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The rumblings over the fate of AM radio got a lot louder over the past few months, especially in the wake of the news that the venerated WCBS-AM/New York was giving up its all-News format after 57 years – and its historic call letters went away too. Now WHSQ, the 880 AM signal, currently houses ESPN New York and runs Mets games.
Down the hall, the AM-FM combo of WINS has shown ratings growth since the station expanded its output from its longtime home at 1010 AM and took over 92.3 FM. This is just the latest in a trend of all-News AM stations jumping to FM in major cities around the country, including outlets in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Denver, New Orleans and more. I won’t bring in the fact that a ton of clusters are also simulcasting their all-News AMs on HD2 subchannels on one of their FMs as well.
Meanwhile, the AM band appears to be in a fight for its life. Over the past few years, automakers like Ford and Tesla have announced plans to drop AM radios in their electric vehicles, saying their EV motors interfere with AM reception and audio quality.
Not content to simply provide content and a service that listeners find value in using so they make the choice to go to AM for it, radio companies and advocacy organizations are lobbying Congress to pass S.1669, the AM Radio Act for Every Vehicle Act of 2023, which would direct the Department of Transportation to mandate all cars made or sold in the U.S. to have an AM radio installed. Because if you can’t prove your case to your consumers from a business perspective, why not get Congress to force it down their throats?
AM radio advocates are hanging their argument on the same two points that the industry has trotted out for the past several decades to justify its existence: It’s live and local, and it’s essential in emergencies. Let’s dive into those reasons, shall we?
- It’s live and local. In the case of many all-News stations, that’s actually the case during a lot of the day, which can’t be said for a lot of other stations around the dial. Even with syndicated programming running in some dayparts or overnights on some stations, all-News outlets are well-equipped to spring into live coverage when needed.
But does it have to be on AM? As shown, many News stations are thriving on FM. If someone needs to listen to get an update, having the ability to listen on an FM outlet should be acceptable in an emergency. While the signal coverage area may not be as broad, I could argue that a local News station shouldn’t need to blanket several hundred miles with its coverage because its listeners are tuning in to find out about local impact and information relevant to them in the area.
Recently, “CBS Saturday Morning” ran a story about AM radio and the AM Radio Act, which put a spotlight on some local AM stations serving their communities, like WFMD/Frederick, MD, which broadcasts local high school football games. While the story made the case that local programming and interaction appeals to listeners, I make the argument once again: Does it have to be on AM? One of the commentators even mentioned in the CBS story the value of being able to connect with listeners by citing the fact that he’s talked to people who tune in from North Carolina to listen to the games – over the Internet. So, it turns out that the AM signal isn’t even needed for WFMD to serve all of its listeners. - It’s essential in emergencies. I agree that being able to reach listeners in an emergency is table stakes. But there are a few caveats here.
The first is that this AM Radio Act only affects radios in cars. This assumes people have AM radios in their homes they can use to listen during emergencies – because if you’re not fleeing an emergency, you’re likely hunkering down in your home to ride it out. (Full transparency: I went looking for an AM radio in my own house. I couldn’t find one.)
Again, I’m not sure why FM wouldn’t suffice here, since stations are allegedly required to serve their communities’ needs per the FCC, so people ought to be able to listen to an FM outlet at home or in their cars to get information. During past natural disasters and massive storms, some clusters temporarily turned all of their stations – including FM – into simulcasts of the AM News outlet, proving that FM is a viable way to reach people.
The argument that radio works when cellular networks fail has its pros and cons – yes, radio is able to blanket areas well and doesn’t fall prey to network congestion that might prevent widespread streaming over cell phones, but it also has some significant points of failure. If the STL or the transmitter goes down, you’re off the air. And in some recent hurricanes, weather did take some stations down.
This isn’t 1960. We’re not dealing with Civil Defense Networks. We have new technologies that can help here; it’s no longer “AM or nothing” to reach listeners in case of emergencies. And if we are using Congress as leverage to mandate that radio is accessible and serves its communities, why not use the technologies and tools currently at our disposal – and reach our listeners where they are?
Some thoughts:
- The FCC has jurisdiction over SiriusXM, which is available in almost all EVs and doesn’t seem to interfere with any operations. Why not mandate that in time of emergency, SiriusXM turns over a couple of its channels to emergency news reporting and unlocks them for all receivers, regardless of subscription? The company could easily repurpose a couple of its low-bandwidth channels (like the traffic ones) to rebroadcast local information. DIRECTV does this during storms – it dedicates a special channel to rotate through local TV stations in impacted areas. Admittedly, DIRECTV has infrastructure to do this, but perhaps broadcast companies like iHeartMedia and Audacy can partner with SiriusXM to temporarily get the broadcast signals on satellite? This certainly solves a coverage issue, and it hits all in-car listeners.
- If we’re going to Congressionally mandate older broadcast technology take up space in new tech, I still don’t understand why radio lobbyists and advocates aren’t pressuring Congress to get activated radio chips in mobile phones. Earlier iPhone models had inactivated FM chips in them, and most Android phones still do. This would certainly solve the issue of getting radios into homes – it would put a radio in the pocket of 330 million Americans, which they could still listen to (for a while) even if their home’s power failed. Plus, the portability during other times….
Radio, let’s not move backwards and force people to use 100-year-old tech just because we refuse to innovate. As a professional communicator in my full-time gig, one of the basic tenets I try to teach my teams is that we need to reach audiences where they are, not drag them to where we are. Pulling people back in time just because we are set in our ways won’t help us in the long run.
And for those of you hanging onto the AM band simply because we’ve had it for a century, I quote Elsa from Frozen: “Let it go… let it go…”
A former air personality and industry journalist, Keith Berman worked at the late Radio & Records for several years, where he held a number of positions before being promoted to format editor. While at R&R, he also served as a writer and reporter, covering breaking news; authoring weekly columns, format roundups and features; and contributing heavily to Street Talk Daily. When R&R folded, he co-founded RAMP (Radio and Music Pros) and spent 3 years covering radio and record labels before taking a hiatus from the industry. His experiences also include time on-air at stations in Connecticut, Boston and Southern California. He can be reached at KeithBerman@gmail.com.
