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August Ratings

U

umfan

Star Participant
http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb011

The Ticket remains on top, WOMC is in second. The notable news is among the 'Urban' format. WDMK had a significant jump, while WMXD had a large drop. Radio One seems to be besting one of Clear Channel's few bright spots in this market. WRIF saw a big jump as well. 105.1 remains at a 1 share. The three so called 'public' stations had a combined 3.6 share. Far less than the 4.7 share by 'right wing talker' WJR. Comparing news/information 'public' radio to 'right wing' talk radio, it's WJR with 4.7 and 'public' radio with a 2.1. Since WDTK doesn't subscribe, the gap is even greater than this.

Not much else to note in this book.
 
Interesting to note that AM stations still occupy 3 of the top 9 spots. Not too shabby. Of course, i can remember that back in the paper diary days, we had 3 AMs in the top 5 or 6.
 
I think AM will get new life when FM gets so crowded nothing can be added. Hopefully iBiquity can refine their product or another product emerges to improve the sound quality. All that available spectrum becomes lookworthy when it's all that can be had.
 
umfan said:
I think AM will get new life when FM gets so crowded nothing can be added.
Click to expand...

Very interesting thought. This hadn't crossed my mind...and it should have. I was deeply involved in radio when FM was the empty band and AM was full to the brim.
 
We'll see. IF Ibiquity were honest, they'd admit their mistake and either embrace DRM or Kahn. At least with Kahn, you get 15K Stereo (equal to FM Analog) audio AND data almost all the way to the .5MV/M. If the digital fades, you get 8K stereo audio with no data.
I still think that the band will thin out a bit, which will help those of us that remain do a little upgrading. That would be a win.
 
jry said:
We'll see. IF Ibiquity were honest, they'd admit their mistake and either embrace DRM or Kahn. At least with Kahn, you get 15K Stereo (equal to FM Analog) audio AND data almost all the way to the .5MV/M. If the digital fades, you get 8K stereo audio with no data.
I still think that the band will thin out a bit, which will help those of us that remain do a little upgrading. That would be a win.
Click to expand...

DRM will not coexist with analog AM. In the very few places it has been deployed, it is on a separate frequency.

In a digital world, the appeal of any analog system, such as Kahn or CQuam is non-existent. Since nobody is buying discreet stand-alone radios any more, it's sort of a moot point anyway.

In any case, I'd hate Leonard Kahn's system to be reconsidered... he's the one person most singularly responsible for the death of AM!

 
"he's the one person most singularly responsible for the death of AM!"

Why is that, David? I honestly don't know. I know he developed a competing technology for AM Stereo, and likely by doing so delayed investment in a technology that might have kept music on AM. Just didn't know if that was where you were coming from.

I remember when CKLW came out with AM Stereo and promoted in heavily. Car radios didn't start to have it until 1985, and I presume CKLW kept the technology in pace when they flipped to standards in late 1984.
 
umfan said:
"he's the one person most singularly responsible for the death of AM!"

Why is that, David? I honestly don't know. I know he developed a competing technology for AM Stereo, and likely by doing so delayed investment in a technology that might have kept music on AM. Just didn't know if that was where you were coming from.
Click to expand...

AM had half the audience in 1977-1978. That was the planned date for an FCC decision on AM stereo. AM had enough audience to successfully promote stereo to a large listener base. Then Leonard Kahn sued, and it was not until 5 years later that a watered down FCC decision came out. By that time, AM music formats had either disappeared, morphed to an older-demo focus or fallen in ratings.

Add in the increasing noise levels on AM and the poor coverage of many stations and there was no route to recovery by the time AM stereo was authorized. The delay is Kahn's direct fault.
 
DavidEduardo said:

<snip>

In any case, I'd hate Leonard Kahn's system to be reconsidered... he's the one person most singularly responsible for the death of AM!

Click to expand...

If anything, he might be the inventor of AM stereo (I'm not sure if Magnavox or Belar may have come first, but they were certainly in the game before Motorola came out with C-QUAM so they could use their position as a manufacturer of ICs to capture the market).

Kahn demonstrated ISB stereo as early as about 1960 - but he had to do it on Mexican stations because it was illegal in the US.

AM stereo was held back because the broadcasters wanted it held back. Many of them had just built their stations or had just upgraded their audio boards. If one station with music in a market were to go stereo, the others would figure they would have to follow suit, and their recent investment in monaural studio gear would be lost. Cheaper to realize that their listeners would still listen in mono if you denied them the choice.
 
What is the point of two channels with crappy sound and static?

Even more, what's the point of stereo on an all news, sports or talk station? I guess you could put the host on one channel and callers on the other. Rush, of course, would insist on being on the right channel but since all his callers at dittoheads, they'd have to be on the right-channel, too. What's more ridiculous than stereo on an all-news station. Having the guy read news into two mics is pointless.

AM stereo was and is a useless gimmick. The public saw that, even if the industry did not. The industry would have been better off insisting on keeping to the old standards for broadcasting and for receivers.
 
1L6E6VHF said:
AM stereo was held back because the broadcasters wanted it held back. Many of them had just built their stations or had just upgraded their audio boards. If one station with music in a market were to go stereo, the others would figure they would have to follow suit, and their recent investment in monaural studio gear would be lost. Cheaper to realize that their listeners would still listen in mono if you denied them the choice.
Click to expand...

The five AM stereo systems were brought up to the Commission in 1977, and everyone looked for a rapid decision so that by as early as the first half of 1978 a system could be approved and installs begun.

AM stations were desperate to have a system... any system... as FM was approaching 50% of all radio listening. Stations were facing losses of not just audience but revenue as well. A new board and audio chain could be paid for with a single ad contract in the larger, competitive markets where FM was making the greatest inroads.
 
FredLeonard said:
The industry would have been better off insisting on keeping to the old standards for broadcasting and for receivers.
Click to expand...

One of the realities in this world is you either move forward, or you fall behind. That's true in sports, and it's true in business.

So for AM to simply stay with "old standards" after the public discovered FM was suicidal. The public heard FM, and knew there was no reason to stay with AM. Once they could hear the same music on FM that they'd loved on AM, the game was over. They'd even listen to FM in mono through their AM car radios, but they were done with AM. That was 40 years ago.
 
Not really. People who grew up with AM tended to stay with AM - as long as they could find something wanted to listen to, at least. Post-baby boom listeners grew up with FM because that's where THEIR music was. Receivers and transmitters operating under technical standards prevalent 60 years ago were - and are - more than adequate for spoken word formats, even today. And more could be done to protect AM from electrical interference - even now, if anybody cared to. Clearing dead wood out of the AM band would also help.
 
FredLeonard said:
Not really. People who grew up with AM tended to stay with AM - as long as they could find something wanted to listen to, at least.
Click to expand...

Not really true. Older folks loved FM because it's where Beautiful Music was. By the late 60s, rock music was also there. So the Elvis and Beatle fans who grew up with AM were among the first to rush out and buy the little FM converters. And once Docket 80-90 came along, even small markets had lots of new FM stations, which further eroded AM listenership. The FCC has only itself to blame for the current situation with AM. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's presentation at the NAB this week further demonstrates how out-of-touch they all are.
 
FredLeonard said:
Not really. People who grew up with AM tended to stay with AM - as long as they could find something wanted to listen to, at least. Post-baby boom listeners grew up with FM because that's where THEIR music was. Receivers and transmitters operating under technical standards prevalent 60 years ago were - and are - more than adequate for spoken word formats, even today. And more could be done to protect AM from electrical interference - even now, if anybody cared to. Clearing dead wood out of the AM band would also help.
Click to expand...

You are ignoring the fact that most metro area AM stations don't fully cover their market. So they can't be protected or rescued.

There are 1681 AM stations licensed inside the borders of the top 100 US markets. Of these, only about 170 cover 80% of the market geography day and night. That's an average of about a station and a half per market.

No amount of limitation of man made interference will make a poor facility viable. And no amount of regulation or legislation is going to change all the dimmers, CFLs, LED lights, computers and other devices already installed... many of which have a life expectancy of a decade or more.

The allocations system and power levels for AM were determined over 80 years ago. At the time, 1000 watts was considered a good power level to cover a metro area. The "regional" stations were set up to run up to 5 kw daytime and 1 kw nights. And "local" stations had a mighty 100 watts or 250 watts. Yet they were adequate before urban sprawl and modern electrical devices changed the way AM could be received.

Thinning the herd is impractical. Who is to decide if a facility / allocation is of value? Are we just going to confiscate stations at random? And speaking of random things, if stations die off, they will not follow any pattern and thus will generally not afford any technical relief to stations that want to increase power.
 
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