Radio Democracy: Why I still listen to AM radio and you should too
Once upon a time you could go to your local shopping mall, buy a radio receiver with antennas and tune into America’s music culture without paying a subscription to hear what was coming out of the speaker. It came before television, and it was deemed our public airwaves protected by our FCC. Personalities such as Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack, Pat St. John, Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, and Ron Lundy ruled the airwaves. If the people liked what they heard, you moved up the ladder. It was a form of music democracy, the people not corporations were in control.
The disc jokey’s job involved literally playing vinyl live on air they recently bought at the local record store, and broadcasting music free of charge across the nation to anyone who had a receiver. It was considered a piece of free promotion for the artist in exchange for advertisement revenue to the station, or even “payola”. In this form it was truly considered “music democracy” as by the end of the 1960’s there were over 800 independently owned radio stations playing their own playlist and unique sound to their listeners in their local community. It’s where the “folk revival” was born, and how listeners were exposed to a new wave of black music we called “Motown soul”, and a new genre called “fusion” jazz that brought us Miles and Coltrane. It was a moment in time when you could walk into the radio station in your community with a copy of single you just recorded at the studio down the street, hand over some cash in an envelope and get some air time. Another common occurrence was the “record of the week”, where they would play four different singles from a local artist that would hand out their 45’s, and the song that got the most requests would be played all the next week. That is single-handedly how every major rock band from the past got their start. It was a homegrown environment that brought a unique sound and music culture to each region of the country you would travel to. You had the “LA Sound”, “San Francisco Rage”, “Greenwhich Folk”, “Seattle Grunge”, “Chicago Jazz”, and “Memphis Soul”.
Sadly today we live in an era where very few are tuning into AM radio anymore for talk radio, let alone for enjoying music. However I still listen to AM radio, and I feel it is so important and inherit to our public broadcasting rights in the United States that we keep the bandwidth alive, and knowledge about what it really means. This is why I feel you should too.
I’d like to bring up misconceptions about the AM band. Everyone believes that AM means “low quality” “terrible sound” compared with FM, but that is not the case or doesn’t have to be. This is the largest myth or false belief that many have about AM radio even for music.
The AM radios and receivers of the past were designed for music.
These were built with receivers that could pick up as high as 20KHz signal on both the FM and AM bands, and both AM and FM in stereo (yes stereo!) Including the receivers that were built into cars until recently. In reality, there is no difference between FM and AM carrier only in signal deployment.
These were radios sold at the height of AM pop radio of the 50s through the 70s before WABC77 went talk in 1982. Radio manufactures started responding to the rise in talk radio and started cheapening the quality and specs of the receivers being sold to consumers.
The AM radios still sold today are sadly almost unusable for music. In 1990, NRSC-2 was passed which would be the first of a series a limits put on AM stations to broadcast over 10KHz, and also regulation which limited the power at which AM stations could be broadcast so they would not interfere with the FM band. In response radio manufactures seeing music stations abandoning the music format went to narrow bandwidths saving costs that kills audio above 3 kHz, basically “telephone quality.” At the same time, real estate prices often made it more profitable to sell the land occupied by multiple tower arrays than any projected income from the stations, so many of your favorite AM music stations went dark overnight and moved to talk format.
Most good AM transmitters are in lowland areas, especially in any kind of wet or damp landmass (wetland, bogs, swampy areas, etc). The local coverage area of AM’s come off the transmitter “ground system”, literally 360 (one for each degree of compass heading) copper radial wires, cut to an exact wavelength measurement, each radiating straight out in shallow trenches (about 6–10 inches) deep the entire circumnavigation of the metal tower. Each the approximate length of the tower. If the AM tower is 300 feet high, then 360 copper radio wires are buried in every compass minute also 300 feet long. The consequence is that virtually no NEW AM stations are being built…and many are signing off the air and going away. Because the land needed for one AM transmitter is so vast the pure land is often more expensive and more valuable that the entire station license.
Sadly AM stereo developed in 1950s didn’t last in the United States. The reason being that the FCC refused to adopt a standard, and so you had Magnavox PMX, Harris Corporation V-CPM, and Motorola C-QUAM and various others that were all broadcasting in the United States throughout the 1960s through 1980s for those willing to fork over the cash for a nice receiver. There were even some placed in cars. When the FCC after sitting with their backs tied decided to choose Motorola in 1993, radio stations had already invested heavily in the others, so it was either reinvest in the new standard or drop the format and switch to FM. They chose the latter where as many other nations like Japan promoted AM band.
The switch to FM popularity essentially killed off the nationally syndicated radio show and radio giants. The 50,000 watt behemoths which could be picked up for hundreds of miles and enjoyed by millions. Famously Wolfman Jack broadcast from Mexico at 100,000 watts of power and could be picked up from coast to coast. There is nothing close to the radio giants of the past that exist today since AM stations have been falling to the wayside. That is unfortunate because it is what brought us music democracy accessible to the masses no matter rich or poor. FM radio which was once a niche for low powered college radio stations are limited to much shorter line of sight areas, and it is blocked by physical barriers such as walls and inside buildings, where as AM stations can even be picked up in tunnels. (Sure you may get static). I am a big believer that protecting and keeping the AM band alive is essential to maintaining that radio is free to use for future generations and our taxpayer funded public airwave democracy. Once you switch over to a fully digital broadcasting system you would repeat what happened to our television when we phased out analog and forced consumers to pay for something that was previously free.
In 2002, the FCC made an agreement with iBiquity the company that designed the current digital radio format “IBOC” being used here in the US. The US is one of the few democracies in the world that uses this digital encoding technology, all other countries use a Non proprietary digital encoding like DAB or DRM. In the US royalties must be paid to iBiquity for every transmitter and every receiver manufactured using their technology. There is nothing superior about IBOC encoding but our FCC was convinced into locking the US into paying this company royalties for years.
The Los Angeles Daily News recently wrote an article on this.
Here’s a suggestion for how to save AM radio
“Ran 10k on all three AM’s I tended for almost nine years for Salem Twin Cities (2001–2010). It’s lousy receivers making AM sound bad. Except for lacking a little bit of the very high end, I’ve heard AM stereo which was otherwise better than FM.” — Scott Tod
“I own a Carver tuner that was made with an AM tuner capable of reproducing AM audio quality all the way to 20 kHz … higher than most humans can hear, higher than the standard for FM stereo, and much greater than the 3 kHz that the typical AM radio can produce.” — Richard Wagoner
“I was fortunate enough to be the program director of WLW, Cincinnati, one of the US’s most powerful AM “clear channel stations” (meaning the ONLY station in the US to be broadcasting on their designated dial position). The station was 50,000 watts at 700 on the AM dial (and still is). I would receive letters and postcards (this was pre email) from Texas, Colorado, even Iceland, Sweden and Norway while I was running the programming at this station. All were listing to WLW thousands of miles away due to skywave and the signal skipping across the earth.” — Michael O’Shea (President at Sonoma Media Group)
At times it seems the FCC is intentionally or unintentionally turning a blind eye to keeping AM radio alive and doing nothing to innovate or keep it relevant. The risk is that the space will be auctioned off for the digital spectrum. Once it is eliminated there would be nothing stopping HD radio from charging for subscribers since they own a monopoly on the technology. An estimated 70 million millennials still tune into the radio every day despite streaming services, so there is still a huge market that is being eyeballed. Radio is the only place you can still listen to free music without being forced into a monthly subscription to a streaming service. It serves a valued service for both listeners, and the artist looking to promote album sales. Practically the entire music industry was born on the AM car radio. I would hate to see it go away and hope future generations push to keep it alive.
To answer the question many have about why AM radios sound so terrible in recent years, there is really no audible or physical difference between the two formats, only in the way the signal is carried. By measurement alone AM is a superior technology. Both are capable of broadcasting in full range of human hearing and in stereo. The FCC’s refusal to innovate and promote the AM band has led to it becoming overcrowded, noisier, still in mono, and radio manufactures trunking the signal under 3Khz especially in cars.
The only way you can really enjoy AM stations in the 21st century is buying a vintage receiver. Even the modern HiFi receivers aren’t being built with AM music in mind. You will be surprised at how good AM can sound, and if you live close to a major city you may be lucky and still find stereo broadcasts. In 2019 the original WABC77 was sold to Red Apple Media who began for the first time in more than 40 years broadcasting music, including hiring back original hosts such as Cousin Brucie, two hours of pop/jazz/soul music after Morrow’s program, hosted by TV personality and singer Tony Orlando. Adult standards hosted by Joe Piscopo on Sundays with Sinatra. In early July 2021, WABC announced the addition of The Constantine Maroulis Show to appeal to younger listeners. The show is hosted by actor and rock singer Constantine Maroulis, and features a wide selection of music ranging from the 1970s through 1990s, Dean and Deana Martin’s Sunday Nightcap. The show is hosted by Deana Martin, daughter of singer Dean Martin. Everyone who lives in the Northeast can tune into the 770 dial for hours of fun. There is just something magic about tuning into a live broadcast with a disc jokey that is a totally different experince from streaming. It’s your essential freedom and right to public broadcasting. The audience is still there, and in my opinion the FCC should not let a good thing go away.
