It doesn't. If you put on programming the largest group of available listeners enjoy, you will win. If you own a dozen stations, put effort in two of them and automate the rest with affordable, non offensive and bland programming, you will have two good stations and a bunch of others you waste electricity on simply so no one else can have them and possibly program something better which might cut into your bottom line $.
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
The AM in Every Vehicle Act isn't meant to help radio. It's meant to ensure that DHS emergency information can be received. It's mainly an extension of the DHS act and the Communications act. Just because an AM radio is in a car doesn't mean the car owner will listen. But there's no point in requiring radio stations to provide emergency information, which is basic to the communications act, if there's no way to receive it.
Just because a few motor vehicles lack AM radio doesn't mean dispensing of emergency info would be impeded.
FM stations are capable of broadcasting EAS alerts. Best way to reach most people with geo-targeted emergency info is via push notification to smartphones.
The domino theory is part of the motivation. A few motor vehicles might soon become ALL motor vehicles.
Congress is responsible to protect all American resources, and the AM spectrum is one of those resources. The licensee's main responsibility for the use of that spectrum is to make their signal available to the government for emergencies. There's really nothing the licensees can do if manufacturers stop including radios.
I have turned off all notifications in my phone. I got tired of being awakened at 3AM with texts telling me it's raining.
The distribution of emergency information by radio is in the DHS law. If the government wants to change that, they can change the law.
That assumes the cell network is still up. Not a 100% safe bet during a hurricane or earthquake.
True. Many radio stations also fall off the air during hazardous weather. Always smart to have multiple ways of accessing official info.
I agree with BigA about the slippery slope risk. Many home radios have been sold without AM band access for years already. Keeping the band accessible in all OEM automobile receivers will only slow AM radio's march to obscurity modestly, in my opinion. Listening to AM radio is a terrible experience in many locations. Unwanted noise is very problematic, the audio fidelity is mediocre to terrible depending on receiver quality, there is tons of interference from distant stations at night, and the programming on the vast majority of AM stations is unlikely to be appealing. This legislation won't fix any of those systemic issues unfortunately.
The government doesn't want to change it because no one is offering to pay members of Congress for that. America's system of government works on bribery, euphemistically called lobbying. Nothing is done on its own merit, it's always done for money.
Other than the programming, all of those issues are under the purview of the FCC. All receivers carry the FCC logo. They could do more to improve some of the quality issues. But they're more concerned with DEI and late night talk show hosts.
The NAB has been very actively lobbying for this law.
Safeguarding AM Radio In Vehicle Dashboards Tops NAB Policy Priorities.
Keeping AM radio in cars to ensure public safety leads the list of policy priorities at the National Association of Broadcasters for the rest of the 118th Congress. The trade
The NAB has not been lobbying to change the law requiring the distribution of emergency information by radio as you suggested.
Quite the opposite, they want a law forcing private businesses, namely automobile manufacturers, to put their outdated technology, namely AM radio, into new vehicles for years to come. And the NAB has quite a bit of lobbying money to hand out in that pursuit, which makes the point about how things work.
I have gotten calls on my landline in a few situations where there was bad weather.
I was on my way to the mountains when there was an EAS alert. I had known for quite some time there was a serious looking thunderstorm off in the distance. At the time I heard the alert, the rain was beginning, and then there was hail. It was so bad i definitely had to pull off the road and I got under a shelter at a truck stop. The heavy rain lasted a really long time.
I was on my way to the mountains when there was an EAS alert. I had known for quite some time there was a serious looking thunderstorm off in the distance. At the time I heard the alert, the rain was beginning, and then there was hail. It was so bad i definitely had to pull off the road and I got under a shelter at a truck stop. The heavy rain lasted a really long time.
That would be counter to the goals of the NAB. However, the auto manufacturers also have a very well heeled lobby group, and they might consider changing that law. All sides of this legislation have been spending lots of money. Lack of money isn't a problem.
Also, as I've said throughout this thread, there are many "outdated technologies" required by laws in automobiles. This would not be a first. Having the government force private businesses to do things is something the FCC has been doing a lot lately.
Young listeners fled AM for FM in the late 70s and early 1980s, relegating AM to adult music formats and talk. Could the same eventually happen to FM, with younger listeners completely abandoning CHR powerhouses like KIIS-FM for the internet? If so, that would be one way for the big AM stations like KFI to find onramps to FM without relying on HD subchannels or low power translators.
I'm sad to say that I find no need for AM or FM these days. I stream everything. That includes KFI for example.
The only reason I would hate to see broadcast radio go away is that I love linear broadcasting. It's live (I don't care much about local) and once I find content I like I can leave it on in the background without having to constantly search out and click on podcasts.
To me, OTH is simply a placeholder for streaming content.
That's pretty much what I asked back in #2,180 about WBZ. The question is whether advertisers would continue to support a news station, with its old audience, after the move to FM, even if the move nudges total listenership upward. I'm not sure that advertisers are guaranteed to stay with radio, AM or FM, regardless of format, in the future. Pouring resources into locally staffed and produced news might be foolhardy under those circumstances, especially for a publicly traded chain like iHeart. By 2030, there may be no choice left other than to start turning in licenses, powering off FM transmitters and quitting the business. The executives will get their golden parachutes and retire. The grunts in the trenches will scramble for whatever "new media" news jobs that aren't opinion/propaganda-based or being done by AI. Welcome to Dystopia.
What percentage of Teslas have HD?
And what percentage of Tesla owners have any idea what HD is, whether their cars have it, or how to tune in the stations?
Actually, the move of younger demos to FM began in force in the late 1960's. By 1975, over half of all music listening was to FM and by 1977 half of all radio listening was on that band.
Even the dominant music format, Beautiful Music, had moved the bulk of older adult listeners to FM by the early 70's.
(The two big moves to FM in the late 60's were to album rock and to Beautiful Music. That was followed in the very early 70's by Top 40 with stations like the Bartell "Q" stations in Miami, St Louis and Detroit being among the first around 1972. Heck, the first FM oldies station was in D.C. in 1968!)
Stations like KIIS target 25-44 women, so it is, in the last decade or two, hardly aimed at "younger" listeners the way Top 40 was in the 50's and 60's.
Forgive the sloppy editing. I wanted to say "young listeners finished fleeing" by the late 70s and early 80s. Or such is my understanding. Anyway, I was probably the last kid still using AM in the early 1980s, but that was only because my first radio was AM only.
What about classical? Did it transition from AM to FM along with the Beautiful stations, or was it perhaps the first to begin moving?
That I did not know. When did this start? I have almost no knowledge of their history post-New Kids On The Block, because that was precisely when I immediately stopped listening to it.
WCRB (1330) Waltham, MA, was also on 102.5 starting in the mid-1950s. The AM changed formats in the mid-'70s.