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Where available how is AM-HD configured for listeners?...

rbrucecarter5 said:
There is some great stuff in the 80's. There is also a lot of garbage - I think most of it fueled by the novelty of music videos at the time. A mediocre, even bad group could produce an awesome video and presto - they were the new hottest thing! It fueled a lot of so-so rock groups to super-stardom. I was caught up in it, too, at the time. MTV arranged to simulcast on rock stations, because TV wasn't in stereo. MTS stereo TV was just beginning to be adopted and very few sets had it. I think everybody remembered the AM to FM stereo revolution of a decade earlier, and rushed in head first - not realizing that this time it was different. But it was a fad. MTV is not even playing videos any more. What we were left with was a decade of novelty acts who had great videos and bad music. Add that bad music to a classic hits / oldies format and you have a train wreck. Program a classic rock station with mainly 80's and you are bound to pick up loads of clunkers if you aren't really careful. Done right, you have the last decade of rock before rap and hip-hop took over top-40. I can see a classic rock station doing 60's through 80's, but they would have to be careful of the 80's. I just don't think 50's and 60's Elvis and Beatles fans are going to flock to a station dropping 50's and 60's as it tries to "grow up" into the 80's. Probably won't happen. Maybe the reason why the format is dying. There is a reason why Beatles box sets are hundreds of dollars. It is just darn good music compared to some clod with a video mixer in the 80's.

Just my humble opinions ----- I am sure other people think everything in the 80's is golden era stuff.
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Most of it -- especially from 1982 to 1986 -- was just plain fun. Karma Chameleon, She Bop, Mexican Radio, Down Under, Africa, Rio, Hot For Teacher, Sugar Walls, Glamorous Life, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, even the much-reviled We Built This City ... I could go on and on. I'm a born-in-1955, watched-the-Beatles-on-Sullivan, Baby Boomer, and to me, the early MTV era (before grunge and rap) was a great time to listen to Top 40 radio. I have no problem at all with a '60s through '80s classic hits station. I think you'll find quite a few people in my age group who feel the same way about the music. Grunge and rap drove an awful lot of Boomers to country and oldies stations, but the music that came before grunge and rap in the '80s was music they listened to.
 
CTListener said:
Most of it -- especially from 1982 to 1986 -- was just plain fun. Karma Chameleon, She Bop, Mexican Radio, Down Under, Africa, Rio, Hot For Teacher, Sugar Walls, Glamorous Life, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, even the much-reviled We Built This City ... I could go on and on.
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Keep in mind that some of that wouldn't fall into the "classic rock" category. Boy George and Duran Duran are more classic hits than rock. MTV sort of blurred the lines there, but they were distinct formats on the radio.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind that some of that wouldn't fall into the "classic rock" category. Boy George and Duran Duran are more classic hits than rock. MTV sort of blurred the lines there, but they were distinct formats on the radio.
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I thought Bruce was talking about moving classic hits/oldies into the '80s, not classic rock. Sorry if I misunderstood.
 
CTListener said:
I thought Bruce was talking about moving classic hits/oldies into the '80s, not classic rock. Sorry if I misunderstood.
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There is a "sliding window" on classic hits / oldies. I heard somewhere that 28 years was the most recent - by that criteria we would be looking at the 90's being oldies before long. UGH - the boy band era. I don't know if there is a sunset year that goes along with that 28 year limit - suppose it is a 20 year window, then 1968 would be sunset next year. But if it were a 15 year window, then 1973 will be sunset next year, with the Beatles and Elvis already long gone. If I tune in an oldies station, and hear late 70's through the 80's, I am gone. That isn't oldies. That is just a generation of dying echos of the top-40 era into the rock video era. A whole lot of good music - from the decade just before - missing. Music, I might add, that all too many of today's artists know is foundational and inspiration for their own music. I could name names, instantly recognizable major artists, the names aren't important, but I know some of them who listen to virtually nothing but oldies - real oldies - to get their inspiration. Even if their stuff is highly commercial pop right now, if they are let loose creatively we are going to hear some really good stuff!

Putting classic rock into the mix, it is a far cry from oldies. But it has the same issue. Album rock era - late 60's through 1980 or so, then 1980 onward into the cassette era. Different audience - same problem. I agree there is some great stuff in the 80's. There is some real junk, too. Too much of the junky 80's on a classic rock station, and you lose the album rock era listeners, including me. Just not the same talent. A whole lot of video fluff.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
There is a "sliding window" on classic hits / oldies. I heard somewhere that 28 years was the most recent - by that criteria we would be looking at the 90's being oldies before long. UGH - the boy band era. I don't know if there is a sunset year that goes along with that 28 year limit - suppose it is a 20 year window, then 1968 would be sunset next year. But if it were a 15 year window, then 1973 will be sunset next year, with the Beatles and Elvis already long gone. If I tune in an oldies station, and hear late 70's through the 80's, I am gone. That isn't oldies. That is just a generation of dying echos of the top-40 era into the rock video era. A whole lot of good music - from the decade just before - missing. Music, I might add, that all too many of today's artists know is foundational and inspiration for their own music. I could name names, instantly recognizable major artists, the names aren't important, but I know some of them who listen to virtually nothing but oldies - real oldies - to get their inspiration. Even if their stuff is highly commercial pop right now, if they are let loose creatively we are going to hear some really good stuff!

Putting classic rock into the mix, it is a far cry from oldies. But it has the same issue. Album rock era - late 60's through 1980 or so, then 1980 onward into the cassette era. Different audience - same problem. I agree there is some great stuff in the 80's. There is some real junk, too. Too much of the junky 80's on a classic rock station, and you lose the album rock era listeners, including me. Just not the same talent. A whole lot of video fluff.
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There is no such thing as a fixed window,as the age range of classic his libraries and the median year varies from station to station and market to market. Some stations are broader, some are much more narrow. Some go further into classic rock, others are more pop.
 
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Almost all classic hits stations I'm aware of are playing some 90s music. Some stations play a lot of 90s music now.

I saw a post on the Philly board earlier tonight pointing out that WBEN was playing Ricky Martin. Well, his hit songs are now 20 years old, and people in their 30s remember when "Livin La Vida Loca" was a big hit.
 
To the OP: if you get an AM HD capable radio, depending on how the radio is set up to operate, as soon as you tune into the AM station with the HD signal, the radio will first recognise that there is an HD signal present, and then it will switch over to HD if it sees that the HD signal is strong enough to decode properly.

That is how my Sony HD radio operates. Other brands may operate slightly differently.

In my metro, there are two strong AM HD stations. If I tune in to either one, the radio will play the analog signal, and then after a few seconds the call letters show up on the LCD readout, and then the station fades from analog to HD, which sounds like a cross between FM mono and a decent quality internet stream.

RE: Classic Rock: I like the fact that more 80's, 90's, and 00's music is played on classic rock because frankly, I'm tired of hearing the same old Who songs and Skynyrd songs over and over and over and over and over again that I heard on classic rock stations 25 years ago. But that's just me.
 
thezak said:
"two strong AM HD stations"... details please!
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KFNQ 1090, CBS Sports Radio, 50KW
KKDZ 1250, South Asian music and programming, 5KW.

I used the word "strong" in the sense of strength, not ratings. Both come in well in HD AM during the day. At night, it can be dicey. This is with a Sony HD radio.
 
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