• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

What's the deal with AM?

J

joepa4prez

Guest
You all have been very nice to share your observations with a novice. I'm just trying to learn. In one of the threads below I got chided for not knowing who Kevin Nelson is (an AM jock). But in all honesty, I've hardly ever listened to AM radio in my entire 20 years, except maybe for a ballgame now and then. And, to tell the truth, I don't know anybody my age who ever listens to AM. Which brings me to my question. I know there are exceptions in big cities (WFAN, KYW, KDKA), but my impression is that most AM radio is D-E-A-D, dead. How do stations like WRSC and WMAJ and WBLF survive? Are they actually bringing in enough advertising revenue to pay their bills?
 
> You all have been very nice to share your observations with
> a novice. I'm just trying to learn. In one of the threads
> below I got chided for not knowing who Kevin Nelson is (an
> AM jock). But in all honesty, I've hardly ever listened to
> AM radio in my entire 20 years, except maybe for a ballgame
> now and then. And, to tell the truth, I don't know anybody
> my age who ever listens to AM. Which brings me to my
> question. I know there are exceptions in big cities (WFAN,
> KYW, KDKA), but my impression is that most AM radio is
> D-E-A-D, dead. How do stations like WRSC and WMAJ and WBLF
> survive? Are they actually bringing in enough advertising
> revenue to pay their bills?
>

i find it hard to believe that someone interested in radio (and you must be if you hang out at the site) does not listen to am. all the people i know, scan all the stations on the dial including the am band.
 
These kids today!!!!!!!! geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez


> > You all have been very nice to share your observations
> with
> > a novice. I'm just trying to learn. In one of the threads
> > below I got chided for not knowing who Kevin Nelson is (an
>
> > AM jock). But in all honesty, I've hardly ever listened to
>
> > AM radio in my entire 20 years, except maybe for a
> ballgame
> > now and then. And, to tell the truth, I don't know anybody
>
> > my age who ever listens to AM. Which brings me to my
> > question. I know there are exceptions in big cities (WFAN,
>
> > KYW, KDKA), but my impression is that most AM radio is
> > D-E-A-D, dead. How do stations like WRSC and WMAJ and WBLF
>
> > survive? Are they actually bringing in enough advertising
> > revenue to pay their bills?
> >
>
> i find it hard to believe that someone interested in radio
> (and you must be if you hang out at the site) does not
> listen to am. all the people i know, scan all the stations
> on the dial including the am band.
>
 
> You all have been very nice to share your observations with
> a novice. I'm just trying to learn. In one of the threads
> below I got chided for not knowing who Kevin Nelson is (an
> AM jock). But in all honesty, I've hardly ever listened to
> AM radio in my entire 20 years, except maybe for a ballgame
> now and then. And, to tell the truth, I don't know anybody
> my age who ever listens to AM. Which brings me to my
> question. I know there are exceptions in big cities (WFAN,
> KYW, KDKA), but my impression is that most AM radio is
> D-E-A-D, dead. How do stations like WRSC and WMAJ and WBLF
> survive? Are they actually bringing in enough advertising
> revenue to pay their bills?
>
There are some small markets with strong AM stations. WRTA in Altoona consistently pulls high numbers. A few years ago, over half of their audience was over 65. It has some down a little since then.

I didn't listen to AM with any regularity until I was in my 30's.
 
> There are some small markets with strong AM stations. WRTA
> in Altoona consistently pulls high numbers. A few years ago,
> over half of their audience was over 65. It has some down a
> little since then.
>
> I didn't listen to AM with any regularity until I was in my
> 30's.

As the poster was talking about not knowing who Kevin Nelson is and is unsure of AM radio - here's a little fact: WRSC got over 50 percent of the State College ARB market every morning when Wendy Williams & Kevin Nelson did mornings there. Wendy (a man) ran (runs?) an ad agency in town and was the jock and Kevin was the sidekick/newsman...at 9am they would do an hour of telephone talk. I think the actual number was 54% or something like that.

AM radio is not dead - however most owners have forgotten how to successfully program them and assume that they are a throw-away (like many owners believed FM was for years)!
 
A 54 share for WRSC?

> As the poster was talking about not knowing who Kevin Nelson
> is and is unsure of AM radio - here's a little fact: WRSC
> got over 50 percent of the State College ARB market every
> morning when Wendy Williams & Kevin Nelson did mornings
> there. Wendy (a man) ran (runs?) an ad agency in town and
> was the jock and Kevin was the sidekick/newsman...at 9am
> they would do an hour of telephone talk. I think the actual
> number was 54% or something like that.

Wow. Really? That's what I thought: Really? So I did some research. You can find this stuff if you know where to look (or who to ask where to look). Actually, if you go back into the sixties or early seventies, State College only had 3 stations, because the 3 FMs (WGMR, WMAJ-FM & WFBG-FM) didn't count--nobody had FM receivers, back then. FM pulled zero shares. So WRSC, WMAJ & WBLF split the pie 3 ways. Having a 33 share just meant you were keeping up with the other two. And since WBLF was a true daytimer back then--signing on at sunrise--it would have been normal for the morning shows on WRSC & WMAJ to each have a 50 share. Having a 54 meant the other guy had a 46 (there's never more, or less, than 100 shares to go around). But Arbitron wasn't measuring State College back then. Might have been a Mediastat survey; they used to do small towns for a few hundred bucks back then.

Arbitron's first book in SC was 1991. In that book, WBHV took mornings, followed by Quick and 3WZ. WRSC edged out WBLF for #4, with EZ WFBG-FM and WMAJ bringing up the rear. Only 7 stations showed up altogether. The next year, the new Froggy creamed everyone in mornings with a cool 24 share; RSC slipped past Quick to hold onto fourth. Today, WRSC is 5th in mornings out of 21 rated stations.

As for whether a 19 or 20 year-old college kid should know who Kevin Nelson is (or was) is silly. WRSC's morning audience is almost all retirees--the vast majority is 65-plus. And nobody (zero) is below age 45. Hell, if this kid's parents are 43 or 44, even they may never have heard of him. He'd have to call Grand Dad!

Yeah, AM WAS a big deal. A long, long time ago.
 
Re: A 54 share for WRSC?

Hell, 19 yo college kids are lucky to remember who THEY are (but always seem to know how to get to The 'Skeller at night).

WRSC was a daytimer in 1981 still broadcasting from that damn stick in the lobby (the RF was enough to bleed into EVERYTHING). QWK-Rock 97 was the FM. The cross-town (literally were WMAJ and X103). WBLF was nothing and everything else was an also ran. The one thing about WRSC/WQWK was they could promote the hell out of a door opening. Do they still have Dandy Lion, the mascot? With 5 or 6 stations vehicles (Nittany Blue with the calls in white, natch) people would swear we were at places we never even went to. It was just assumed that we were there.

I seem to remember State College had a ARB spring book in 1981.
 
Re: A 54 share for WRSC?

it may have been PULSE or HOOPER...Tom Birch was just getting started.


> > As the poster was talking about not knowing who Kevin
> Nelson
> > is and is unsure of AM radio - here's a little fact: WRSC
>
> > got over 50 percent of the State College ARB market every
> > morning when Wendy Williams & Kevin Nelson did mornings
> > there. Wendy (a man) ran (runs?) an ad agency in town and
>
> > was the jock and Kevin was the sidekick/newsman...at 9am
> > they would do an hour of telephone talk. I think the
> actual
> > number was 54% or something like that.
>
> Wow. Really? That's what I thought: Really? So I did some
> research. You can find this stuff if you know where to look
> (or who to ask where to look). Actually, if you go back into
> the sixties or early seventies, State College only had 3
> stations, because the 3 FMs (WGMR, WMAJ-FM & WFBG-FM) didn't
> count--nobody had FM receivers, back then. FM pulled zero
> shares. So WRSC, WMAJ & WBLF split the pie 3 ways. Having a
> 33 share just meant you were keeping up with the other two.
> And since WBLF was a true daytimer back then--signing on at
> sunrise--it would have been normal for the morning shows on
> WRSC & WMAJ to each have a 50 share. Having a 54 meant the
> other guy had a 46 (there's never more, or less, than 100
> shares to go around). But Arbitron wasn't measuring State
> College back then. Might have been a Mediastat survey; they
> used to do small towns for a few hundred bucks back then.
>
> Arbitron's first book in SC was 1991. In that book, WBHV
> took mornings, followed by Quick and 3WZ. WRSC edged out
> WBLF for #4, with EZ WFBG-FM and WMAJ bringing up the rear.
> Only 7 stations showed up altogether. The next year, the new
> Froggy creamed everyone in mornings with a cool 24 share;
> RSC slipped past Quick to hold onto fourth. Today, WRSC is
> 5th in mornings out of 21 rated stations.
>
> As for whether a 19 or 20 year-old college kid should know
> who Kevin Nelson is (or was) is silly. WRSC's morning
> audience is almost all retirees--the vast majority is
> 65-plus. And nobody (zero) is below age 45. Hell, if this
> kid's parents are 43 or 44, even they may never have heard
> of him. He'd have to call Grand Dad!
>
> Yeah, AM WAS a big deal. A long, long time ago.
>
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by killawatt on 04/08/06 12:37 AM.</FONT></P>
 
Re: A 54 share for WRSC?

WBLF was nothing and
> everything else was an also ran.

So, you're saying not much has changed in 20 or 30 years? 8)
 
>
> AM radio is not dead - however most owners have forgotten
> how to successfully program them and assume that they are a
> throw-away (like many owners believed FM was for years)!
>

I am not from you area, so I have no idea who the morning guy was/is. Forty years ago...there were three stations...and like they say elsewhere...no fm recievers...so everyone had huge shares.

Fragmentation has changed everything. But what you said above is true. However, because of fragmentation, and more ways to get the information, it is difficult for an owner to make an AM financially viable.

In my market, one AM does well both from ratings and revenue. Some others with niche formats like paid religion and hispanic make great money with few listeners. But I believe with the advent of HD2, and WIMAX and Internet delivered audio, the down and out AM stations will die...the ones that are doing OK with niche formats will die as the niche formats will move to underperforming "rim shot" fm stations, etc.

Radio is not dead...it is being forced to change as fragmentation increases.

I think Outdoor advertising is going to flourish in the years to come. Too many choices in electronic...and there is still only one outdoors.
 
I agree, I invested my life savings in sky writing!


> >
> > AM radio is not dead - however most owners have forgotten
> > how to successfully program them and assume that they are
> a
> > throw-away (like many owners believed FM was for years)!
> >
>
> I am not from you area, so I have no idea who the morning
> guy was/is. Forty years ago...there were three
> stations...and like they say elsewhere...no fm
> recievers...so everyone had huge shares.
>
> Fragmentation has changed everything. But what you said
> above is true. However, because of fragmentation, and more
> ways to get the information, it is difficult for an owner to
> make an AM financially viable.
>
> In my market, one AM does well both from ratings and
> revenue. Some others with niche formats like paid religion
> and hispanic make great money with few listeners. But I
> believe with the advent of HD2, and WIMAX and Internet
> delivered audio, the down and out AM stations will die...the
> ones that are doing OK with niche formats will die as the
> niche formats will move to underperforming "rim shot" fm
> stations, etc.
>
> Radio is not dead...it is being forced to change as
> fragmentation increases.
>
> I think Outdoor advertising is going to flourish in the
> years to come. Too many choices in electronic...and there is
> still only one outdoors.
>
 
> I agree, I invested my life savings in sky writing!
> More people would see it than those hearing an advertisment on wkmc and wrta combined
 
Maybe my listening habits are unusual, but I'm in my early 40s and I've had my presets set RSC, MAJ, BLF, IEZ, and KDKA, for 10 years.

On the occasions that I want to hear FM fare (music), I put in a CD. Why wait for a radio station to play something I want to hear?

In summary, AM radio provides programming that I can't get elsewhere; FM doesn't.
 
rlztyecr said:
Maybe my listening habits are unusual, but I'm in my early 40s and I've had my presets set RSC, MAJ, BLF, IEZ, and KDKA, for 10 years.

On the occasions that I want to hear FM fare (music), I put in a CD. Why wait for a radio station to play something I want to hear?

In summary, AM radio provides programming that I can't get elsewhere; FM doesn't.
Click to expand...

Same here. My presets are almost the same minus the IEZ and KDKA. Sometimes I can get KYW at night when AM stations power down, or whatever you professionals call that.

I flip the dial on the FM's a lot and when I'm in the mood. If I really want to hear all songs that I know I'm going to like, I use my iPod. The kids and grandkids were nice enough to buy me one, show me how to put music on it and how to use it. Way better than a stuffy old tie ;D.
 
I only know Kevin because I've played golf with him....and I've been in the business for a very long time.

In most larger markets there are at most two AM stations that are highly rated and profitable. Especially on the east coast most of the rest are jigsawed into place on the dial with variable power to cover metropolitan areas they way they were populated in the 1940s. There are newer suburbs in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia where $1 million homes sit where there is, at best, one viable AM signal after dark. IBOC threatens to take care of that. Where there were once clear channel (not Clear Channel Inc) stations that could literally bounce their 50Kw signals all over the planet there are now wounded mastadons stripped of that almost magical ability by technology and the FCC. Most of them are showing signs they may not survive.

I can easily see a scenario where the AM band is gone within your lifetime. Its already gone in some countries (Japan, South Korea) because the spectrum was more valueable to new technologies. While that possibility seems insane on the surface if I would have told you ten years ago that AM and FM radio would be so frightened by radio programming beamed directly into people's homes and cars from satellites built in California with Japanese parts and launched by the Russians that it would throw all of its political weight behind the destruction of the new technology you might have thought I was reading too much Arthur C. Clarke.

Technology is reshaping everything around us (and even us as well). Those who understand that change is unstoppable will adapt and survive. That which does not will perish. Radio can never be what it once was. The challege is making its future worth the struggle.
 
Snafu said:
I can easily see a scenario where the AM band is gone within your lifetime.
Click to expand...

In your scenario, what happens to all the Talk/News/Sports programming (both local and national) that dominates AM Radio today?
Do we have either to pay for satellite radio or lose it? Or does it move to FM?
I could be wrong, but I can't imagine that original Talk/News/Sports programming is less popular than the (somewhat random) replaying of recorded music that currently dominates FM Radio.
 
rlztyecr said:
Snafu said:
I can easily see a scenario where the AM band is gone within your lifetime.
Click to expand...

In your scenario, what happens to all the Talk/News/Sports programming (both local and national) that dominates AM Radio today?
Do we have either to pay for satellite radio or lose it? Or does it move to FM?
I could be wrong, but I can't imagine that original Talk/News/Sports programming is less popular than the (somewhat random) replaying of recorded music that currently dominates FM Radio.
Click to expand...

FM & LPFM.
 
Spackler1 said:
FM & LPFM.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts.
I assume that adding the 3 or 4 different talk or sports programs that are audible on AM in the State College market (at any point during the day) to the FM band would either overcrowd it or cause current FM programming to be replaced.

And I don't think LPFM would work for current AM fare (considering the high percentage of people that listen to car radios). A 1 or 2 hour talk or sports show wouldn't work on a station with a 3-mile broadcast radius. But maybe some of the FM programming that consists of 3-4 minute songs could work on LPFM.

Besides, from what I've read about LPFM, it's supposedly intended more for religious groups, local neighborhoods, amusement parks, school stations for parents, foreign language programming, parking areas, public address systems, movie-theater schedules, highway rest stops, high schools, etc.
 
A few things could lead to more FM talkers. One is HD Radio, should it actually become widespread and viable for medium and small market owners.
It is a fact that radio listenership is declining. Some contend it's because of more choices - ipods and downloaded music, satellite radio, etc. Whatever the reason, if stations with a younger target listener find themselves on shaky ground, a format change to target a more mature audience is often a choice. FM talk could become an attractive choice. A could see a group owner pulling the AM talk programming and moving it to the FM, and putting something like music of your life on the AM.

Then again, in State College we just saw Smooth Jazz switch to CHR...
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom