save AM

Granted, everyone seems to agree the AM band is dead, an Classic Oldies, Standards, Classic Country, Classic Soul, Classical or any other old geezer format will never work, not advertiser friendly and G-d forbid its on AM. BUT how about a Classic Rock, Rap/Hip Hop, Alternative, Soft Rock, Active Rock, Urban, Dance or anything current on a high power clean AM signal. These formats do well on FM, would the young listener embrace the AM band like we did years back, if they can hear the music they want, I would but I'm 65. BTW how did skin radio do on 1340 years back, guess they needed a translator like they have now. It hurts to see what has become of the once thriving AM band on all the East coast cities.

AM was basically obsolete in the 1930s when FM was invented. Everyone knew it, but RCA's David Sarnoff had too much invested in AM. So that delayed FM for another 30 years, until the patent ran out. The AM band has been living on borrowed time since the late 1980s.

I don't see it as hurting any more than hurting for the horse-and-buggy industry to see cars on our local roads.

Times and technology change; holding on to the past is a fool's errand (albeit a sentimental one....but a fool's errand nonetheless).

There is no way--none--"the young listener" would "embrace" the AM band. They can hear the music they want, in infinitely better quality, from a multitude of sources. Why on earth would they choose AM?

AbrahamJSimpson said:

They can hear the music they want, in infinitely better quality, from a multitude of sources. Why on earth would they choose AM?

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That really is the key point. I know for me, the audio quality is why I stopped listening to AM many years ago, even when there was music on AM. There is nothing I can think of that can overcome the audio quality issue.

If I had an HD radio in my car, I'd NEVER listen to 1060 or 1210. I'd listen to KYW on 94.1-2 and WPHT on 98.1-3. Our new car (not mine but hers) has HD and is is so pleasant to hear Traffic on the Twos without static from power lines and traffic signals. I have a couple of HD radios in the house and AM stations are great to listen in FM HD stereo. Is Entercom applying for FM translator for these stations? And all these translators, do they reach suburbs or just usually cover the cities of licence?

Gunsmoke said:

BUT how about a Classic Rock, Rap/Hip Hop, Alternative, Soft Rock, Active Rock, Urban, Dance or anything current on a high power clean AM signal. These formats do well on FM,

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These formats really don't do that well on FM. With the exception of Classic Rock and Urban, I guess.

would the young listener embrace the AM band like we did years back, if they can hear the music they want, I would but I'm 65.

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Not a chance. If someone wants "their" music, they'll use Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, Google Play Music, Apple Music, or whatever alternative they prefer. More customization, fewer ads, and much higher fidelity than AM radio.

I fear any format that lands on AM faces this: If it's truly successful on an AM station, even a 50kw AM, an FM competitor will soon come along and adopt the format. One of the most recent examples of this is sports talk. When sports talk debuted, similar to other spoken word formats, it was predominantly on AM. Then, it started to migrate to FM in some markets. Now, in most markets, the only way you see a successful sports talk station on AM is if no one is doing it on FM ... yet.
There have been some music experiments on AM. Philly had smooth jazz on AM (and FM HD2) for a few years. In the 12+ ratings that are released to the public, I don't believe it ever scored even a 0.5.
In the Syracuse, NY, market, urban contemporary had been tried on FM and dropped. iHeart has put urban on 620 AM, WHEN, a 5kw with a good market signal ... and it shows up respectably in the 12+ ratings. One example of music doing OK ratings-wise on AM because it's not found in the market on FM.
In the mid to late 80s, I worked for two AM stations that were doing Standards/Big Band ... one a Music of Your Life station. They were playing music that was 40-50+ years old, appealing to people who were either well into their 50s, 60s or older. They, and other MOYL stations - on AM - at the time made a go of it.
Classic Hits in Philly on WOGL is now centered in the 80s ... the 70s are secondary, and 60s music is virtually non-existent. It's been said previously on this message board that no agencies will place ads on stations where most of the listeners are 55+.
Yet, all-news and conservative news-talk which have upper demo audiences still support 3 stations in the market.
So I wonder if there's room for one oldies-type station with music mostly from 1964-1979. Just like MOYL in the 1980s, that music is now 40-50 years old.
And to Bill W: We have HD in both of our cars, and when possible* we never listen to KYW on 1060 ... we listen on 94.1 HD2. *HD on FM is still not great, IMHO. I was just in center city Philly this morning, and when I got in my car in the parking garage at Wills Eye (near 8th & Walnut), it said "no HD reception" until I got out of the garage.

Standards always did well in this market, PEN had decent numbers and I recall when they dumped the format 1290 in Wilmington was showing up in the Philly books being the only game in town with a decent rimshot signal. 950 and 1290 had good numbers but like we all know the advertisers didn't want any part of it, the newer version would be 50's, 60's oldies WMID/WFAT/WOBM/WKCE on a local AM signal. Check out 1360 they are playing anything for now at least lmao.

It didn’t “always” do well. It did well and it died off. Hence why 950 is now family radio, and WPEN lives on as sports talk.

They dumped the format because it wasn’t sustainable. And for quite some time before that, they had resorted to informercial programming to keep the unsustainable music afloat.

Gunsmoke said:

Granted, everyone seems to agree the AM band is dead, an Classic Oldies, Standards, Classic Country, Classic Soul, Classical or any other old geezer format will never work, not advertiser friendly and G-d forbid its on AM. BUT how about a Classic Rock, Rap/Hip Hop, Alternative, Soft Rock, Active Rock, Urban, Dance or anything current on a high power clean AM signal. These formats do well on FM, would the young listener embrace the AM band like we did years back, if they can hear the music they want, I would but I'm 65. BTW how did skin radio do on 1340 years back, guess they needed a translator like they have now. It hurts to see what has become of the once thriving AM band on all the East coast cities.

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Beyond the discussion of the audio fidelity issues around AM, over the years the incursion of terrestrial interference to the AM band caused by consumer products containing switching power supplies, LED, sodium, and florescent lighting, all has essentially shrunken the coverage advantage that AM once enjoyed, especially at night. Just a few years ago, the ITU changed the "city grade" field strength standard for MW reception from 5mVm to 10mVm. Now one could argue, given the continuing increase in noise floor, a station would need 15+mVm to consistently get over the noise.

@ Radiophlier : In the mid-Eighties and into the early Nineties, when I left radio for good, myself and a few others put together a Standards demo format and pitched it to two major market FM's with big signals.
We were convinced that the format would get double-digit shares on FM; at the time, two corresponding AM's were doing pretty well with it.
One of the guys in the group, a savvy fellow who wound up retiring from radio with a pension before radio retired him, had another idea. Every one of us went along with his approach, too. He pitched one of those two big FM signals with an early Classic Rock hybrid. (I don't believe the term would be heard in actual use for another few years.)
The owner of that one station, according to my buddy who pitched the Classic Rock, was saying: 'You're blowing my mind with this!' and other phrases of amazement.
The biggest obstacle, though, was that the owner .... younger fellow, great guy .... already had a Standards format. The station and its big signal was doing quite well with it, and would for a few more years. It was a news-intensive, rather lifeless sound ... as if it were afraid to take chances. So the owner nixed both the AoR and the peppier/friskier/Metro Goldwyn Mayer approach to the Standards.
I was convinced that the jauntier, younger approach to the Standards on a mammoth FM signal would have worked double-digits, too, and do so as long as it could offset the demo erosion. At that point, the sound could be modified and modernized to skew younger -- just as Classic Hits has evolved today.

A theatre-of-the-mind, friendly, somewhat mischievous Standards format on a big FM signal. I think it could've worked then. I'm sure David here would've suggested that the idea wouldn't've ranked very high in the Power Ratio quotient .... but the sheer volume of listeners would make for some considerable elbow room.

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If I'm not mistaken, it was consultant Lee Abrams who tried out a headbanging Metal format called 'Z-Rock' on an AM regional station in NYC. 1480 was the frequency. One buddy of mine charmingly described it as a pushy, snarky approach, the music of which 'will make you want to go out and kill the first six people you see'. I have no info as to how high WZRC 1480's popularity registered. My guess is: not much. If memory serves, it was around 1990 or 1991.
So much for attracting younger audiences to the AM dial.
Over a quarter-century ago.

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@ Kelly A : Spot on with the noise on AM.
It's no longer 'inconvenient' here. It's 'impossible'. And our town is only about 6000 population worth of commerce.
A year or so back I got a Hammarlund HQ-180 off eBay via a pal. I had a loop antenna and a longwire readied for it. The AM dial in the day is a swarming racket. About ten stations come in. And those that do are a whole bunch of nothing, entertainment-wise.

To the OP: So much for the AM dial. Please relay where we send the digitally purchased flowers for the requiem.

Steve Green NEPA said:

If I'm not mistaken, it was consultant Lee Abrams who tried out a headbanging Metal format called 'Z-Rock' on an AM regional station in NYC. 1480 was the frequency. One buddy of mine charmingly described it as a pushy, snarky approach, the music of which 'will make you want to go out and kill the first six people you see'. I have no info as to how high WZRC 1480's popularity registered. My guess is: not much. If memory serves, it was around 1990 or 1991.

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It was 1989 thru 1992. Owned by Mel Karmazin's Infinity Broadcasting (thus the use of Lee Abrams). It had been Spanish WJIT, but changed when a Spanish FM came on the air. As you say, it wasn't a success. After a few years it switched to classic country, then sold in 1998. Currently airing Korean programing.