How important is it to have AM radio in cars if the majority of the people don’t listen to any AM radio stations?
I loved AM radio and my five decades plus career started on AM radio back in the 60s, but if I’m being honest, I can’t remember the last time I listened to any AM radio station, even though both of my older cars have decent AM radios in them – and I’m a “radio guy.”
Can we get real about AM radio’s problems? Mandating AM radio in all vehicles won’t cause more people to listen this radio service.
650AM – WSM
When I worked at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the only way I could listen to 650AM – WSM broadcasting from Nashville, Tennessee was via their stream. My office had a huge picture window that looked south towards the WSM tower site, but the interference from the fluorescent lights and the steel structure of the building made AM reception impossible.
Inviting radio professionals into my Capstone Class to talk about radio, one of those professionals was the program director of WSM who told my students that more people listened to his radio station via the WSM App & stream, than did via their AM 50,000-watt FCC licensed clear channel frequency on the AM radio dial in Nashville.
Monthly Radio Ratings
Every month, when the radio trades publish radio ratings, you’re lucky to find a single AM radio station listed; in market after market. Often you find no AM radio stations listed at all, and on rare occasions you might find two.
If you go deep into the weeds, you might find an all religious station or foreign language AM radio station with a small listener base.
WIIN – AM1450
Back in the early 80s, WIIN-AM1450 in Atlantic City had a news/talk format with a local news team, sports director and even a plane in the sky doing traffic reports during the busy summer tourist season. Its sister FM radio station was 50,000-watt WFPG that featured a beautiful music format. WFPG was rated #1 by Arbitron and WIIN never showed up in the ratings.
WFPG, on the FM band, was fully automated and made all the money. WIIN-AM was fully staffed and lost a great deal of money. The owners of WIIN once said it would be more cost effective to mail the station’s few listeners a news sheet than broadcast the news to them.
AM Radio or AM Programming
Every radio format, once only associated with AM radio – like news or sports programming –today can now be heard on an FM signal.
18-years ago WTOP-AM 1500 moved its excellent news format to FM and yet, do you recall anyone being up in arms that Washington, DC area residents had just been “unserved” with important news and information, because this format moved from the AM band to FM? Quite the opposite, many FM only listeners discovered WTOP for the very first time and became avid listeners.
Revenue wise, WTOP-FM has been the nation’s top billing radio station and has won all the major radio awards year after year. In fact, our nation’s capital is dominated by FM signals. The first AM radio station doesn’t show up until you get to #24 and it only managed a 0.4 audience rating – it also is connected to an FM translator where I’m guessing, the audience is listening.
The reason AM radio formats have moved to the FM radio band is that most people today only listen to FM radio.
I rob banks, because that’s where the money is.
-Willie Sutton, bank robber
Corollary:
We broadcast emergency information on FM, because that’s where the listeners are.
-Dick Taylor
The AM Exceptions
The Big One, 700AM-WLW in Cincinnati is just one of the notable exceptions to the problem with AM radio listening. It operates on what the FRC (Federal Radio Commission, which predated the FCC or Federal Communications Commission) called a clear channel frequency. It was in November 1928, under provisions of the FRC’s General Order 40, that 700kHz was one of 40 frequencies designated as “clear channels”, allowing WLW to operate exclusively on this frequency in both the United States and Canada.
Then in early 1933, WLW would begin building the largest broadcasting transmitter in the world with 500,000-watts of AM broadcast power, at a cost in today’s dollars of $11.3 million. It would sign-on its new half-million watt transmitter on May 2, 1934 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressing a golden telegraph key to ceremonially launch the new signal. WLW truly became “The Nation’s Station.”
Saving AM Radio
It seems to me that if AM radio is deemed such a critical service for the nation in times of emergency, maybe it’s time to re-think the entire AM radio band and once again establish a network of high powered AM radio stations that cover the entire continental United States, and are manned 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, providing all Americans with this type of radio service. There could even be a special circuit in all radios that would automatically switch the radio to these emergency channels when warranted; much as cellphones so effectively alert their owners of an impending emergency situation.
Likewise, current local AM stations should be allowed to sunset their AM signals and continue serving their communities via their FM signals (translators), just as they are currently doing, often with much better coverage than their original AM license permits.
Saving AM Radio via FM Translators
Giving AM radio stations an FM translator signal in order to save its AM signal – would be like trying to save Ford by giving everyone a Chevy. It was a ludicrous of an idea that the FCC never fully thought out before implementing.
The FCC was also derelict in its duties by not protecting the AM band from all kinds of noise interference, for example the kind generated by the electronic ballast in fluorescent lighting and by not standardizing AM stereo along with not setting audio quality standards for AM broadcasting.
The “AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act” currently before Congress says nothing about mandating a certain quality standard for AM radio in vehicles, leaving open the possibility that vehicle manufacturers will install the cheapest and lowest quality AM receivers, if such a law is passed?
Longtime agricultural broadcaster, Max Armstrong, loves AM radio, but admits that broadcasters are part of the blame for AM radio’s decline. Some examples are:
- Sold the land that was needed for strong AM signals, and reduced power
- Changed the format of their AM station, once they obtained an FM translator
- Re-allocated resources for areas other than for AM broadcasting
- Poorly maintained their AM transmitting facilities, in favor of their FM
“When the epitaph is written for AM radio, I think it will be
that AM radio killed itself. I think broadcasters have
neglected it to some extent.”
-Max Armstrong
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