Nick Kayal: We Have to Promote App Heavily Due to Future of AM Radio Concerns

The AM for Every Vehicle Act faced opposition in the Senate this week, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) standing in the way of its unanimous passage. 1210 WPHT morning host Nick Kayal has shared that the station will continue to heavily push users to download the Audacy app until the concerns about AM Radio’s future are resolved.

“Mandating that all cars have AM radio is antithetical to any notion of limited government,” said Paul on the floor of the U.S. Senate earlier this week. “The debate over free speech, as listed in the First Amendment, is that government shall pass no law. It has nothing to do with forcing your manufacturer to have AM radio. This legislation attempts to insert Congress’s judgment into a question best decided by American consumers.”

During Kayal and Company, the Philadelphia-based host argued that his current career is in the hands of automakers and the government with the AM For Every Vehicle Act in limbo. He angled for the inclusion of the band and the passage of the bill, before noting that the station is essentially forced to push the Audacy app on listeners due to concerns about the future of AM radio.

“You talk about TV, you talk about satellite radio, you talk about podcasts, and we were told all of these things would be the thing that puts the final nail in the coffin for terrestrial radio as we know it. And it’s not true,” said Nick Kayal. “It’s the car companies and the government that have the most power to actually impact what the three of us do for a living, and what you out there in ‘Radioland’ listen to.”

Kayal continued by noting the company’s app is a bulletproof way to ensure listeners can still get the content they seek.

“Which is why I think, to some extent, is one of the reasons why (1210 WPHT Program Director) Greg Stocker is always begging for you to download the app and subscribe to it as if they yanked the radio out of your car with the new computerized stuff that we see in these awesome vehicles today. You can still download the app and listen with your Bluetooth in your car.

“That’s one of the big reasons why we push the Audacy app. Because maybe one day, hopefully long after I’m dead and gone and made enough money to retire in this career, maybe AM Radio really is gone, and it all is app-based. And that’s why we push it so much.”

BNM Staff