Someones opinion but true just the same from Radioworld magazine.
https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/shulz-am-improvement-ship-has-sailed
There's no way to disagree with Warren Shulz's opinion. The general public is gone to bigger pleasures and crackly AM is fading in memory. The Part 15 community is small and has no real voice when it comes to our nostalgia for the classic band. The most we can hope for is more liberal rules for our museum stations as we fish for a small audience while the last AM sets serve a dwindling population of senior citizens
I don't know, I find a lot of contradictions in the opinion piece, and it is only that, someone's opinion.
Noise has contributed to AM radio's death, and yet stations in big cities (where noise is the greatest) are relatively unaffected? Stations in smaller urban areas (and by implication, rural areas), are affected most? I think Tim in Bovey would have something to say about that. From what I can gather, AM is still alive and kicking in rural areas.
Its sound quality? AM can sound (without the stereo) almost as good as FM, and in some cases better compared to poorly managed stations. I used to listen to AM 1040 here in Vancouver before it was shuttered by Bell, and their audio sounded better than a lot of FM stations here. When they played music, and they did sometimes, it was amazing. A shining example of what you can do with AM sound when you obviously take pride in it.
Other devices with superior audio have killed AM? Obviously referring to smartphones, but have you ever listened to smartphones without a decent pair of headphones. Many people still listen through tiny speakers, and get the same quality as the old 6 transistor AM radios, some less. Why? Because there's stuff there that they want to listen to.
Even audio in cars, unless you're an audiophile and spend big bucks, is not exactly what I would call high quality. Add in road noise and even expensive audio equipment doesn't make much difference.
I've said it before and state it again - I believe the lack of decent programming is the major cause of AM's decline. AM isn't giving their potential listeners what they want. These big conglomerate owned stations are cost cutting so much, they've cut out their listeners.
Radio can be so much more than only music, or only sports, or only right/left wing politics or only religion. Whether it be creative DJ's, farm reports, local sports & news, book readings, plays, different music genres - it can find an audience. It may not be the audiences of the past, and you may not grow your revenue and profit by double digits every year like the big boys seem to want, but it can be a decent business (even if that's only how you want to look at it).
I say, if the corporate entities feel that AM is dead, then give up your licenses and let the small guys in. Those that will work hard at making this both a labor of love and a working business.
The commercials here may split up my post here so scroll down!
I agree with Artisan on most points but one....that the demise of radio especially AM, but FM also, to an extent is due to lack of local and interesting programming. In my opinion whether the programming is local or the stations are individually owned and run, and whatever the local programming is has nothing to do with radio's slow demise. FM mostly plays current hits which is now synthesized pop/hip hop called "adult contemporary" geared to millennials and generation Z which is the age group the advertisers want. They are playing what that generation wants to hear yet how often do you see anyone with a radio? Even in cars they are pairing the phone with the car stereo. As for AM, they lost the Boomers when they abandoned their music, oldies/OTR, because advertisers don't want an audience over 54, and they all went sports and talk. CHUM 1050 in Toronto used to be the leading station in all of Canada and at night in the northeast USA and look now...20 people listening. I don't know what AM could do for local and interesting programming that would make an audience try to get a station through the noise that sounds like a lawn mower in the majority of homes across the band. The noise is even in rural areas as it's on the A/C power supply itself radiating. Even at a cottage 100 miles away from a city.
Now here's my two cents on what's wrong with AM but to a lessor extent FM.
First of all AM NOISE!! As mentioned... in it's hey day it was clean, no noise. The receivers allowed better fidelity as the band width was at least to plus or minus 5 kLz on most receivers(10 kLz bandwidth). I always said if you put a rap station on AM they will listen but now I am not so sure. Not the way it is now.
#1 noise.
#2 COMMERCIALS. Insane. On FM 3 or 4 songs, on AM talk 2 callers, and we got to go and an endless string of commercials that goes on and on and this applies to TV as well. This is a big turn off. Millennials, Gen Z have other sources where they can loose the commercials. In my day and age...boomer... it was nowhere near the way it is now. Their whole purpose now is not programming but to force commercials on you. In the past the CRTC, don't know about FCC had a limit on how much time an hour could be commercials but that didn't last.
3) BLUETOOTH&SMARTPHONES. They live with their phones and they double up as other things also. In fact I think that a radio would be something strange to them as many don't even know what a radio is. They are leaving AM out of Tesla's and other EVs and look at all the Tesla's out there compared to other EVs that do have AM, they(buyers) don't care.
4) STREAMING....Yes streaming, a big one. Every commercial station is killing their terrestrial footprint by streaming and telling listeners to go to bla bla bla and directly contributing to their terrestrial demise. Us hobbyists(not me) are doing the same thing.
Conclusion. For us hobbyists AM may be better for range but do you get listeners? Can your weak signal get through the noise in a home? Half the stronger commercial stations can't. Here's a sample of AM noise and even if there was what they wanted to hear would they try to listen through this....
or this...
FM is not plagued by this as most noise is amplitude modulated.
I don't believe that going digital, local and interesting programming, whatever will make Gen Z and millennials rediscover radio.
Back when TV came along there was a savior for radio.....rock and roll, the hit parade, transistor portables. Every boomer grew up with a radio in their rooms, not TV. Every home had radios. They could be carried everywhere. You had to hear a song on the radio to know it existed, then you bought the record. But now there is nothing that radio can do to compete with streaming, smart phones, and bluetooth. And the endless commercials don't help.
I wish that what I think here was different.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I believe that radio is streaming. Just as stores have a brick and mortar, as well as an online presence, radio stations can broadcast over the air, and stream as well. Who cares if one is more popular than the other?
If I find a stream that I like, and it's local, I would certainly search it out over the air as well. As well as vice versa.
And as for seeing people with radios. Sure, when we see people walking around, they usually have a cell phone in their hands. They can listen to streams via that device. But we don't see them in their cars, or at home. I bet that they have radios there. Maybe not great ones, but they exist.
There's a big hullabaloo about electric cars discarding AM. But right now, electric cars make up a small percentage of vehicles on the road. It's going to take a long time for new electric vehicles to overtake older cars that contain AM radios. And who knows what will happen in the future? The AM in every vehicle movement may succeed.
Most of us here are city dwellers and we see the results of AM noise in urban areas. We also see Top 40 FM, rap, etc. But again, most of Canada and the U.S. is rural, with lower noise, and there, AM reigns supreme, with higher power, longer range and different genres, such as country. There are lots of places where the only radio is AM.
I really don't believe that AM is going away anytime soon. And we'll have to agree to disagree on the programming take. I still believe that AM radio can play an integral part in people's lives beyond music. Just look at the BBC in the U.K. They also broadcast on longwave, and not only carry music programs, but talk including a wide variety of sitcoms, dramas and game shows.
The more I think about the 'over-the-air' radio problems the more scattered my thoughts become. I have been around long enough to have witnessed the evolution of radio brought about because of cultural shifts in public preferences. At a point when FM was introduced it was expected that the public would make a mass-migration to the superior audio quality and lack of static brought about by Frequency Modulation, except that Television was starting up and the consuming public opted for TV over buying FM radios. During a brief transition period most AM stations of the time established full power FM counterparts. But these investments in FM did not pay off and most FM stations soon signed off. AM stations still had some momentum gained from decades of being the 'standard radio medium', and clung to affiliations with major sports teams, news/weather reports and farm news for outlying rural America not reached by FM signals. Then Alan Freed invented the rock 'n roll DJ and despite some resistance by old-timers in management, the mass acceptance by a new generation of teeny-boppers propelled rock radio into a phonograph-record selling bonanza. Many popular DJs arose and set the format still fondly recalled by many of our part 15 stations. Even newer forms of rock music, often called 'underground rock', brought a small number of floundering FM stations into unprecedented demand by a 'next generation' of youth, finally triggering a 'must have' appetite for having FM radios in the home and auto dashboard. Meanwhile, AM radio held its own with the 'call in' format, making listeners part of the show from their own telephones. But a slow erosion was taking place as smaller and less successful AM stations fell into the hands of religious broadcasters, filling the dial with preachers and hymnal music.
Then, virtually overnight, unforeseen, the internet age took dominance making streaming and podcasting easily available to anyone, potentially endowing everyone as their own radio or TV station. The effect of being pulled into the strong undertow of mass media in the hands of the masses is dilution, plain and simple. The audience is indistinguishable from the radio/TV moguls of the past as we have all become media tycoons with our 1-square inch of the communications landscape, propped up by none of us really knowing how to adapt to our inheritance. Eventually all of it could collapse, not only AM radio,
Our AM radio took center stage as the tornado sirens sounded and we took refuge by disconnecting from the internet as a safety measure and spent a couple hours listening to continuous weather coverage. It is these moments that remind us to keep the batteries fresh, and to press home the point we heard that 30,000 people were without power due to 70-MPH winds. No power means no computer means no internet means that TV sets won't turn on. Luckily our power held firm but there was a period of time when we didn't know what to expect. At that moment, being new to the cell-phone game, we realized the phone is able to function as a surrogate radio assuming it is charged. But if the internet went down perhaps the phone's Wi-Fi capability would also be unavailable since it ties wirelessly to our router... after tossing these thoughts around I find that I am not sure what all of the possibilities are.
@artisan-radio The crap about AM won't work in electric vehicles is just that crap. I've been in and around Telsa electric cars with a portable AM radio there wasn't any interference for that electrical car. That's mostly a bogus excuse the manufactures won't to use to justified not making AM radio available in them.
I don't know, I find a lot of contradictions in the opinion piece, and it is only that, someone's opinion.
Noise has contributed to AM radio's death, and yet stations in big cities (where noise is the greatest) are relatively unaffected? Stations in smaller urban areas (and by implication, rural areas), are affected most? I think Tim in Bovey would have something to say about that. From what I can gather, AM is still alive and kicking in rural areas.
Its sound quality? AM can sound (without the stereo) almost as good as FM, and in some cases better compared to poorly managed stations. I used to listen to AM 1040 here in Vancouver before it was shuttered by Bell, and their audio sounded better than a lot of FM stations here. When they played music, and they did sometimes, it was amazing. A shining example of what you can do with AM sound when you obviously take pride in it.
Other devices with superior audio have killed AM? Obviously referring to smartphones, but have you ever listened to smartphones without a decent pair of headphones. Many people still listen through tiny speakers, and get the same quality as the old 6 transistor AM radios, some less. Why? Because there's stuff there that they want to listen to.
---8<---
I say, if the corporate entities feel that AM is dead, then give up your licenses and let the small guys in. Those that will work hard at making this both a labor of love and a working business.
I can certainly pick up AM stations in my countryside in Missouri. Can't speak to the quality. I do the AM as a continuous engineering experiment because my audiophile ways would have killed it by now. Other devices - yes, I have great choices in 2024 but the resolution stinks. Unless I am subscribing to the commercial Pandora like I had at my old café I usually do not hear the resolution of a CD.