Gee, thanks!
Posted on 12/30/2006 9:02:48 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Radio broadcasts on medium wave will end within a few years if a powerful coalition of commercial radio interests has its way.
Ofcom, commercial radio's regulatory body, will launch a debate in the coming months on the future of radio.
Many predict that it will result in the end of AM broadcasts as we have known them since the days of the Home Service and Light Programme.
The growth of digital broadcasts, either on radio, over the internet or through digital television, has left commercial AM broadcasts with only 3.8 per cent of the national audience this year.
While the BBC remains on the sidelines — the vast bulk of its weekly Radio Five Live audience of 5.7 million still listens on AM — leading figures in the commercial sector are determined to sound the death knell of medium wave.
The commercial stations are having to face up to the dwindling numbers tuning in to AM stations as people opt for FM broadcasts or, increasingly, the higher quality of digital broadcasts.
"The current AM licences are up for renewal in 2011 and 2012," an Ofcom spokesman said yesterday. "The question we have to address is whether or not these stations will be commercially viable by then."
Fru Hazlitt, the chief executive of Virgin Radio, is an outspoken critic of AM.
"We pay huge amounts of money to Ofcom for the AM licence," she said. "Within the next year or two we should switch it off. It just isn't worth it."
Andy Duncan, the chief executive of Channel 4, predicted that, over the next five to 10 years, AM and FM listening would wither away.
Capital Radio bosses have also been calling on the Government to set a date to switch off both AM and FM.
Not everyone agrees, however, that AM is a dead duck. Emap, whose Magic AM has been relaunched nationwide, believes there is still a place for medium wave.
Ofcom said it hoped to begin a wide consultation over the future of AM.
"There could be much more effective uses for this spectrum — it could be used for community radio," the spokesman said. "The growth of digital at the cost of analogue cannot be ignored."
Doubtless you know a thing or two about the subject.
Others do also.
Read the book.
I am not out to promote anything. That's just the way it works out right now.
You failed to notice that that was just your own words cut and pasted but changed from radio to FR. So I can only back that up with a quote from you if you were to back this up directed at me: "I heard some smart feller say 'this or that'..." with a quote I made somewhere. I think you fail to understand the silliness of your own argument as when I quote yourself back at you, you insult insult and argue, so that you are in fact just insulting and arguing with yourself.
So do you.
I was refering more to the phones themselves. Go to Japan and look at the features on their phones.
BTW, there is a great Polish buffet called "A Taste of Polonia". It's my favorite lunch spot when I'm in Joliet/Countryside for work.
"Say experts"
Hmmm...
That makes it more credible than if it said
"Experts say"
But not much.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if somebody can make a buck off of it they will. AM is here to stay.
One learns something every day.
Even when one thought one knew it all.
< }B^)
Gee, thanks!
Thanks! That's just what I need!
It'll go well with my 8-track deck.
Or yours.
Great. As long as they ignore your advice, I don't care what they do with mine.
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