| Message-ID: <u4artd$vcr$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>
Date: 20 May 2023 16:18:53 -0000
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
Subject: Re: Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars
In article <omX9M.808180$PXw7.515043@fx45.iad>,
Michael Trew <michael.trew@att.net> wrote:
> As Marco said, in many new cars, you can't install an after-market
> radio. One part of me wants to agree with you, that it's the
> manufacturer's right to not include an AM radio... but setting that
> precedent will be the death of broadcast AM.
It's already dead. FM and satellite are not far behind. With 4G and
5G wireless there is simply no reason for anyone to still use
broadcast radio: you can get all the same programming and much, much
more, streamed to your mobile device which you control using CarPlay
or Android Auto through the dashboard touch-screen.
And guess what? Your phone gets the same emergency alerts as the radio
stations do. That excuse simply doesn't hold water any more.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | “Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together.”
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015) |
| Message-ID: <u4atr4$102v$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>
Date: 20 May 2023 16:51:48 -0000
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
Subject: Re: Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars
In article <20230520135214.GA333257@telecomdigest.us>,
Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> wrote:
> AM Radio is a known quantity in Washington, D.C.
The #1 billing commercial radio station in the entire country is
Hubbard Broadcasting's all-news WTOP (103.5 Washington, D.C.), which
moved from clear-channel 1500 AM to 103.5 FM in 2006 because the
coverage of the "DMV" (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) market was superior
and number of listeners left on AM was plummeting. Yes, the old WTOP
had a fantastic signal in New England at night, but advertisers
weren't buying WTOP to reach Boston, and it wasn't a great signal in
the fast-growing suburban areas in western Maryland and northern
Virginia.[1] (The old WTOP became WFED, "Federal News Radio", because
they could still get some advertising revenue from lobbyists and the
military-industrial complex even if almost nobody was listening.)
The right-wing talk in the Washington area is on Cumulus Media's
WMAL-FM (105.9), having moved there in 2011 for similar reasons from
AM 630.
(I believe the D.C. station with the largest audience share is actually
American University's WAMU-FM (88.5), an NPR member station, but
Nielsen does not include "noncommercial" stations in published
ratings. Public radio stations can buy a separate ratings product
that includes them under a non-disclosure agreement.)
-GAWollman
[1] For historical reasons, the 1500 stations across the country are
stacked up with "figure eight" directional patterns pointing north and
south; WFED's transmitter is located in Maryland northeast of the
District, which made sense in the 1930s but because its pattern has a
broad null to the west, protecting KSTP in St. Paul, it misses most of
the population growth that has occurred in the market since 1945.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | “Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together.”
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015) |
