Last week, an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Sadness and Static as AM Stations Fade” discussed the demise of AM radio. It pointed out that several European carmakers including Audi, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Volvo have stopped putting AM radios in certain models, but Scott Shannon doesn’t believe that means radio is dying.
AM radio tends to focus on spoken-word formats, such as talk radio, all news, and sports. Although many broadcasting companies have purchased FM translators to bolster their signals and broaden the reach of their AM news/talk brands, the rise and prominence of electric vehicles (EVs) has cast a cloud of uncertainty across the industry.
The subject is eliciting reaction from one of the legendary voices and programmers in the business. Shannon, a former WCBS-FM host who retired after a Hall of Fame career spanning 40 years in New York City radio, joined Mark Simone on 710 WOR Friday. Shannon’s journey as a program director and the meteoric rise of Z100 is chronicled in a documentary called Worst to First.
In 2003, Shannon was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C., and in 2006 he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago. He noted that last week’s WSJ article is just one in a long line of doomsday prognostications about the fate of the medium.
“Radio is not dying,” Shannon said. “If I do a commercial, I run into people all the time that tell me I heard your commercial talking about a Mazda. People still listen to the radio, look at your ratings.”
Shannon is best known for his time in the music genre but can be heard daily as the voice of The Sean Hannity Show heard on more than 650 radio stations nationwide.
“Your number one in your timeslot,” Shannon told Simone. “If you’re not good, you’re just sitting there playing music or whatever, if you have content that is exciting or informative, or intelligent, people will listen to you.”
Shannon added that Spotify and Pandora have replaced record collections and are not necessarily a substitute for traditional radio stations.
“It’s also a lot of younger people, they don’t really spend a lot of time listening to the radio anymore because they’re on TikTok or all those other places but as far as grown-ups, they still listen to the radio. Look at the audience that Rush Limbaugh had,” Shannon said.
