Posted on 12/30/2006 9:02:48 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Scheduled for Extinction List:
AM Radio.
NPR
Newspapers.
CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC.
DU
Yep, Old Europe is that different. In the US Rush Limbaugh will keep the AM broadcast alive in spite of Air America. Hahaha.
Seems unlikely unless the FCC gets greedy or Pelosi and McCain finish off free speech.
I agree with you. But the MSM and the dems in power will see the demise of Err Amerika as the demise of AM here and will want to auction the band width for digital communications for garage door openers. Rush's success, amongst others, will be seen as an abberation and will ignore it for the trend facing liberal and MSM radio. If they can't ressurect the fairness doctrine, the looney left will say it is deteriorating market conditions just to shut down talk radio.
We listen to AM at work, since it is the only thing that will penetrate the metal building we work in. FM is limited in building settings (unless you have internet access or an external antenna)... thus will be limiting to the common worker during working hours.
Finally, AM is the only source of talk radio locally. Conservatives beware...
AM spreads farther than FM by several factors. England is smaller than the north american continent. They apparently don't need long distance communication in the world of George Orwell.
AM radio in the US does not need to pay license fees to the government, unlike the UK
AM radio provides a useful service during large scale emergencies. When local FM stations are knocked off the air, powerhouse AM stations can be pulled in by portable radios, particularly at night. After Hurricane Katrina, many victims in the affected areas were relying totally on AM radio for information for weeks. Likewise, when all of the emergency services towers were knocked down, police were using AM radio to broadcast messages to their officers in the field.
they need a Rush Limbaugh.
AM dies first, FM next-satelite radio is the future.
The Brits are just far ahead of us when it comes to digital radio adoption. The UK government chose a completely new method of broadcasting quite a long time ago (5-10 years) that uses different frequencies and is not backwards-compatible with old-fashioned AM and FM. As a result, most of the country now has high quality digital radio using receivers that don't cost much more than than regular ones. There's just no reason for the average Brit to keep listening to AM and FM any more when they can get the same stations in much higher quality via digital radio.
Here in the US, on the other hand, we are just now barely beginning to adopt digital radio, and only in the largest cities. And most of the radios cost more than $500 each. Why? Because the National Association of Broadcasters (essentially a union for rich radio station owners) spent years and years "persuading" Congress to block digital radio tooth and nail until they were able to come up with a backwards-compatible system that they and they along would have iron-fisted control over. It will probably be at least another two years before the average person will even be able to afford the new radios, but that's okay, since it will probably be three or four years before more than one or two of your local stations will even get around to offering a digital signal.
In no Western European country
(or Canada, for that matter)
would Rush Limbaugh be permitted to broadcast.
In most of them
he would be jailed under 'hate speech' laws.
AM will never die in the US. It's too easy to make a profit off of a little station, particularly now in the age of syndicated programming.
ping
I think it's geography. One clear channel AM station would cover England like a blanket, even a few 5,000 Watt candles will do nicely. In this country there are dozens of more or less independent identifiable AM markets. Texas or California each have more than the UK.
Radio is a bigger world than people want to believe. Sure the internet is the mix. I'm a ham radio operater and I talk on my allowed frequencys, listen on AM(medium wave), shortwave broadcasts on AM shortwave,and use my computer. Radio is not going away because many more people use it than more can imagine. I say this about television, Since I've been in radio I may watch TV when I fall into bed and my wife turns it of because I fell asleep. Radio uses you mind television makes you a zombie.
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