No one said it did.
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Buffalo WGR to Simulcast on 107.7
- Thread starter Buddy Shula
- Start date
No one said it did.
I think @SirRoxalot is referring to business-to-business communications. Also, as another poster pointed out, it isn't the government that is trying to mandate AM in automobiles--broadcasting companies are behind that effort. Remember that Elon Musk (who was semi-part of the government in 2025) is the one primarily responsible for removing AM coverage as standard from the electric vehicles he sells.
@davideduardo's point is a valid one though many miss it. In the U.S., something becomes "government policy" because this or that sector of the public convince Congress to pass laws supporting what they wish to see happen. Unlike, say Russia or Cuba (or even some of the countries @davideduardo worked in at the time he worked in those countries), the U.S. government takes no position on matters that it doesn't have Congressional authority to regulate. That was the design of the U.S. government at the 1887 convention that created the U.S. Constitution.
The way Congress works, in general, these days is that it writes the laws that the people who pay its members want it to write. Once-in-awhile, you find something that's so popular (or unpopular) at the grass roots that Congress has to act, but it's been a pay-to-play system for a long time.
Either Ford or GM (I think Ford) tried it as well, and that was what really got the broadcasters up-in-arms. I mentioned several years ago that I bought a 2020 Nissan Sentra, and, while AM was included, it wasn't standard on the dash. I had to go into settings and rearrange the dash to add AM. I would've otherwise had to go into the audio sources and find AM or use voice controls to tune individual AM stations. We also have a 2025 Nissan Kicks, and it has AM/FM/SXM on the dash as just "radio." I haven't filled them out yet, but you have, I believe, 36 presets, and you put whatever you want on each of them. As examples, my Preset 1 is SiriusXM The Spectrum, and my Preset 2 is 102.3 FM, which is a local AAA station. I can punch between the two anytime I want without having to change input sources. My partner and I can set different presets depending on who's driving. So, she has a profile she can punch up that's tied to her key.
This is a distraction from the original point. Let's start again:
Let me rephrase my response: I'm not aware of any plan, either at the FCC or in congress, to create a new digital spread spectrum service for AM radio.
As of 2017, stations are free to operate in digital-only mode. One station is doing that. I'm not aware of any others. Or they may use AM-HD.
As was pointed out, if a new digital spread spectrum service is created, it will make existing AM receivers obsolete. That would be counter productive. The more practical solution is for stations to stream their signal on the internet, which is what most stations are doing.
Last edited:
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Apparently, (1) no we don't and (2) are too busy with the side discussion to find out.
Tomorrow morning.
As promised:
radioinsight.com
audacyinc.com
WGR Launches FM Simulcast
Audacy will flip Country “107.7/104.7 The Wolf” WLKK Wethersfield Township/W284AP Buffalo NY to a simulcast of Sports 550 WGR Buffalo. The move will mark a return to Sports for the 107.7 facility as it was WNSA from 2000 to 2004 competing against WGR. Audacy has been accelerating its move of AM...
radioinsight.com
Audacy Announces New FM Home for WGR Sports Radio in Buffalo | Audacy Inc.
BUFFALO, NY – February 17, 2026 – Audacy announces the launch of WGR Sports Radio, an FM simulcast of WGR 550 (WGR-AM) in Buffalo, further expanding the
audacyinc.com
Good to see Audacy did the right thing and found a role for Liz Mantel. She's the new Promotions Director. Not on the air, but better than being on the beach.
I was strictly replying to the question "Is there a viable repurposing of 540 to 1700kHz?"
My reply was to the idea that the AM band isn't desirable due to the relatively low frequency range compared to the megahertz of FM and TV, and gigahertz of cellular and Wi-Fi.
Physics tells us that lower frequencies travel farther, and in the case of the AM band can actually bounce off the ionosphere to extend their reach far beyond line-of-sight. That gives 540 to 1700 kHz the ability to service areas that are economically excluded from cellular coverage. Some of the cellular carriers are making deals with low-orbit satellite services like Starlink, HughesNet, Viasat, OneWeb, Telesat, Kuiper Systems, Telstra, Freedomsat, and NBN to fill in areas where cellular simply doesn't have enough customers to make it worth installing and connecting towers. They're doing it as part of the government's mandate to make "high-speed" internet available to everyone at an affordable price. "High-speed" was recently redefined by the FCC as a minimum of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload for fixed broadband, and 35 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload for mobile 5G service. The minimum service (35 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload) will give you adequate bandwidth for HD TV, high quality audio, and web surfing for a very limited number of users simultaneously.
Could repurposing the AM band to provide digital audio service over great distance work? Yes. Is it likely? Not in the short term (i.e. next 10 years). Will AM be replaced by audio apps? It sure seems that major radio companies are pushing in that direction, and I suspect that FM wouldn't be far behind. Radio broadcasters would love to rid themselves of the cost burden of towers and transmitters and let users pay for the delivery of their product. The problem is that stations would just become another app among millions and wouldn't have a special place on the car dashboard or any other device.
My reply was to the idea that the AM band isn't desirable due to the relatively low frequency range compared to the megahertz of FM and TV, and gigahertz of cellular and Wi-Fi.
Physics tells us that lower frequencies travel farther, and in the case of the AM band can actually bounce off the ionosphere to extend their reach far beyond line-of-sight. That gives 540 to 1700 kHz the ability to service areas that are economically excluded from cellular coverage. Some of the cellular carriers are making deals with low-orbit satellite services like Starlink, HughesNet, Viasat, OneWeb, Telesat, Kuiper Systems, Telstra, Freedomsat, and NBN to fill in areas where cellular simply doesn't have enough customers to make it worth installing and connecting towers. They're doing it as part of the government's mandate to make "high-speed" internet available to everyone at an affordable price. "High-speed" was recently redefined by the FCC as a minimum of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload for fixed broadband, and 35 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload for mobile 5G service. The minimum service (35 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload) will give you adequate bandwidth for HD TV, high quality audio, and web surfing for a very limited number of users simultaneously.
Could repurposing the AM band to provide digital audio service over great distance work? Yes. Is it likely? Not in the short term (i.e. next 10 years). Will AM be replaced by audio apps? It sure seems that major radio companies are pushing in that direction, and I suspect that FM wouldn't be far behind. Radio broadcasters would love to rid themselves of the cost burden of towers and transmitters and let users pay for the delivery of their product. The problem is that stations would just become another app among millions and wouldn't have a special place on the car dashboard or any other device.
Which gets back to the old saying: The best content wins.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Stray thought #7,293,604: Might someone create an app for the car dashboard which would "tune" every stations' streams based on their (presumably, by then) previous frequency? In other words, an app that acts like a radio ...
I could see consumer interest in having one app rather than a separate one for each station, each app having its own quirks.
That's kind of how the Audacy app works. You access that one platform, and then search for the specific content based on format and interest.
But what we see is that people have their digital favorites that they organize the way they had presets in the car radio.
The iHeart app is a cross-company app that includes stations from Cumulus, Audacy, Beasley, and others.
Then you have TuneIn.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I was about to ask about the stations that aren't group owned, then it occurred to me that by the time terrestrial radio finally bites the dust, those will be long gone.
The best sales tactics win !
Yes we know. From post 128 above:
Audacy Announces New FM Home for WGR Sports Radio in Buffalo | Audacy Inc.
BUFFALO, NY – February 17, 2026 – Audacy announces the launch of WGR Sports Radio, an FM simulcast of WGR 550 (WGR-AM) in Buffalo, further expanding the
audacyinc.com
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
As we experience yet another case of "I'm so eager to post information that I think will make people notice I was first to post but I won't bother to look at the previous posts to see if someone already posted it" syndrome.
Is this throughout the Buffalo cluster of stations, or just focused on one station in particular?
Country Aircheck reported that she will be Manager of Promotions for both the Buffalo & Rochester clusters.