If you work in news/talk radio, you probably wish the AM band still mattered the way it did 25 years ago. Or maybe 35 years ago.
There’s a nostalgia in hoping AM can make a comeback. Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen — not in a way that makes it a viable, primary delivery method again. The time has come for news/talk radio leaders to stop hoping for a resurgence and start demanding a future. That future starts with full FM signals.
Sure, everyone loves the romantic idea of keeping AM alive. Some stations still do well there, and there are outliers that will continue to succeed. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.
For the overwhelming majority of news/talk brands, the only real way forward — to compete for listeners and advertising dollars — is to secure full FM coverage. Translators don’t count. Translators are a Band-Aid. They help a little, but they don’t replace what a full FM signal provides: legitimate reach, consistent audio quality, and listener convenience.
It’s not about abandoning AM altogether. It’s about acknowledging what it is — a legacy platform that now functions as a supplement, not the core of a brand. AM radio’s biggest advantage used to be reach. Truthfully, the advantage today of having an AM signal is positioning a brand as a heritage or legacy brand in the market by pointing to its history as being on the AM band for 90 or 100 years.
But now, the reach advantage has flipped. Fewer car manufacturers are including AM receivers. Smartphones, Bluetooth speakers, and smart home devices don’t default to AM stations. Even cars that still include AM radios bury them under multiple menu screens. If a listener has to scroll three layers deep just to find your station, that listener is gone.
This is anecdotal, but I turned 35 this year. That officially puts me inside the key demo for news/talk radio. And I’m not sure anyone I know could tell you how to get to the AM band in their car, let alone what their favorite AM radio station or personality is. It’s not that people in my age group don’t care about news or talk, they just don’t associate either with AM radio. The game has changed. Radio didn’t adapt fast enough, and now it’s playing catch-up.
Younger listeners consume content differently. They expect immediacy, accessibility, and quality audio. A crackly AM signal that fades the second you hit a bridge isn’t going to compete with Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or streaming video platforms. And while I could easily write 600 words about why your station should be live on YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Facebook, and X (and I have!), let’s take one step at a time. Before conquering digital, let’s fix what’s broken on the terrestrial side. That starts by pounding the table for a full FM signal — not a translator that barely covers half the market.
The irony is, most of the people working in news/talk radio already know this. Programmers, producers, and hosts see the trends every day. They know younger audiences aren’t tuning in through AM. They can see it in the ratings, the streaming numbers, and the engagement metrics online. But unless they’re the ones leading the charge for change inside their companies, it’s not going to happen. Corporate executives are focused on budgets, market clusters, and quarterly targets. They aren’t the ones in the trenches watching listeners drift away because they can’t get a clean signal.
So if you’re a PD, a producer, or a host, you can’t sit back and hope management figures this out. You can’t pull the ladder up behind you and hope that future programmers will figure out how to get people to listen to a station when you neglected to curate younger audiences.
You need to be the one insisting your station simulcasts on FM. Be the one who keeps bringing it up in meetings. Be the one who refuses to let leadership ignore it. Because the longer your station stays stuck on AM-only, the harder it will be to rebuild an audience that’s already forgotten how to find you.
Planning for 2026 is already underway. Budgets are being set, priorities are being established, and strategic goals are being written. Now is the time to make your demands. “Our station needs an FM simulcast — sooner rather than later.” That’s not just a wish list item anymore. It’s a survival strategy.
If news/talk radio wants a future, it has to stop clinging to the past — and start broadcasting where the listeners actually are.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
