No More AM Radio in CArs

Dems, GOP want to ban automakers from dropping AM radio (spectrumnews1.com)

 

If I’m Democrats, I say let them.

The AM band is a cesspool. The only thing left for the most part are the Rush Limbaugh clones.

Nuke the whole band and start over.

 

This is hilarious, considering the insane amount of federal subsidies automakers have gotten to build electric cars that a small percentage of their customers actually want.

 

Wish this was available for the old Larry King Show.

 

AM radio has been on life support since newer cars added the FM band in the mid-to-late '70s. Most folks know I grew up listening to some of the greatest Top 40 radio stations around the country -- WQAM in Miami, CKLW in Detroit and KFRC in San Francisco -- and that's one of the key reasons why I wanted to get into radio. There was a simple joy in sitting in the car late at night and slowly tuning across the dial, DXing stations from parts unknown.

As a kid, Dad had a short wave set in the garage with an AM band, so I could listen to Chuck Thompson do the Orioles or the White Sox and Cardinals. In high school, we'd pick up the Dodgers and Angels after dark, and later, XTRA would come in strong. In North Carolina, the FAN out of New York was a favorite on my way home from the newspaper.

But even by the time I got my first paid gig in radio, AM was quickly becoming an afterthought. At least four AM stations where I worked are now simulcasting religious programs or Spanish language to audiences that can't be much more than a few hundred listeners. KNBA in Vallejo was torn down years ago. The building that housed WMEL in Melbourne has been vandalized.

If KFRC -- Radio & Record's Station of the Year on multiple occasions -- could go dark, I figured I needed to jump ship as well. Dummy me, I went back to print before the Internet came calling.

It was an amazing medium in its heyday. But SiriusXM is fine by me now.

Now, CB radio's heyday is a topic for another thread.

 

Axios has a brief explanation of the issues and which automakers are ditching it.

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/13/electric-cars-am-radio

 

My early AM experience ended when WLS went talk. That was a pretty decent hit music station after dark and I heard a ton of hit songs there first.

Then I discovered mixtapes.

 

Kinda like K-AAA-AAA-Y Little Rock for me. Went from rockin' to prayin'.

 

I've owned my car for six years and I swear, I have absolutely no idea if the AM radio works on it. I assume the stereo has AM. There is no circumstance that would lead me to use it. If for some reason I don't have access to Spotify, XM or a podcast I'll drive in silence.

 

From the Axios story:

"Nearly 50 million people listen to AM radio, according to Nielsen figures provided by the National Association of Broadcasters."

Apparently for the farm report or swap shop? And even then, I'm guessing those numbers are massively fudged because I can go through the Neilsens online and see how few AM stations in the Top 100 markets are doing well. The NAB is a lobby group. They know what the real numbers are, and they aren't pretty.

If I'm reading the March 2023 book correctly for No. 38 Raleigh-Durham, only 4 percent of the audience is tuning into AM, the majority for news-talk WPTF, which places it 14th out of 26 stations with measurable audience. Two of those AM stations are getting beat by N.C. Central's student-run public Jazz format.

Even if you count everyone over the age of 60 who ever owned a transistor radio, I think it's highly unlikely there are 50 million AM listeners left.

 

WINS, like WFAN, is on AM and FM.

 

KTCK in Dallas is one of the top sports talk stations in the country. They built a following amongst Gen-Xers on 1310 AM in the 1990s and ended up as one of the top streaming stations in the country because of their shitty signal. Now they simulcast on 96.7 FM.