HOW TALK, TALK, TALK RECHARGED FADING AMPLITUDE MODULATION Airwaves' oldest technology now it's most interactive — Talk became AM's niche — and don't people love to talk M. Corey Goldman - Forward Analog, digital, Internet and satellite, now Podcasting and soon radio-through-a-cellphone will be among the ways broadcasters angle for our increasingly diverted ear.
Surprising, then, to find scratchy, tinny, fade-under-the-bridge AM radio alive and holding its own in the digital age, its faithful clinging to programming that keeps them up to date with news, sports and lots of banter.
The sound fidelity is terrible and the choice of programming limited by geography and time of day (AM signals travel farther at night). As of last spring, there were 8,863 FM radio stations in the United States, more than double the 4,160 reported to be in operation 20 years ago. By contrast, there were just 4,975 AM radio stations, almost unchanged from 1980.
Yet Amplitude Modulation, named for the way its radio waves transmit, remains one of the principal ways many people get their listening-fix, and has become a virtual speaker's corner for those wishing to engage in energetic, public social, political and religious discussion.
The reason, explain those in the industry, is that AM radio has something other broadcast media don't: Interactivity. Its signal can't transmit the richness and depth of musical tones but has evolved into the preferred medium for talk — straight and not-so-straight — and continues to lure active, rather than passive, listeners.
As recently as the mid-1980s AM stations like Toronto's 1050 CHUM were luring teenagers with top 40 lists that no FM station would touch.
Advances like AM stereo, which Toronto station CFRB turned on in July, 1984, pretty much failed. The stereo signal — not unlike Canadian Audio Broadcasts now — could only be picked up with a hard-to-find receiver with a decoder.
"What saved AM when FM came along was the talk format," says Ken Dardis, a former Cleveland-area DJ and station manager turned radio expert. "There is no other format that levels the playing field, makes it local and offers listeners a chance to react."
Giving the listener a chance to talk back gave old AM new power in the new digital age, says Dardis. Many credit Rush Limbaugh. The talk-radio juggernaut known as the Republican version of Howard Stern honed his career by forging through scripted thoughts, rather than outright attacks, that listeners could call in and respond to.
His wildly popular radio program was first syndicated by EFM Media in 1988. Limbaugh's show has earned more than $1 billion (U.S.) in revenues for his networks and stations.
Pre-Limbaugh, there were lots of call-in shows but few radio stations dared to program talk and talk-back all day. Today, the Radio Advertising Bureau estimates there are more than 1,200 all-talk stations comprising more than 10 per cent of all outlets, both AM and FM.
Which is another reason why AM has survived: Because it's cheaper for a local radio station to pay for syndicated content with an established audience that attracts advertising dollars than it is to pay for on-air talent and copyrighted music.
So where is AM going? Despite the roster of new technologies bent on pumping audio into our ears wherever we go, AM is hardly off the air.
To date, no medium has managed to produce a listening experience as local, live or as lively as AM, not only with interactive, opinion-laced banter, but also news, sports and specialized kinds of music.
Podcasting — the new term (combining iPod and broadcasting) that describes audio programming downloadable to iPods and other portable digital-media devices — is still a one-way medium, comparable to picking up a voice-mail message after the fact. It's not live and there isn't any direct way to respond to it.
Same with Motorola's iRadio technology, demonstrated for the first time last week and to be introduced later this year. While users will be able to download streams of talk and music to their cellphones, it won't be live, and it won't be free.
Satellite radio, which has been beaming its signal in the U.S. for more than half a decade and is anxiously awaiting the nod from Canadian regulators to beam legally here, so far seems the most distant of all, but that could change when shock jock Stern completes his planned switch to Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.
So amplitude modulation still has its work cut out for it. Whether it will still be considered a necessary service — which for years our government deemed it to be — or will really and truly make money remains to be seen.
"There's always going to be room for AM radio as a local service," says Dardis. "But I think it will go back to serving the local community. It's the only way it's going to make a hefty enough profit margin to survive." |