Anyone over the age of 45 remembers the days of when AM Radio was king of the airwaves; now 45 years later, with few exceptions the majority of AM stations are in shambles with no hope of rejuvenation on the horizon.
Due to intense lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters, all of us witnessed the deregulation of radio in the 1980's, which cut back on rules and regulations pertaining to technical standards and programming. FM Radio with its superior sound rapidly overtook AM music stations and left them in the dust when it came to ratings and income. Many smaller AM mom & pop stations either sold out to major corporations who took over vast amounts of media outlets or simply signed off for good and turned in their licenses.
In the mid-80's an attempt was made to institute AM Stereo, but unfortunately 4 separate systems were designed and the industry could not agree on which system to adopt as the standard and in due time most station allowed AM stereo to go by the wayside. By the mid 90's most of the profitable stations were the giant 50kw blowtorches and a few medium market regional stations, many of which were programming mostly news/talk. However the current market today is not as robust, even for the major market AM's which are in a slow but steady decline.
With the advent of the internet and wifi, (which is supposed to be available completely across the nation within 7 years) it looks like both AM and FM radio will be relegated to secondary media services since anyone in their car will be able to listen to high quality audio completely across the nation without have to tune into a different station every 50 miles or so.
For many people, this will mean that they will be able to enter the broadcasting field without the huge cost associated with getting an over-the-air station up and running (because currently the internet is unregulated by the FCC), which generally is an exorbitant cost.
Perhaps it's time to bid farewell to one medium and welcome a new one.
