Posted on 08/15/2014 3:28:44 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Some wonder if deep in debt Clear Channel may give up on the likes of Rush in a couple years when his contract is over. (They had to move shows like Rush to a weaker station in LA...)
There are a couple comments to the article that say that maybe this isn't huge news, no surprise at all, and maybe the sky isn't falling:
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Eric, Let's put this in perspective. Disney bought a bunch of AM Radio stations, many with questionable coverage. They do this to program to an audience of teens and pre-teens with the premise that this group has a ton of money to spend and/or influence the spending of their parents. The programming is good. AM does not reach that audience. They lose money. They decide to admit they were wrong and cut their losses. It is a business decision. No further discussion is necessary.
- Hal Widsten
Whereas on the Internet (digital), the message can be sent without the nasty environment. True, there are anti-business messages on the internet, but they are generally not on the same page as the internet advertisement.
Radio and TV are abusing their funding (Business Advertising) with the usual results being in perpetual decline.
The part of the article I found disturbing was BMW dropping AM altogether. Besides Rush and Vickie McKenna, I want traffic reports, I want a signal when I am driving through North Dakota and Sakatchewan.
It costs NOTHING to have AM in the car receiver. Maybe the antenna has to be a little larger for decent range. This was a decision made to project a certain image.
I don’t want to have to pay a monthly fee for news, traffic and talk.
I want AM in the car, oh and bring back a straight bench seat option while you are at it.
Talk radio pretty much has saved AM radio.
Four observations:
1. I live in Germany and note that FM thrives...mostly off music (rock, opera, jazz, interview formats), and AM is already dead. At best, I can get maybe six channels across the spectrum in clear format, and there’s no reason in Europe to own a AM station.
2. Having lived in the DC area for a couple of years, I can say that FM only has a couple of formats that ensure listeners. Music to some degree works, but sports, news, and conservative chat are what most rely upon to make the bucks. People have a couple of favorites and they don’t necessarily check around to find some new format or style.
3. With the exception of local religious radio stations, extremely rural areas, and local college stations, I’ll predict by 2030 that AM is mostly dissolved on business impact. I’ll even predict that all cars manufactured by 2030 will only have FM or satellite capability.
4. The big news here? It’s not just AM that is dying....the big three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC)....are also dying. Like the newspaper and magazine business, they have a very limited future.
I can’t wait until someone realizes that society doesn’t need morning show or any news show personalities anymore...we need credible news from credible sources that doesn’t have politics weaved throughout...THAT WOULD BE GREAT!
MTV did away with the radio star in 1982...these things happen!
I haven’t listened to the radio since sometime in the mid-nineties. The songs all sounded similar. The commercials were annoying. Most of what they played was not engaging enough to sit through even on a long drive. The disc jockeys were really annoying. I have a postage stamp card in my radio with anything I’d like, including books.
Very insightful thread topic. Look what happened to analogue TV. Damn govt. got involved in conversion to digital. The future demographics will tell the tale. We older folks grew up on radio but the kids today are major online users. AM and even FM radio may decline or perhaps be digitized and received as such in autos.
As a kid used to carry around a small transistor radio—they are about obsolete now.
Yes, news and entertainment are mostly online (right here at FR).
But the mobile internet does not reach everywhere. I cannot stream programming into my car as I drive across the northern tier of Pennsylvania or upstate New York.
Right now, satellite radio provides me with a large selection of entertainment, talk, news, and traffic (even in areas where local stations do not cover traffic). So, for someone who travels, that is very important to me.
But, once we start to have satellite internet coverage, even satellite radio will be challenged.....each person can customize what they want to hear. That is the epitome of individual liberty and how capitalism makes the most of itself....by catering to the individual.
AM/FM radio required advertisers to target “groups” of people....not very effectively. TV targets “groups” of people.
The internet targets individuals, based on your searches, favorites, etc. (let’s avoid the privacy issues for now).
So, the internet caters to INDIVIDUALS while radio/TV cater to COLLECTIVES.
In business, when you can cater to the individual more than your competition, you will win every time!
That is the secret that our founders utilized....giving power to the individual over the collective.
It works in both government and in business.
Too many commercials, and annoying ones. It’s telling that Clear Channel launched hot country stations in Boston and Pittsburgh and they’re non-commercial for now to attract
new listeners—and the Boston station doubled its ratings in one month. But when they come back...oh, time for a commercial break, a LONG one.
Songs indeed sound similar, especially the modern stuff like Fla Georgia Line, Luke Bryan etc. Annoying DJs, yes; and radio has them read off liner cards, not act like people who can be your friend. There’s a disconnect...
I have been a DJ on a non-comm college station since 1981
and play interesting stuff and engage with my audience. We aren’t slaves to the ratings books. And I joked on air that while the country station will eventually drop their non-commercial streak, we won’t...and yes people do need to have money but the big companies like Clear Channel etc are not doing it right, and are suffering these days.
” Look what happened to analogue TV. Damn govt. got involved in conversion to digital.”
Now there are areas that get no broadcast TV, it’s satellite or no signal.
It's not all BMWs, it's just for electric cars where BMW engineering was not up to the task of reducing or eliminating the electromagnetic interference coming from their electric motors and associated circuitry.
“But, once we start to have satellite internet coverage, even satellite radio will be challenged.....each person can customize what they want to hear.”
The satellite internet will be infused with commercials you will be forced to see/hear. The advertisers won’t let their market escape without a fight.
There’s a couple of things this article leaves out.
1) Terrestrial radio signal streaming via the internet. Primarily this is done via iHeartRadio.com and is my primary means of listening to WOR in New York while at my desk; even while being at my office in NYC.
iHeartRadio.com puts on a giant music festival in Las Vegas every September with current pop stars. If there is to be a PR campaign for terrestrial radio, it should be in combination with streaming.
2) When I do listen via a broadcast signal, I’m tuned into the HD signal on FM. WABC - AM in New York is simulcast on 95.5,HD2. Unfortunately WOR does not have HD space on FM.
So if BMW is including a radio that can access standard FM signals as well as HD Radio, then that’s probably OK.
All that said, I like antenna broadcast radio for security and subversive reasons. As the article states, it easy to know who exactly is listening to a streaming audio channel. That means it’s easy for a government agency to track who is listening.
Also, should there be a major failure of the Internet infrastructure (I know it’s designed not to), it’s possible to still communicate one to many via a power generator at the signal source and a battery in a receiver.
As the father of teenagers, I do find it unfortunate for them that the shared media experiences that I had with friends at that age are much more fragmented now. I don’t know what kind of cultural touchstone they’ll have in common when they get older.
Progress.
“The part of the article I found disturbing was BMW dropping AM altogether.”
Wow. Why don’t they just include a “complimentary” (and mandatory) lifetime subscription to NARAL and GLADD when you buy their car.
Freepers that are good actors could have a lot of fun with BMW - show up at the dealer, go all the way, about to buy the car, and then ask “oh yea, I forgot, let’s go back to the floor so that I can listen to your AM reception”. And then walk out, after telling the dealer that you won’t accept an aftermarket mod, as they generally are not reliable.
I do that that — listen to digital — now.
I have 3 radios and none of them can pick up many stations. I live very close to a local religious station and it drowns out many others.
Now, I use a program called RadioSure and listen via my laptop and/or desktop. It plays many US and foreign radio stations.
Of course, that is capitalism. But those commercials will be tailored to YOU, so they will be a little more interesting than the pablum created for "groups" you see on TV currently.
The reason AM radio has endured all these years is greater range. Satellite radio pretty much nullifies that.
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