Webmaster’s Corner: What To Do About AM?
August 8, 2012 
10 Comments
The greater question remains: Is AM 850 in Boston now a throwaway signal? One might make the arguement that the only remaining profitable AM station in Boston, and perhaps all of Massachusetts, might be WBZ-AM 1030, which does News all day and Talk all night. But what does that say about all the lesser signals in and around Boston?
A totally unrelated Facebook post which announced that Rush Limbaugh is returning to 680 WRKO was received with boos. I added a tongue in cheek comment that maybe WRKO would do better inviting Charlie Van Dyke and “Exciting” Mike Addams (who, incidently, is on WEEI-FM SportsRadio) and returning the music format to WRKO. Could it do worse?
Out in Orange, Mass., Steve Silberberg’s former WJOE 700 (the onetime 1390 WCAT) was airing ESPN until earlier this year, when he dropped the service in favor of a simulcast of his lone moneymaker, AAA Formatted 92.5 WXRV – “The River”. One could guess that nobody was listening to 700′s ESPN Sports programming and so, Silberberg probably figured he could save money by dropping the sports contract and simply re-broadcsting WXRV – which incidently is also run on 99.9 FM Athol (used to be the old WCAT-FM in the Dick Partridge days). Now, as of the last two times I was up there… 700 is dark. What does that say about the state of AM? Perhaps not much, since Orange Mass has a local FM station that does serve it’s community, 97.3 WJDF. No matter. The AM is apparently gone, and while not deleted, it’s probably got nine months to go back on the air or disappear into the history of AM broadcasting.
In New York City, I was appalled to hear three hours of infomercials on, of all stations, 77 WABC. Selling, what one facebook poster called, ‘dubious male enhancement pills’. Okay, Cumulus Media is making money on the sale of these crackpot faux talk shows, but surely the audience evaporates when that crap goes on. Or does it? What does that do to the listening audience during the times that Imus, Rush and Hannity are off? To me, the great WABC sounds like its reduced to a cinder.
These are only some limited examples of whats taking place all over the country. At least in Canada, there are still some broadcast standards which have to be maintained even on the AM band. Doubt that? Try listening anywhere in Eastern North America to AM 740 from Toronto. “Zuma Radio” plays everything across the music spectrum, with knowledgeable announcers. Yes, I’d bet my next paycheck that it’s voicetracked. But it’s better than Hate talk, penis enhancing pills and much of the junk that’s becoming standard fare on US AM stations during off peak talk times. Yes, I said penis.
I’ve been saying for quite a while now that AM is deader than Fred Flintstone’s Brontosaurus. I’m just waiting for the the carriers to drop for good on many of these signals… even some 50,000 watt blowhard signals. It’s only a matter of time. But, what if corporate talking heads were to decide it would be cheaper, easier and even GOOD for business to return music formats to AM? No, I’m not talking about CHR or even AC. But Classic Country, Standards, Smooth Jazz and Oldies could experience a resurgence of sorts with an audience that while aging, might tune into a locally produced, if not voicetracked music format mentioned above. At least one of those music formats wouldn’t suffer the kind of listener turn off that anti-aging cream talk shows do.
Sure, we all know the future of radio is online and digital. And nobody under 30 even knows there even IS an AM band. So why not squeeze the remaining life out of AM properties with a music format tailored to an aging audience, and make some money with it before the light goes out at the top of the transmission tower. It makes sense to me.
I Guarantee that the “Re Birth” of The Big 68 WRKO/Boston would be greeted with Huge Fanfare ! Mike Addams & J.J. Wright…Mornings and afternoons, respectively ! They would “Seal the Deal”…with big Ratings from all over New England ! They’re Mainstays in The Boston/New England Radio Market…and would appeal STRONGLY to a 45 – 65 Demographic…all those “Baby Boomers”…with some disposable income to really help support all of R K O’s returning Advertisers ! Just the Media Hype ALONE could Nicely Launch THE NEW RKO!
I disagree with you but only in this regard: WRKO is a TALK station with big names. They are just bringing back Rush Limbaugh and that’s where the money is. WRKO is making money – probably not tons of it, but the station is one of the few AM signals left in Boston that has any recognition anymore. If they flipped to Oldies, it would have to be live and locally based to make ANY impact at all, and it would have to have a strong emphasis on News and Information along with the music. There is no way at all that a return to the “Big 68″ format would make much of a dent in the Boston book because virtually nobody in Boston who listens for music would tolerate a muddy, mono signal for their oldies. WRKO COULD process the hell out of it and tweak the upper end of the audio bandwidth so that it sounds brighter on car radios that are not well suited to AM audio fidelity – but remember that back when WRKO was a major music force, there was a 16k bandwidth standard, which the FCC reduced to 8k back in the 90s.
Not that some of us old WRKO fans wouldn’t like it… the geeks among us like you and me, Mike Hotaling, Shel Swartz (who runs the WRKO tribute site) and a few other die hard fans would eat it up. But the public in general – a listening audience that with few exceptions anymore, under 30 doesn’t even know AM exists, would likely largely ignore a format change at WRKO to ANYTHING, no matter what it is. WRKO has its value as a talk station. That’s the only thing that will float that station until AM completely fades from the public view.
But… in other markets where there is still some music on AM – down south in places like Memphis, Birmingham and the like – it’s possible that an under-performing AM could do the format I mentioned above and bring it back to life. In fact, in Boston, Clear Channel could probably make a go with an Oldies format on its WXKS 1200 – which it just cancelled the contracts of Jeff Katz and a few others because the station is in 27th place in the ratings. THAT might work. But not at WRKO where the station is still a contender. And the last comment about this, any station which would want to do live oldies, would have to consider the expenses involved with, 1. paying a staff to be live during the day and voicetracked at night. 2. Paying a full news department, fully staffed, and 3, laying out the money to HEAVILY promote the station in billboards, online and Television. That is the ONLY way that any AM station in a major market would have a chance at creating a successful AM Oldies station. Period.
Your arguement about Baby Boomers with disposable income was a great arguement back in 1985, but its not relevant anymore. NOBODY who owns a business is going to pay through the nose to advertise on a station that doesn’t have name recognition and that they know doesn’t have an established audience. TalkRadio WRKO has visibility, established talk show hosts and is instantly recognized as THE Conservative Talk station in Boston. Thus, advertisers with money, corporations, etc., are going to advertise there. Take the talk hosts away and WRKO has NOTHING to sell with. And that’s the whole problem with your arguement. JJ Wright and Mike Addams not withstanding, WRKO would have to be saturating WCVB TV 5, WBZ TV 4, Channel 7 and all of Entercom’s other radio stations with an intense promotional campaign just to get people to listen. Perhaps even paid ads on MY WEBSITE
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Sorry Steve… I echo your sentiment and I know what I wrote – which is for the future when AM is just about dead as a stopgap measure before the station simply gets turned off and the property sold for it’s real estate value. But for now, there’s no way WRKO could flip to Oldies and make one thin dime. But it sure sounded like a good idea.
I need to reiterate though, what I wrote in my Webmaster’s Corner. There ARE places where flipping to music might improve a station’s visibility and ratings. It would have to be voicetraced – cybertracked at that with decent personalities but who will work for very low wages. Any such station would need to augment the music with News and Information, and perhaps syndicated talk shows during certain dayparts. I mentioned somewhere that WICC 600 in Bridgeport CT runs Vt’d Oldies during the Overnight hours and WATR Waterbury airs local talk shows all day, and flips to Satellite Oldies at night. Music DOES work, programmed correctly and used to augment local programming elements. But the days of a 24/7 local music format of ANY kind on AM are over.
In a metro of any physical size there are at most two AM signals that will cover it day and night. And night is important because half of the year, some of your morning drive and some of your afternoon drive is going out over your nighttime signal.
As talk and now sports move to FM, just covering the metro won’t be enough for the strong AMs. Look for more non-traditional revenue plays like long infomercial blocks on formerly prestigious stations and expect smaller signals to go dark over time. The audience (at least the part of it the advertisers are willing to spend money chasing) isn’t there.
Steve’s right. Music on FM is getting to be a tough enough sell with the ‘net, SiriusXM, iPods and all…there is about as much potential for success playing it on AM as there would be playing it on Citizens’ Band.
AM’s future was in the … past.
Tony
Different Mike Addams… Mike Addams with 2 ‘d’s who was on WRKO has been doing morning drive on WMJX forever. It’s kind of funny that Magic 106.7 is the second former WBZ-FM, a station that was practically given away by Westinghouse because it wasn’t THE BIG AM!
Mikey Adams on WEEI did mornings on WCCC in Hartford in the 80′s before doing some TV for about 20 years and coming to WEEI.
The death of AM has many causes mainly the part 15 issues. Very few AM’s are able to overcome electrical interference abundant today. Then you have to consider AM’s 80/90 docket equivalent when a large number of AM’s signed on the air with highly directional patterns. What covered the market after World War two, when many of these stations signed on the air, can’t cover the defined market today.
Also, what music format will sound good through a narrow band receiver? Nostalgically, we can marvel on how WABC sounded through that small speaker. But there was so much more going on besides the music. Reproducing that would be cost prohibited.
Along those lines, the reason why AM radios are narrow band was to reduce product returns. Manufacturers found that reducing the bandwidth eliminated the complaint of “noisy AM”. So it goes back to interference which will never go away.
The ‘part 15′ reason is right on. The biggest offenders, as devices go, are computer devices (everything from old-fashioned desktop PCs to smartphones) and broadband modems/routers, the noise from which seems to concentrate at the cable connection point at the POLE! Add to it the sorry state of AM receiver technology and unwillingness to even design a decent AM receiver and you’ve got a recipe for band evacuation. There is and WAS no reason to destroy the AM band, except for a concerted effort to do so on the part of receiver manufacturers and 70s/80s FM only broadcasters, who felt they were at a competitive disadvantage.
Its too late to do anything about AM now. Twenty years ago the FCC could have done one of two things: Either move the current AM band to someplace else, expand it for the benefit of local broadcasters, and legislate in an acceptable AM Stereo standard, OR, it could have considered the plethera of new electronic devices coming into the marketplace and tightened/enforced part 15 interference rules (and as far as that goes, there’s no reason why ‘part 15′ devices should be allowed to be manufactured so cheaply that they ooze RF all over the place – for numerous reasons).
The government not only allowed the demise of AM radio, but actively partook in it. And.. it’s too late, there can be no band relocation now, nobody will follow for the same reason that SiriusXM couldn’t launch successfully today as it did in the late 90s. The audience doesn’t care unless they get it on their phone.
Their PHONE! That’s ALL media consumers care about today is what they can get on their PHONE, as an APP. Everything else is old, or noise. But you know who did that and allowed that? Take a guess…
And, I should correct myself. Not twenty years ago, but THIRTY years ago. At the same time that the nit-witted FCC finally got around to authorizing Motorola’s C-Quam AM-Stereo system, they should have done something to protect the AM band and allow it to thrive in it’s then current form. But, in 1982, who could have forecasted that in 30 years, the whole industry would be on the ropes all because of the incredible greed of a few well connected men convincing a weary and weak-minded Congress to get rid of all the rules… But I digress..
How about no longer requiring a license for AM radio broadcast? Make owning an AM frequency equivalent in law to real estate ownership. Anyone interfering with another station can be prosecuted with a law similar to trespass. (civil and criminal)
This would allow radio hobbyists to own their own frequency and broadcast over the air, as they do on the internet.
Would the government give up that power? No!