions that David Eduardo has made is one that I like a lot. That suggestion is for the FCC to redefine required coverages, especially nighttime coverages, so that AM stations with one non-directional tower don't have to go down to less than, say 200, watts at night. As David noted, directional engineers are becoming more difficult to find and more expensive when you find them. In addition, landowners and developers have found that they can earn a lot more money by building housing and charging rent (usually very high rent--but that's a subject for another time and place) to use that housing versus what they can get from station owners who place towers on their land. Finally, there are concerns that if AM towers are too close to people, rates of cancer could go up. (This was why WFNI at 1070 kHz in Indianapolis couldn't get the tower space it wanted on the ranch outside of the city.)

If it were me, I probably wouldn't attempt this on the lower AM frequencies because of their greater groundwave coverage areas, but I would look at making changes on the non-clear channel stations on the regional frequencies starting at 910 kHz and going to 1600 kHz. (I would not do the expanded band stations, because, if memory serves, the stations on the air between 1610 and 1700 kHz are all licensed at 10kW days, 1kw nights with a single non-directional tower already.)

 

[semoochie]

One of the suggestions that David Eduardo has made is one that I like a lot. That suggestion is for the FCC to redefine required coverages, especially nighttime coverages, so that AM stations with one non-directional tower don't have to go down to less than, say 200, watts at night. As David noted, directional engineers are becoming more difficult to find and more expensive when you find them. In addition, landowners and developers have found that they can earn a lot more money by building housing and charging rent (usually very high rent--but that's a subject for another time and place) to use that housing versus what they can get from station owners who place towers on their land. Finally, there are concerns that if AM towers are too close to people, rates of cancer could go up. (This was why WFNI at 1070 kHz in Indianapolis couldn't get the tower space it wanted on the ranch outside of the city.)

If it were me, I probably wouldn't attempt this on the lower AM frequencies because of their greater groundwave coverage areas, but I would look at making changes on the non-clear channel stations on the regional frequencies starting at 910 kHz and going to 1600 kHz. (I would not do the expanded band stations, because, if memory serves, the stations on the air between 1610 and 1700 kHz are all licensed at 10kW days, 1kw nights with a single non-directional tower already.)

It is my understanding that non-ionizing radiation is frequency dependent and the AM band is too low in frequency to cause any trouble. This is assuming that any non-ionizing radiation is unhealthy! The last I heard, that hadn't been proven.