I'd like to put a theory to you: what if AM radio were discontinued in the USA and Canada? In many countries around the world, AM or Medium Wave bands have become bereft of radio stations as they move to FM or DAB frequencies. Let us suppose the FCC and the CRTC decided to do away with it. Where do you think the stations would move? Would they move to the already crowded FM band? Would they go all digital or online? Or would they close down? Let's talk about this idea. Your comments are welcome.
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What If AM Radio Was Discontinued?
- Thread starter blackgold
- Start date
Probably stations would go out of business, especially if their FM translators weren't allowed to remain on the air without an AM signal feeding them, or if the AM stations owners never applied for a translator in the first place and no openings exist on FM in their market now. I'd imagine there'll be threats of suits against the FCC, especially from the remaining radio-only companies, which is probably why the FCC will most likely just let the stations go dark and the owners (and employees) learn a sad lesson of capitalism.
I don't know about Canada, but the FCC has no interest in doing away with AM. You have to consider that the broadcast spectrum is an asset that belongs to the American people, like water rights, mineral rights, logging rights, and other resources. Shutting down an asset without consulting anyone, such as putting it to a vote either by the public or by congress, would be very irresponsible.
The FCC really doesn't have that kind of authority. Plus they'd be killing license fees that are part of their budget. I think the premise of this thread is invalid.
I agree totally. The FCC is a self-declared custodian of the radio spectrum, and they are administrators for the owners, and that's us!
In any case, there is no reason to clear the 540 to 1700 kHz part of the spectrum because there is no "better use". We can look at when the higher UHF channels were cleared away to make room for other uses, and in that case the government subsidized the repack of the remaining channels with the fees charged to the new occupants of the high band UHF frequencies.
Nobody else wants the Medium Wave AM spectrum. Its best use is to let existing stations live out their lives there until nobody at all listens or until a new technology arrives that makes the band more viable. Of course, in that instance we have to guess whether one-to-many broadcasting will still have appeal several decades from now.
And, first of all, there is no reason to do it. Nobody benefits from such a change.
In nations like Canada and Mexico where a policy of moving AMs to FM was instituted, they did not kill AM... they just made it legally possible to switch one for the other. In the case of Mexico, they modified the licensing of second adjacent channels to fit more FMs into the band in major metros, but still many AMs could not move; those continue or the owner can turn in the license.. Nobody had their license cancelled.
I don't see this as a lesson of capitalism but an example of change.
Purposely I do not say "example of progress". In this case, change covers the developments of technology that have made the AM band full of man-made noise as well as American urban sprawl that has made metro areas bigger while AM signals just don't cover them any more.
So, "change" has made AM fall in the same category as beer cans that don't have quick-opening tabs. Yes, you can punch a hole and sip your brew but it's better to have that tab. It's a market decision that gradually eliminates obsolete things in favor of better ones.
I'm not sure I'd say "self-declared." They were given that authority by Congress in the Communications Act.
They are "self declared" in the sens of how deeply and specifically they regulate the whole spectrum.
The Communications Act gives the FCC, formed just about 90 years ago, authority to regulated what was then just radio. There was no RV, no cellular phones, no satellites, no...
How the spectrum is specifically regulated within the mandate of the Act is pretty much the determination of the FCC itself under the concept of "administrative law".
Most markets have at least a few AM stations that are still getting decent ratings. The individual stations are not worth what they once were but still serve an audience.
Many of them carry special religious or ethnic programming. In NYC, on the AM band, you can find programming aimed at people who speak Russian, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Polish and Hindi. There are stations airing Spanish language evangelical preachers and Catholic programming. It might not be our cup of tea but someone is listening.
Every year, a number of AM licenses are handed in. But fewer than you might expect!
Many of them carry special religious or ethnic programming. In NYC, on the AM band, you can find programming aimed at people who speak Russian, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Polish and Hindi. There are stations airing Spanish language evangelical preachers and Catholic programming. It might not be our cup of tea but someone is listening.
Every year, a number of AM licenses are handed in. But fewer than you might expect!
When you look at salable demographics in the ratings, there are plenty of markets now where there are no AMs in the top 10. In others there may be just one, and no others even close.
The profits or sustainability of those stations is tenuous. With the alternative of streaming services for those groups, the need for such stations on bad signal FMs or very limited AMs is constantly decreasing.
As to the non-profits, at some point the preachers and churches will find there is a better way of reaching the "flock" than limited coverage AM daytimers!
It's getting to where there are no buyers. KABC in LA has been for sale for many years and no buyers. The number of silent stations is increasing, and the available revenue even from small ethnic and religious groups is declining.
But the big reason why more AMs are not turned in is that the AM is tied to a translator. As long as the translator covers a useful number of people, the AM will be retained. Were the FCC to grant permanence to translators and eliminate the requirement to keep the AM operating, we'd likely see as many as half of all AMs turned of tomorrow!
Heck, even in the 6+ demo, there often aren't. You have to go all the way to #17 in the Nashville 6+ book to find an AM station (conservative talk WLAC and its translator).
In Indianapolis you won't find the first AM station until #18 in the 6+ ranker, one spot below the Classical station.
In Atlanta there are nominally three AMs in the top 20 stations 6+. All three at least have an FM translator with significant market coverage, if not a full-power FM simulcast. (WSB, WCNN, WWSZ).
Sure, Streetz 94.5 WWSZ in Atlanta probably does OK in the sales demos, but are they *really* listening on AM? Doubt it.
That's what the 1996 TCA was about. It took the original 34 act and added satellite, cellular, and everything else.
The paragraph I quoted still applies. They were given authority by congress. They didn't just make it up. And we've seen many times that any time the FCC tries to take on more than they're supposed to, they get shut down by congress. That's what would happen if they unilaterally shut down the AM band.
Why? Because of the AM Revitalization program. When the FCC was faced with declining revenues for AM, they came up with the AM revitalization plan, which is the complete opposite of shutting it down.
That just redefined... or maybe better said as "supplements" the original act. It does not particularly change the scope of the Commission in regulating RF radiations. Beyond that overall "here are radio frequencies, control them," the FCC has developed reams of Administrative Law and even has judges who hold court in procedures called Administrative Law Hearings which are very much like any other kind of courtroom process.
I've been qualified as an "expert witness" for those hearings, and it's fascinating to participate. You are called as a witness, sworn in just like in TV legal dramas, and examined and cross examined. You can be on the stand for rather long periods of time if you are contributing something critical to either the side.
In such hearings, constant references to legal precedent (things like, "If you examine the engineering exhibit B-17 in Smith vs. WXXX, you will see that..." ) to support either side's argument.
Of course, the technical aspect of such a hearing means that the decision is rendered by the judge, not a jury.
But the congressional authority only defines scope, not specifics. All the specifics, ranging from the bandwidth of an FM station to the length of license renewals, is part of the FCC's own self-defined regulations and not congress.
And that plan became part of administrative law, and not written or codified by congress.
There would be no benefit to anyone for the government to just order it shut down. The AM band is too small and noisy for FM or DAB. Pretty much useless for anything else.
The only motivation for the Commission to even suggest sunset-ing the band, would be if there was money in form of auctions to wireless carriers, or some sort of government savings. Both of those are a big zero.
The only real choice is just allow it to die off.
But, keep in mind that those 6+ numbers given out for free don't include non-subscribed stations. WSM (AM) comes to mind instantly in the example of Nashville. In fact, in the last book before they unsubscribed and stopped encoding, they were around a 3.
But the BASIS for all of this comes from congress. And if they attempt to do things beyond what the party in power perceives their role to be, they will be slapped down.
The topic of this thread is shutting down the AM band, and that is not covered in the scope of their authority. They can't just shut AM down without (1) Holding hearings on the subject, (2) writing a very detailed report, and (3) presenting those findings to congress.
One recent example was the digital TV act in the 90s. That took an act of congress because it was changing the use of the TV spectrum, and also involved appropriating money for home digital TV converters.
You're applying 20th century metrics to the 21st century. The future of AM radio won't be measured as it was 50 years ago. You need to look at it differently. That's what the LA Dodgers did when they went partners on KLAC. That's what Tavis Smiley is doing with KBLA. In the case of KBLA, it gets no ratings, but Tavis is using the frequency as the centerpiece of some kind of community revival deal. I haven't figured it out, but he's thinking outside the box. That's what it will take to make AM radio work in a digital age.
They redefined the upper end of the UHF spectrum for a different use without congressional approval. They simply set up a system to pay the costs of the relocated TV stations from the auction fees. That is within the broadest application of the original charter of the FCC.
So, the FCC could reallocate to a new use the 540-1700 kHz spectrum slice. It's likely they would have to relocate and compensate the remaining AM stations to do so. Starting by giving permanence to translators, and then looking at alternatives such as reduced next adjacent channel separation on FM and finally at total cessation compensation would be needed to avoid legal battles. But it's within the authority of the charter to do that.
Avoidance of legal issues is the biggest hurdle in theory, as just the simple approval of one of five AM Stereo systems in 1978 resulted in a delay of almost 5 years in authorizing any AM stereo.
I said "in theory" because there is no alternate use for the AM band, and nobody is standing by to use that spectrum for things like molecular-level personal transport as in "Beam me up, Scotty!"
The primary issue there was the allocation of fund for the converters. Were it not for that, I think that they could have done it without congressional approval. Were there a situation like the reduction of UHF spectrum where one hand paid the other, and there was no budget approval needed, it's likely that closing AM to broadcasting for another use could be done within the existing purview of the FCC. But that is just my opinion based on past decisions.
But again, you're talking about USAGE of spectrum, not shutting it down. Those are two different things. Usage is laid out in the act.
Absolutely, but that's not the topic here. If they have to compensate AM owners, that will require a budget allocation, and so that means asking congress from money. Unless you know of some other source of money.
Personally I don't think anyone at the FCC has any ideas for other uses. That will have to come from applicants for the frequencies. They'll make a proposal, and it will either get accepted or turned down.
iHeart gave away something with no intrinsic value other than the transmitter site land in exchange for long-term guaranteed profits from a sports team. That is "making money out of nothing at all" while looking at the immediate future. It also guarantees a relationship in the more distant future should AM no longer be viable and of interest by the team.
Considering that KLAC is about the third best AM signal in LA, that shows how much the license is worth.
KBLA is a mistaken dream that is shown to be neither successful nor needed. This is what we have gotten going back decades when non-radio people and groups think that they can do better radio than those involved in the business. Smiley does not have the ability to close, he has no audience, and the station owner has nothing else they can do with a top-of-the-dial signal that has a better signal in American Somoa than in Pacoima.
There are thousands of station sales of inferior or dog facilities that only happened because there were, and still are in a few cases, people who so badly want to be on the radio that they buy a bad radio station and, of course, fail.
An even better example is in the Univision multi-station sale to the Soros-funded group that wants to have a voice for Hispanics. They have an interesting idea, but they are buying mostly total dog AM signals to serve an audience that left AM decades ago and will no come back.
With nearly every larger market AM having less than a full market signal and new-generation electronic devices increasing exponentially the interference on the AM band, there is no concept or alternative that can make inadequate signals with guaranteed poor audio quality be successful in the future.
And I said that there was no possible justification to shutting it down. What there could be is repurposing. In that case, the FCC can use frequency exchanges and cost reimbursement within the scope of the charter.
Not if done with new users paying the old users for the spectrum. Since the while AM band is about the size of a single TV station bandwidth, there is not much chance that there would be a "new user". Add in the horrible inconvenience of skywave interference and that won't happen.
Again, it's a thin and very problem-laden part of the spectrum. In fact, even the areas used for short-wave, roughly 3 MHz to 30 MHz, have the same issue in that they are subject to skywave interference and not good for much else.
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