The future of AM radio may well be on FM
Written Oct. 9, 2007 by Larry Rosin in Content + Technology + Terrestrial Radio with 1 Comment
The big story in the radio trades today was the move of News/Talk legend WIBC in Indianapolis from the AM to the FM dial. And while I certainly agree with Walt Sabo who says today: "The band has little to do with it" and that there are "very bad" stations on both bands, who are we really fooling?
I happen to love the content that is available on AM radio in New York. I love WFAN, WABC, WCBS, WINS, ESPN Radio, and I regularly listen to Radio Disney when my daughter is in the car (and I like that too). But I'm almost always listening through endless noise, hiss, and worse. I live 43 miles from the Empire State Building, but well within the New York radio metro. My listening is a true labor of love - very often there is more noise than what I'm 'listening' to - but I keep listening anyhow.
Who else but someone like me would put up with that? No wonder many people never visit the AM band at all. Maybe it's not that they don't like non-music radio - maybe it's just too painful from a sound quality standpoint.
Perhaps HD Radio will re-invent AM Radio by eliminating all the noise. And what a revolution that really could be. The first time I listened to a football broadcast on FM I found it revelatory. And just a few minutes ago I put "Mike & the Mad Dog" from WFAN on the stream, after attempting to listen to them on a brief drive in my car, and I was stunned by the sound quality from my little computer speakers.
The bottom line being - moving our best AM radio brands to the FM might actually be the single most powerful thing we could do to revitalize this medium. It could truly remind an entire generation that there's more out there than 'more music less talk.'
Reader Comments
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An AM with a strong 24 hour signal (need an engineer who pays attention to the station) can sound pretty damn good. I'm stunned from time to time at how bad alot of FMs sound, over modulated, no seperation, etc. Jan and I took a road trip last month from LA to Sonoma and so many of the FM stations we listened to sounded like an engineer hadn't twisted a screwdriver on them for months!