Is the future for AM radio a switch to digital?

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

If radio’s audience is getting progressively older, AM radio is partly to blame: in most parts of the world, AM radio is the home of shouty and reactionary talk radio, urgent-sounding 24/7 news broadcasts, sports broadcasters or “oldies” stations – which I always thought were named after the music but increasingly appear to be named after the audience.

 
The sound of an AM station is supposed to be “warm”. In reality, it’s the sound of old-fashioned radio – hisses and crackles. And while some people like that, they tend to be the kind of people that advertisers seem to be targeting on AM radio: retirement homes, over-50 clubs, funeral directors, contraptions for effective pest control, vitamin supplements, and a thing that squirts water at high pressure to clean driveways and paths without bending your old knees, grandad.
 
The issue with AM is twofold:
 

  1. It sounds rubbish. Properly rubbish. Sorry, and all that, but it sounds rubbish.
  2. It needs someone to deliberately hit the “AM” button, and nobody below the age of 55 is going to do that without a really good reason.

 
AM comes with some benefits, though, not least that its coverage is significantly better than FM radio, particularly in the middle of nowhere. In some parts of the world, AM radio is all there is: and they might be the people who deserve radio the most.
 
It was interesting to learn about WWFD The Gamut, an AM radio station in Maryland, USA that has been given special dispensation by the FCC to broadcast an all-digital signal.
 
The station looks like the future: with a logo that appears on a typical HD Radio, as well as artist-name and song-title. Just like FM. But it sounds like the future, too, with a decent-sounding stereo signal that far overperforms muddy analogue AM audio. I heard a bit-for-bit recording at the NAB Show.
 
20% of cars on US roads already have radios capable of HD Radio reception; and the benefit of an all-digital signal over the typical hybrid broadcast is a vastly improved coverage area, as well as more bandwidth for the audio signal, so it sounds better.
 
Dave Kolesar, who’s both the station’s program director and station engineer (imagine!), is quoted as saying “it’s probably easier to build an audience from scratch with an HD signal, versus [analogue] AM. I’d rather take my chances as an HD station.” And it looks like he’s right – for the first time in a long while, the station has finally appeared in the official audience figures.
 
There’s one step left: for HD Radio sets to let you tune in by station name, not by frequency. Only then would The Gamut be properly discoverable – even now, nobody’s likely to hit the AM button on purpose.
 
But, with that tweak, all-digital AM might be the future for AM. Heaven knows, it needs one.

 

About The Author

James Cridland, the radio futurologist, is a conference speaker, writer and consultant. He runs the media information website media.info and helps organise the yearly Next Radio conference. He also publishes podnews.net, a daily briefing on podcasting and on-demand, and writes a weekly international radio trends newsletter, at james.crid.land.

Contact James at [email protected] or @jamescridland

 

 
 
 

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