Hi James,

AM radio is still quite popular here in the western North America, as the signal can travel great distances and is generally taken by news, sports, and non-mainstream stations.

When one is on a road trip AM stations can be the only reliable radio. FM goes in and out.

I will listen to 980 or 1070 in the LA area at least once a week for traffic updates.

On the downside for AM in the UK, the transmitter network has always had serious weak points; try the East Coast around Hull, or mid Wales. On the upside, for car listeners on longer journeys,(as Ms Jen says above) the AM sound of 5Live may be less than average, but at least it stays there without needing to re-tune – and the speech punches through.

It’s worth noting that BBC Radio Five Live has managed to transition much more of its AM listening to a digital platform than you might expect.

In figures collated by the Sunday Times (and reproduced on my blog), Five Live has now achieved 34% of its listening on a digital platform – well ahead of the 21.1% average. Mind you, I’ve not even heard a reference to their AM frequencies on air in five years.

It’s pretty clear that speech radio stations have the least to “gain” from digital radio – improvements in audio quality are less important when there’s not much music to be involved.

And North America has a much stronger speech radio market than the UK, with this almost certainly driving the continued popularity of AM radio in that part of the world. I’d love to know if there are any successful AM music stations.

talkSPORT and Five Live aside, there’s only really LBC in London left in the UK offering speech on AM (and given that their properly resourced service goes out on FM, that barely counts).

Sports radio is the other traditional AM driver, although I think it’s worth noting that more and more ESPN radio services in the US are switching to FM. Mobiles don’t have AM, and I don’t see Apple rushing to offer AM for iPods – whereas they are beginning to adopt FM.

Audiences definitely lose interest when the broadcasters do!

I remember in the mid 90s when I joined Capital, no-one seemed surprised that Gold listenership was ebbing since “AM is dying”. It was “Capital Old” and not something that was expected to gain share. The perception was that there were a bunch of well-researched oldies going round & round and people talking about “the good old days” for those without FM radios.

With an injection of new programming – including Osman doing his repertoire of “classic” impressions (Meldrew, Dad’s Army, Bruce Forsyth etc) there was an added and relevant link to the past. Promotions like the “Big Name Cash Game”, new jingles & updated station sound made sure the station jumped out – which music radio on AM has to do. iPod shuffle on AM would be pointless.

The output got noticed again and with themed days + focus on music featured in ads, tv shows or movies of the moment and more links about the present it really did buck the “just waiting to switch it off” feeling. For a few years anyway!

James, to my latest knowledge tests in AMSS are still being aired via BBC WS Orfordness transmitter on 648 kHz. Content can be decoded with pc based software like DReaM or SODIRA, with a software defined radio or downconverting the Beeb’s baseband signal to a suitably low IF injected into the pc audio board.

Andy

AM is indeed still very big over here; there’s a good number of top 50 markets where the top station will be on AM. Here in Dallas we have four news-talk stations on medium wave, and I habitually tune in to one of them each morning and afternoon to hear their traffic “on the 8s” before sometimes retuning for music, entertainment etc.

As a music medium, it may not be strong. But as a medium, there’s still very little wrong with it. And as MsJen points out above, it has advantages over FM in some locations.

Just to correct one tiny point in all that – the AM transmitters really aren’t all that old; we’re not operating kit that’s 70 years old, even if it feels like that! Quite a few are getting long in the tooth (twenty plus years) but then there’s not an awful lot to go wrong and twenty’s not that old for a transmitter.

For what it’s worth, I think one of the big differences is access to spectrum – here in the UK, we get knackered by interference from lots of the continent at night, so the local BBC services can suffer terribly from interference. 5Live’s relative health, and that of the big commercial stations, might be attributable to the fact that their frequencies are relatively interference-free. As will be most of the frequencies in the States and Canada; they’ve only really got themselves to worry about.

The UK AM band has seem some neglect,
As mainstream stations take on the DAB platform
and community stations relish on the FM spectrum.

BUT what if new and current broadcast rules allows ALL Hospital Radio stations to broadcast on AM. but allowing the broadcast signal to be ‘picked up’ within the local area (to the hospital)

Just one idea to give AM a new lease of life.
and help promote Hospital Radio stations.

Tom: apologies, I was talking about a transmitter as being ‘the big stick’, rather than the actual electronics inside. I’m not thinking that the electronics date from the 1920s!

Looking at the rather excellent history of Droitwich, I note that the masts for Droitwich, at least, were rebuilt in 1983.

Do you mean *6*80 news? =D

Love 680, I’ve been listening to them online for years now. Sometimes I can even pick them up on AM as I drive home at night! That was one of the main reasons for dropping the bucks on “Wunder Radio” for the ipod, so I could listen to 680 without having to lug my lappy everywhere. I notice they’ve started using the processed feed for the internet stream – sounds good’n beefy!

AM is far from dead in some north American markets. The AM talk station I worked for regularly pulled in 9-10 shares, way ahead of some of the FM music stations. I have noticed, however, that AM reception seems to be a lot better here than in the UK. Less drifting and cross channel interference. Maybe that has something to do with why it’s more popular here.

AM is also very popular in Australia.
“Talkback radio” (ie phone-in radio) is very big here. In the cities the talk stations on AM dominate the listener surveys.

For example in Sydney for the latest figures for market share show the top two stations as AM stations, with the highest rating FM music station in third place. (All the above are local Sydney services, the most popular national service is in 7th or position).

@James: sorry for my engineering pedantry… but the confusion between us actually raises an interesting point. First, AM is good for broadcasters because it’s so easy – the transmitters may not be the same as they were in 1920, but the innards won’t be very different. It’s good, simple stuff – and it works, and it’s reliable.

Second, you’re right – lots of the sites we use today have been around for a lifetime. And so have the frequencies: 5Live in London, for example, has been on that frequency since the start of 1950. (Actually, that means it reaches BBC retirement age this year… I wonder…) But that gives them huge squatter’s rights; and a huge degree of familiarity with listeners.