Every time I read someone say that radio is great but just needs PR, or "We need to tell our story better", I just roll my eyes. I've never seen another representative of any other industry try and paper over declines with such shallow analysis.
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"Disney's Devastating Signal"
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Their target audience is people who think they've been "wronged" by the radio industry.
Wow, I think that's a tell-tell sign that Disney is ready to unload everything but their Kids Cable channels, movie studio, and the theme parks, next up, either a sale or spin-off of ABC, and ESPN once the sale of the Radio Disney stations is completed.
ESPN is so immensely profitable that Disney would be stoopid to spin it off. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-30/espn-everywhere-sports-profit-network
Disney loves ESPN. They'll sell lots of things before they sell ESPN. Next on the sales block will be O&O TV stations.
Gawrsh. Why'd I sell ESPN?
I listen to Classic Hits on AM
It can work with todays music with AM Stereo and 10 Khz Audio
It can work with todays music with AM Stereo and 10 Khz Audio
Who still has an AM Stereo receiver? Or transmission equipment? And 10kHz audio? Good luck getting receiver manufacturers to go back to that standard. Not to mention the electronic interference.
Nope, AM radio is dead.
Nope, AM radio is dead.
AM radio is not dead. If it were dead, the band would be mostly empty of signals, like some of the shortwave broadcast bands are now mostly empty of signals.
As late as the early 2000's, the 31 meter shortwave broadcast band was wall to wall signals at night. Same thing with the 25 meter band. Now, during the average evening I probably hear a total of 10-15 signals on both bands combined. And each band is about half the size of the AM band.
Now, that's dead.
When I tune across the AM band during the day probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the channels on the band have readable signals. This is on a boombox, not a DX machine. At night the band is covered in signals -- that is not evidence that the band is dead.
And although there are electronic devices that can interfere with AM, the bigger problem for AM (and FM as well) is that aside from when they are in their cars, increasing numbers of people don't use radios anymore. Radios are slowly being included in the category with other old technologies like print newspapers and magazines, and old electronic technologies like wire line telephones -- still useful, and still used by a dwindling number of people, but on the way out.
I think that the best thing AM stations can do if they want longevity is to have a good stereo internet stream.
Eventually everything will be streaming, via smartphone and wi-fi. A few stations may still remain on the air for ultra niche formats, but even FM will go the way of the dodo as less and less people decide to use a "radio" -- choosing instead to use an app on their tablet or smartphone. How long this transition will take, who knows? Some countries in Europe are in the process right now of getting rid of FM as everything goes to internet streaming and digital radio like DAB.
There may be a couple stations left on the airwaves for national and local emergencies and natural disasters. Sort of like the municipally run TIS's on the AM band, many of which seem to run NOAA weather radio when not used to deliver more pertinent information. Sort of a back up for when cell systems and power grids go down.
As late as the early 2000's, the 31 meter shortwave broadcast band was wall to wall signals at night. Same thing with the 25 meter band. Now, during the average evening I probably hear a total of 10-15 signals on both bands combined. And each band is about half the size of the AM band.
Now, that's dead.
When I tune across the AM band during the day probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the channels on the band have readable signals. This is on a boombox, not a DX machine. At night the band is covered in signals -- that is not evidence that the band is dead.
And although there are electronic devices that can interfere with AM, the bigger problem for AM (and FM as well) is that aside from when they are in their cars, increasing numbers of people don't use radios anymore. Radios are slowly being included in the category with other old technologies like print newspapers and magazines, and old electronic technologies like wire line telephones -- still useful, and still used by a dwindling number of people, but on the way out.
I think that the best thing AM stations can do if they want longevity is to have a good stereo internet stream.
Eventually everything will be streaming, via smartphone and wi-fi. A few stations may still remain on the air for ultra niche formats, but even FM will go the way of the dodo as less and less people decide to use a "radio" -- choosing instead to use an app on their tablet or smartphone. How long this transition will take, who knows? Some countries in Europe are in the process right now of getting rid of FM as everything goes to internet streaming and digital radio like DAB.
There may be a couple stations left on the airwaves for national and local emergencies and natural disasters. Sort of like the municipally run TIS's on the AM band, many of which seem to run NOAA weather radio when not used to deliver more pertinent information. Sort of a back up for when cell systems and power grids go down.
For people who don't use it, it's dead. For everyone else, it isn't.
It's dead whether anyone thinks so or not, and it's not coming back. That's the bottom line. No future generation will come back to AM radio. Nothing is going to save it. It's over. I would explain this all again, but people who don't want to live in reality will find every way to avoid doing so.
There isn't enough bandwidth to convert every terrestrial listener to an internet stream. Damn straight the data to do that isn't going to be free. Wide swaths of the country exist where reliable 3g/4g is still a dream. That includes a lot of the state of Kentucky. We seriously don't want OTA to completely go away. Cell service can be impeded, internet can be shut down by hackers or by government, and depending what eventually happens with net neutrality, you may only be allowed to stream what Comcast or AT&T has deals with. The guy who came to paint my office awhile back had a radio tuned to the classic rock station, not an iPod dock with 8 hours of mp3s or a stream of obscure indie music. The "I won't listen even for five minutes to anything other than a custom stream" is seriously overrepresented on forums like these. AM will never come to prominence again but will remain a home for ethnic, specialty, religious and maybe even TIS-type services.
AM doesn't have the advantage that early FM had, to be able to run lean until there was a market for it. For one thing, transmitter sites are expensive to maintain and there seems little chance that there will ever be a market again. Of course, there are still successful stations but for how long?
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OK, let me rephrase that. AM is dying. It is in the final stages of its death throes. It is terminally ill, with no hope of ever recovering. Despite the fact that it is on death's doorstep, there are some operators clinging to the final vestiges of life in order to suck the last few drops of profit from their equipment. AM radio is like the plow horse that still gets hooked up every morning, though the farmer realizes that it's only a short period of time before he calls the guy from the glue factory to come get the dead carcass from the field.
Agreed, and unfortunately, to even begin to reverse the trend, it will require some regulatory changes that the FCC seems completely uninterested in making.
The AM band isn't owned by the companies that use it. It's a public resource, regulated by the government. If the government is unwilling to recognize its responsibility to do something about the resource it controls, then the profit-making companies that use it will have no choice but to walk away. As they have with cities that have been allowed to deteriorate, rivers that have become polluted, and other similar community resources. Yes, there is one Commissioner who says he wants to revitalize AM. But his solution is to give AM owners FM translators, while ignoring all the real regulatory fixes he has at his disposal. Someone needs to wake up.
Having worked at four different AM radio stations in the 80s and 90s (fulltime for 14 years), I have a morbid curiosity in this.
BigA: What are the regulatory fixes the FCC has at its disposal? This isn't a challenge, I'm genuinely curious as to what they may be.
BigA: What are the regulatory fixes the FCC has at its disposal? This isn't a challenge, I'm genuinely curious as to what they may be.
They could start by trying to control all the interference issues. Increase the spacing and return the bandwidth to pre-1970 rules. Maybe even bring back clear channel AM. Encourage the development of new technologies to improve sound quality. Currently only HD Radio has FCC approval.
One other idea: Back in 1996, companies that wanted to buy more FMs were allowed to if they also bought some AMs. They only had to hold those AMs for a certain period. Companies like Clear Channel did that, but have since sold them or donated them. If the FCC is serious about minority ownership and diversity, they need to make it worth it for companies to support them on those issues. But there are no proposals on the table. There's an obvious deal to be made if someone at the FCC would simply do their job.
Even if there was the will for regulatory change, what options are available to provide relief in time? Stricter enforcement of part 15 noise generators will take years for non-conforming computers, CFLs, LED lighting etc. to be replaced. Even if relocation to 82 - 88 MHz (with 100 kHz channels) was politically palatable, it'll be a decade before receivers are widespread.
Reducing nightime protection to class A AMs might help, but who wants to be co-channel to a 50 kW five or six hundred miles away? It might allow an existing 2 tower DA-N to go to one tower with a 1000 watts, but I wonder if that would create more problems than it would solve.
There should be a limit on how long dark AMs can stay dark. A station should get two years on the silent list, after that delete the license, no exceptions. Permanently freeze the AM band to new applicants. I'd say issue tax credits to AM licensees who voluntarily surrender their licenses, not to exceed $250,000, but then the value of jerkwater true-daytime-only stations would just go up. An AM with an FM translator should go off the air at night. If the value of the AM's nightime audience is so great on its own, then it doesn't need an FM translator.
Reducing nightime protection to class A AMs might help, but who wants to be co-channel to a 50 kW five or six hundred miles away? It might allow an existing 2 tower DA-N to go to one tower with a 1000 watts, but I wonder if that would create more problems than it would solve.
There should be a limit on how long dark AMs can stay dark. A station should get two years on the silent list, after that delete the license, no exceptions. Permanently freeze the AM band to new applicants. I'd say issue tax credits to AM licensees who voluntarily surrender their licenses, not to exceed $250,000, but then the value of jerkwater true-daytime-only stations would just go up. An AM with an FM translator should go off the air at night. If the value of the AM's nightime audience is so great on its own, then it doesn't need an FM translator.
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That one proposal in particular has been the dream of owners like Clear Channel, Cumulus, and Greater Media, who would gladly surrender AM licenses for tax credits. That's why they continue to hold on to them. But that would require Congressional action, and you know how useful Congress has been lately.
It's like the distortion in land prices in Iowa, thanks to heavy farm subsidies. There's a long standing joke about farmers farmingg the prgram, not farmi g the land. The $250k tax credit should only go to small businesses, but we all know the big boars would just stick their snouts in the trough.
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