I am still very sentimental about the AM radio content that I’ve listened to over the years. Unless you’re stumbling upon the Ross on Radio column for the first time, you already know this.
I stuck with Top 40 and R&B, often on AM, far longer than most peers who had made the move to FM rock by 1974. I stayed with some AM powerhouses — WLS Chicago, CKLW Detroit, WKBW Buffalo — until they gave up music, or at least any semblance of Top 40. Hearing stations beyond the bounds of my market was part of how I learned radio programming.
When I moved to Los Angeles, my nighttime station was KFRC San Francisco, one of the last great AM Top 40 holdouts. My daytime P1 was KDAY Los Angeles as its Hip-Hop format took shape. During the ’80s, the obscure AMs I found replaced early FM as the stations that would try anything first, like early Classic Rocker KRQX Dallas or ’70s pop KIOQ Sacramento, the first place I heard Abba back on the radio.
I lived in the sprawl of Los Angeles without an FM car radio until 1987 and always managed to have five buttons for music. I could still do that in the early 2000s when numerous AMs near me went to some version of a first-generation Oldies format, including WMTR Morristown, N.J. During the winter, I would drive home listening to the now CFZM (AM740) Toronto, which became my first Canadian client.
Recently, I drove from New York to Boston and made a point of seeing if I could find AM music stations that I wasn’t already aware of. AM is still a haven for Oldies stations that play older or broader libraries than a large-market FM, most of them feeding FM translators. I’ve already written about a number of stations from the NYC/Boston drive, including this favorite, but I was happy to discover a few stations, including:
- WLNA Peekskill, N.Y., simulcasting sister WBPM’s wide Classic Hits with Bob Miller that ranged from the Beach Boys to Boston to “Luka” by Suzanne Vega and “I’m Feeling You” by Santana & Michelle Branch.
- WATR Waterbury, Conn., with longtime PD/morning host Tom Chute. Another broad Soft Oldies mix — “(You’re The) Devil in Disguise” by Elvis Presley, “Disco Inferno” by the Trammps, “I’ll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me” by Expose. Chute was promoting the local theater production he was in that weekend. WATR has an FM translator frequency.
- WARE (Classic Hits 97.7) Palmer, Mass., also doing broad Classic Hits (Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing”; Stray Cats, “[She’s] Sexy + 17”), heard on its originating AM 1250.
- WWRI (I105.5) West Warwick, R.I., doing a deeper Classic Rock and heard on its originating AM 1450.
I sought out these stations amongst so much talk about AM radio’s future. That was what also prompted me to listen to WMTR this week in the car. Then I started scanning and found brokered WPAT-AM New York playing “No Limit” by G-Eazy, A$AP Rocky, and Cardi B. But it wasn’t a mix show, I was hearing one of a few songs interspersed in this show about financial empowerment, which is also a podcast.
This listening took place in the 2020 vehicle. Usually, my AM listening (and, to be honest, much of my local FM listening) is in the 2004 sedan, acquired in the very nanoseconds before connectivity. Even that car has a Bluetooth now, but AM/FM is easier and a good way to catch up. In the new car, the local stations are competing less with Spotify and podcasts than they would for most people, but still with every radio station in the world, regardless of over-the-air frequency (or lack thereof).
In fact, when almost every radio station in the world became available to me in 1997 via streaming radio, any willingness I might have had to sift through static, or any attendant romance in doing so, largely evaporated. Certainly, those in the car with me were greatly relieved. There was a time when I owned a shortwave radio to listen to a few hours of UK Top 40 radio every week. Of course the desktop was better.
I love that CKWW Windsor, Ontario, carries on CKLW’s musical legacy, or that CKLW itself remains dominant as that market’s AM News/Talk powerhouse. I’m always happy to discover another WATR or WWON Woonsocket, R.I., and stream them all. I’m happy for the recent resurgence of N/T WABC New York, complete with Cousin Brucie doing Saturday night oldies. I hear that on the phone, too.
The AM music stations with the happiest outcome are those that have found some life beyond AM. KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz., is succeeding locally, and a favorite with Ross on Radio readers on an AM/FM translator combo. 4KQ Brisbane, Australia, and its successor 4BH have managed FM-type numbers largely because of Australia’s digital radio tier, more robust and easily adapted than ours. I love the viable AM brands that endure on FM; having Classic Hits WLS-FM Chicago on 890 AM as well might be kind of cool on those few nights a year I’m driving the 2004 car for any distance, but it’s hardly necessary.
My eagerness to choose from a world of radio has not made me less concerned about the compression of local AM/FM choices for those listeners less willing to do so. As broadcast radio listening levels decline, the loss of some major format options in many markets cannot help but be a factor. So have the increasing number of frequencies, on both AM and FM that aren’t meant to compete for ratings. Broadcasters have been, well, driving these changes even before the first automaker floated the notion of not including an AM radio, but even the threat of losing AM in the car means that the compression will be exacerbated now.
I don’t want automakers to decide how much radio broadcasters will offer listeners. I am concerned that independent and minority broadcasters will be disproportionately affected; on my New England trip, there were two Spanish-language music choices for every English-language station. I care a lot about the WMTRs and WATRs that hang in there and want them to remain viable. I recognize that there are still some successful AM broadcasters who should not be plunged into having to solve a problem that they do not currently have. For all those reasons, I hope AM radio remains available in new cars.
But I wonder what broadcasters would do to show their commitment to AM, at a time when its tentpole stations are moving to FM, and heritage licenses are being returned as impractical to operate. Would they guarantee a certain amount of local coverage, even on nights and weekends? Work together to make sure there were magnet stores on the AM dial and not an abandoned mall?
Could broadcasters cooperate to bolster AM in a way that they failed to on behalf of the FM cellphone chip? For that matter, will they be any more successful in the public-safety argument than they were on behalf of NextRadio, which, ahem, tried to make that case without including AM.
The AM discussion needs to be part of the larger and ongoing issue of organizing radio’s infinite choice, so that AM/FM listeners make a transition to broadcast radio’s offerings, regardless of platform. The future I see for WMTR has long been as an international franchise that just happens to be on an AM in Morristown, N.J. Listeners seek out stations like WMTR, but for a moment, the station’s response was to stop streaming because of expense, and many other stations remain geoblocked.
My current radio choices compel me to go to at least five different aggregators on a regular basis, and to largely know what I want already. As with Apple Car Play vs. automakers’ own efforts, we will best assure broadcast radio’s place in the dashboard by unifying to create both the product and the delivery system that is better and more expert than what automakers can do themselves. That is the unity we need now.
Radio’s Future in the Car is one of the panels that will kick off Radiodays North America to be held in Toronto, June 8-9. Jacobs Media president Fred Jacobs, who has become broadcast radio’s point person, hosts a panel that includes Quu’s Laura Gonzo, CBC’s Julie McCambley, and Brian Comiskey of the Consumer Technology Association, producer of CES. Here’s what Jacobs, along with Ross on Radio readers, had to say about radio’s dashboard issues.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com