No great loss...WKAP / WYHM is a Clear Channel station. Under a corporate engineering mandate, WKAP had to cut its audio bandwidth to 5 kHz and install an IBOC encoder. The station sounded like a telephone handset and the oldies sounded like crap. An Internet stream would sound better, even on a dial-up connection. A side effect of this station converting to IBOC is that its digital hiss completely trashes WAZL 20 kHz away on 1490 when I drive 10 miles from Hazleton.
Listeners in the Lehigh Valley can still hear oldies on WOGL (98.1 MHz, Philadelphia) or a blend of oldies and standards on WEST (1400 kHz, Easton). Listeners in NEPA can hear oldies on WARM (590 kHz, Scranton). Yes, WARM has fixed the satellite problems that occurred earlier in the week. A blend of soft oldies, standards, and soft AC is aired on WNAK (730 kHz, Nanticoke), WCDL (1440 kHz, Carbondale), and WAZL (1490 kHz, Hazleton). In Wyoming County, a gold-based AC format airs on WGMF, 107.7 MHz in Tunkhannock.
AM has become the throwaway band of corporate radio. Religious programming and brokered ethnic programming are a guaranteed way for marginal AM stations to make money, as the preachers and time brokers pay the stations for blocks of time. The time brokers then sell spots to businesses in ethnic neighborhoods and pocket the money, while the ethical preachers preach to the choir and the less ethical preachers use the airtime to con lonely old ladies out of their life savings, endorse political candidates, or bait gays and others who are hated by the religious right. The sales department can concentrate on co-owned FM stations where the time is easier to sell and the AM stations (such as WYHM) rake in tons of cash while drawing flyspeck-sized audiences. Perhaps we'd be better off expanding the FM band into TV channel 6 (82-88 MHz) after the DTV transition, moving the larger AM stations there, shutting down the marginal ones, and reallocating 535-1705 kHz to either amateur radio or the military.
Meanwhile, a lot of formats are dead or dying: oldies, adult standards, smooth jazz, instrumental "beautiful music", and classical. The ad agencies seem to be interested only in formats that pull in women 25-34. Since advertising is the lifeblood of terrestrial radio, other formats get dumped and other listeners remain unserved. Guess it's time to buy a Sirius or XM satellite radio...
