The future isn't AM in cities

This is Radioland, my radio trends newsletter.

It was excellent to have been on 666 ABC Radio Canberra on Monday, to talk about ABC Radio Perth’s switch to FM early next year. As you’ll recall, I’m in favour of all ABC Local Radio stations in capital cities, like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, broadcasting on FM.

It’s always a little difficult to talk about the disadvantages of AM on an AM station; but I think Alice did a good job steering me through, and dealing with a mixed bag of reactions - of course, AM listeners love AM. Especially, when you get a former engineer calling in, who uses word “propagation” in his first sentence, then you know it’s going to be an interesting half-hour!

Many of the callers made the same point - that AM reaches further. It does, of course. That’s it’s harder to blanket a country like Australia with FM: undoubtedly, that’s the case. But, for capital-city radio, range isn’t the issue. To replace 666 kHz in Canberra with an FM signal would cover the vast majority of the population on a waveband people actually use. As I repeated relatively often - radio broadcasts are only good if people have the radio to pick them up; and that’s increasingly where AM radio is failing.

Tomorrow morning, I’m on ABC Radio Brisbane (7.40am local time), and then on ABC Radio Perth and WA (6.15am local time). Here’s hoping I do OK on both.

Here’s the audio from ABC Radio Canberra.

Classifieds

• Supercharge your radio show with world-class prep: the right show prep delivered to you on time, EVERY day, without fail. Grab a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep and stop chasing round looking for things to use on your show, running out of time before the show, and trying to sight-read the newspapers!

• In the US, the “AM for Every Vehicle Act” - which mandates AM radio receivers in cars - has been watered down to last eight years rather than ten; it’s been waiting since April to be voted on. Here’s the versions for Congress and the Senate. I’m no lawyer, but the requirement is “to receive signals and play content transmitted by AM broadcast stations”. I don’t see anything in this law requiring an actual AM receiver, or anything requiring that the AM broadcast band is receivable in its entirety. I wonder whether some car manufacturers might just gently point out that you can listen to most of the stations available on AM through their TuneIn integration. Another thing - I’d not spotted this, but there’s also a requirement in the law for a study on how effective AM broadcasting actually is for emergencies and whether some other technology is better to reach “at least 90% of Americans in time of crisis, including at night”. All the big US mobile carriers claim to cover well over 99% of the US population, so let’s hope that they don’t discover the very capable cellphone alert system.

• Also in the US, President Donald Trump is considering charging broadcasters for their use of the public spectrum. Here’s the social media post in question. That’s the case in some parts of the world; in Australia, the government abolished broadcasting licence fees in 2017, and this year, temporarily waived the charges for broadcast spectrum.

Brisbane radio corner: A three minute drive from ARN’s studios in Brisbane - the owners of KIIS 97.3 - is the XXXX Brewery, which makes one of Australia’s top-selling beers. But if anyone from ARN invites you to a party there, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they couldn’t organise one.

KIIS 97.3 (Brisbane’s #1 Hit Music Station - not B105, which also uses an identical catchphrase) said an emotional adieu to Robin, Kip & Corey from their breakfast show on Nov 28. Audio here. (A strange time to leave - mid survey 8, with another two weeks still to run. Hmm.)

Anyway, Craig “Lowie” Low was limbering up for a breakfast show on the station - where he’d undoubtedly have got “lowie” lower audience figures, but would have come with a “lowie” lower talent bill.

Robin, Kip & Corey’s production team (of ten!!) have all been looking for new jobs since - and most of the production team have been snapped up by other radio broadcasters in the area, which is nice to see. (A strange decision for ARN to only start hiring for Craig “Lowie” Low’s producer on Nov 27, given his new show had been announced on Oct 29. Hmm.)

And then, this week… ARN changed their mind, announcing “Robin, Kip and Corey are returning in January!”. Imagine being the person who had to renegotiate that deal! Goodness, what a mess. And what an awful way to treat your talent. Without many of their experienced production team, though, that’ll be hard to get up and running again.

Craig “Lowie” Low will have a “lowie” lower profile doing a national evening show on the KIIS network. It’s unclear whether he’ll come from Brisbane or from Sydney, though his brief tenure at SCA saw him in Sydney, so probably makes sense that he’d move a little “lowie” lower down the country I will stop doing this joke sorry.

Robin Bailey said on a social post “We will see you from 5.30am on January 19th with some more really exciting news about who we are and what we are going to do.” - (A strange this to say. Hmm. We know who you are. We know what you’re going to do. That’s the very reason you’ve been hired back. So… what’s really going on there? I still don’t think this story’s done.)

Also happening on Jan 19 - Christian O’Connell starts simulcasting into Sydney, on Gold 101.7; and into Brisbane and Adelaide on DAB+.

Where I am speaking next

• Podfest, Orlando FL, USA (Jan 15-18, 2026) Where we’ve been - and where we’re going: A look back at where we’ve come from, including last year’s podcast news and trends, to help us understand how podcasting is changing and how we should be changing with it. Plus, a look forward to what to do in 2026.

• Radiodays Europe, Riga, Latvia, (Mar 22-24, 2026) The future of audio is people-powered: The way people consume media is changing. James Cridland, the radio futurologist, takes a look at global trends in radio and on-demand. How will we listen - on which devices? How can we make our output truly unique? How do we do it in a resource-efficient way? And what part does video play in the future of audio? In this wide-ranging session, bringing together data from North America, Asia, Australia and Europe, we’ll learn why the future is bright - as long as we understand why our audience comes to us in the first place.

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

If you’d like to support my work in any way, you can BuyMeACoffee - become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee, or five. Here’s where to do that. Or, alternately, here’s a way direct with Stripe.

I’m on Bluesky as @james.crid.land or on Mastodon as @james@bne.social - tip, use the second one.

My website has more detail about who I am, and what I do, and whether I can help you further.

Selected bits from Radioland are in RadioInfo in Australia, and RAIN News in the US
Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene