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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
There was a time back in the 1960s and 1970s when some radio manufacturers created AM radios that had very good high-fidelity sound. However, people didn't buy them or enough of them, possibly because of the hetrodyne distortions in some areas due to nearby AM stations on adjacent frequencies, to make their continued manufacture worthwhile. The result is that all (or very nearly all) AM receivers available today have very crummy sound and wouldn't be worth listening to even if my favorite stations were available on the band.
I'm sure a good AM radio could be manufactured if there were a reason to manufacture one. Money drives the universe, but I can't think of anyone who wants to pay extra money for a product that would receive clearly a product that had been abandoned by even the companies who present it. There are thousands of AM stations and about a dozen which are programmed well and attempt to be competitive. Most are only on the air to keep the license from a (religious-ethnic-NPR- name a group) who might draw a few listeners away from the other corporate owned stations. When the transmitter fails or the land it sits on becomes more valuable, then it is turned off. Are there not too many radio stations anyway? With the new internet choices the audience is fragmented and no one is making any real money in 2025. Don't start listing the KFI's and very few others. We know there are exceptions, but no one is making anywhere near what they were making 30 years ago. Plus, there is nothing on any AM station that could not move to FM if the audience demanded it. There isn't a lot of effort put in to most AM station programs in 2025. Yes, again there are a very few exceptions. If AM is humanely euthanized by a licensed veterinarian, the sun will rise in the morning and we'll give the 12 owners who spend a lot of money on a good AM radio a few days to reflect on their loss. Even they will go on. Few are going to invest in a radio that will receive these signals clearly because there is so little on the band that anyone wants. No one is going to broadcast anything of value on AM until there is a profitable reason to do so. With all the competition there will never be a profit in attempting to build an AM product. I'm guessing that only the rich who want to play DJ will own any AM product in the very near future, and when that happens you have a station that broadcasts only to and for that owner. Think WABC, one of the best signals in the number one market, covered in static 40 miles from the antenna, broadcasting all of it's owners choices. Admittedly, they had a slight increase in listenership, but how long will the 80 year olds hang on? For that matter, how long can 80 year old talent keep going? Prospective oldies DJ wannabees with Saturday nights free should send resumes just in case.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
You make some excellent points, which I will not elaborate on as your choice of verbiage was also very good.
But to that last line, I must add, only half-seriously: Offering to do that Saturday night show free of charge will improve your chances of the station taking you up on the offer.
It's my understanding that many, if not most community-oriented stations will often offer time slots for people to do shows on a volunteer basis, so there is a precedent for that, which I'm sure everyone here knows.
But at a full power, commercial station? I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm sure they'd absolutely want to spend as little money as possible, so if they get a talented DJ willing to do a weekly show for no pay, they'll be all over him or her like white on rice if they can!
c
Thank you for the kind words. I find that stations which put free help on the air get exactly what they pay for. People who feel the need to be on the air so badly that the would do a show for free apparently know and understand their worth. I won't utter a syllable on the air without compensation.
If the station is unionized it would probably violate the union contract.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
The vast majority of unionized stations are in markets where stations are unlikely to put volunteer DJs on the air, so I don't believe that would be an issue for this hypothetical.
Serenade Radio in England has all volunteer DJs and they're all quite good. They do it for the love of the music.
Good for them. That will help keep wages down for the foolish who want to be paid for their efforts
The station is financed by listener donations. The more popular formats can afford to pay their DJs by selling "adverts".
So you are in agreement that volunteer radio people are paid what the are worth and the public station offerings are an inferior product that can not draw a viable audience. Interesting. I welcome your support to the defund PBS movement
I never said any of that.
The example I cited is one where the people willing to not be paid are some of the best in the business and essentially retired.
The format on the station is one advertisers won't support because they think the listeners are old.
Tesla would have us believe that it is a general issue that AM radio reception in bad in electric cars, but that really isn't true. I suspect that the issue for Tesla is that they want to save 50 cents on a line filter or something like that.
I drive a Hyundai EV and it has a functional AM tuner section on its radio. Before that, I drove a Chevy Volt, which is a plug-in hybrid that functions as a fully electric vehicle for the first 40 or 50 miles, and it too had a functional AM tuner section. Ditto for the multiple hybrids out there, ranging from the Toyota Prius to the Ford Maverick. So if other companies can do it, the issue isn't whether it is possible to have a functional AM tuner in an electric vehicle, but rather that Tesla just doesn't want to mess with it.
No, it's because Musk's cult of personality revolves around modern technology and AM radio is the antithesis of that, so he made up an excuse to exclude it. By the way, he designed his cars so that even FM radio requires Tesla's "Standard Connectivity" package to work, so after the free period expires, owners have to pay a monthly fee for that.
Just one more reason on the long list of reasons why I'm happy that my EV is a Hyundai instead of a Tesla.
You unfortunately make it sound as if programming for immigrants and ethnic and cultural minorities is 'nothing of value', and that such programming has had no effort put into it -- especially when in many markets the AM band is the only airwave spectrum available for such programming.
Have you actually tuned the AM band, or are you just reacting to the existence of a couple local conservative talk stations?
In my market of almost 4.5 million, there are several Spanish language stations, 3 Punjabi stations, 1 multilingual/multicultural brokered station (which has broadcasts in Spanish, Chinese, Ukrainian, etc.), two Korean stations, and three African American news, music and info stations. There's also sports, a handful of religious talk stations, and at least one rimshot NPR on AM, along with a Spanish language, religious AM station that's a rimshot.
There is limited room on FM for added stations to include these formats. Where are they supposed to go if they want to be on the airwaves?
Sometimes it sounds like AM's detractors think that radio for Latinos, Punjabis, Ukrainians, Koreans, Sikhs, African Americans, and other, diverse multicultural groups is superfluous and unnecessary.
You never worked in college radio? Or had an internship, to get experience at a station? I've done both, and my labor was worth more than the zero that I was paid for it -- but I got experience that allowed me to be paid, in the radio industry, for 16 years.
AM detractors don't think about any of the formats you mentioned. We only know that a viable and saleable format will work as well on FM so if those formats attract an audience and make money, they'll be fine when they move to FM. If you are suggesting that the entire AM band must be saved for narrowcasting formats, ok. Fine. You win. So let's leave everything as it is and we can pretend that we can actually hear the audio over the static and noise level. AM is so competitive that one must wonder why AM owners are trying to jam in FM translators clogging up the FM for the sole purpose of not having to be on only AM. Let's admit that AM is like a 57 chevy. It was wonderful when it was shinny and new, but in todays more competitive highways and with gas prices, it doesn't cut it. So let's put it in the scrap yard next to AM radio.
and the guys in the auto shop fixed the teachers cars with no compensation too. Geez. There is a difference between working to learn a skill and having a skill. Interns are being paid with knowledge and an opportunity to learn skills. Those who have a skill don't have to work for no compensation. Those who don't have a great skill but still "have to be on the radio-it's in my blood" and work for no compensation are not doing a service to themselves or to those earning a living in that business when they have to compete in a marketplace where minimum wage idiots will work for free. For God's sake, give yourself some worth. If you can't get money from the station at least work out a deal where they pay minimum wage and trade tires for your car or something.
16 years huh? I did it a while longer. Never uttered a word uncompensated either. Going to school to learn a skill doesn't count. It also doesn't count when you read a commercial as an audition. I've done those too uncompensated.
Oh yes....I have tuned in the AM band recently. I heard static mostly and a few sentences until I drove past a power line. I got a couple of stations with syndicated talk shows, a lot of FM stations on an unlistenable AM frequency, I'm guessing, to fill up the space. So, yes I know what's out there and I don't think it will be missed when the plug is finally pulled.