Keeping AM in Cars..and On the Air
We’ve talked here before about legislation in Congress to mandate that AM radios be included in all cars made in the United States…the “AM in Every Vehicle Act”. And with reintroduction of the bill in this Congress, 60 senators have signed on as co-sponsors, meaning it would survive a filibuster and would be on the fast track to approval. So far, so good on that front.
But at the same time broadcasting advocates are telling why the bill is important, why AM radio is a unique way for emergency messaging to get out to the public, how it is an integral part of American society—many of those same folks are shutting their AM stations down.
Many of the nation’s largest owners of stations—Cumulus, Townsquare, others—are deciding it’s not cost effective to operate their AM stations, so they are simply turning off the transmitters and asking the FCC to give them some time to decide what to do. Options include selling the station to someone else, coming back on the air with a different format, adding an FM translator and returning to the air, or simply surrendering the license.
It happened in Iowa with a Quad Cities sports/talk station…they simply turned off the AM signal one Saturday, taking the FM translator with it. It happened in San Francisco with a frequency celebrating 100 years on the air.
Obviously, these are for-profit businesses and need to make money. But they are also part of larger groups…local clusters, as well as the national group…that can absorb some of the losses those AM stations might be incurring.
It’s the inconsistent messaging that’s the real problem—the service is invaluable, unless we can’t make money on it and then it’s gone.
No danger of that with this station. But it’s a trend that is worth watching…and that may adversely affect the outcome in D.C.
