4 ms·

Music went out over AM for decades just fine; what band do you think people were listening to back in the pre-TV days of the big console radio? I'll occasional

by floren 4y ago

Music went out over AM for decades just fine; what band do you think people were listening to back in the pre-TV days of the big console radio? I'll occasionally find a decent AM music station even these days, and when it's not being overwhelmed by all the modern RF noise, it sounds just fine.

Kon-Peki 4y ago
The OP listed some AM stations that were near the top of the rating in the Chicago market. I looked at the list and the top two AM stations were no surprise: WBBM and WGN. It's not really a good idea to look at these two stations to get an idea of the health of the entire AM market. These two are giant class A clear channel stations that date back to the 1920s and the origination of AM radio licenses. Being in the center of the continent they can do omnidirectional broadcasting without "wasting" power like a station on the coast would. They're among the few that can still afford to be "local" station with very little syndicated content (and broadcast a lot of sports to vast swaths of the US and Canada that have no local professional sports team), and they'll probably be among the last of the AM stations to shut down.
seba_dos1 4y ago
We generally haven't been using pre-TV big console radios for decades now too. In places where range matters less (such as Europe) AM has been pretty much dead for a while already, not even speaking about transmitting music.
- floren 4y ago
  Ok sure, but "AM is not currently used for music" is a far cry from "You can't put music down [AM]". I invoked the old radios because you certainly heard a lot of music through them and they all used AM, whether over medium-wave or short-wave frequencies. Same for the ubiquitous All-American Five tabletop/kitchen radios; I've owned them, they sound just fine if you can find an AM station that's playing music.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    You can put music through a PC speaker too. Some old games even managed to play some real bangers this way; but these days I'd say that stating "you can't put music through a PC speaker" when talking about commercially viable means of music playback is justified even if not technically true.

by floren 4y ago

Kon-Peki 4y ago

The OP listed some AM stations that were near the top of the rating in the Chicago market. I looked at the list and the top two AM stations were no surprise: WBBM and WGN. It's not really a good idea to look at these two stations to get an idea of the health of the entire AM market. These two are giant class A clear channel stations that date back to the 1920s and the origination of AM radio licenses. Being in the center of the continent they can do omnidirectional broadcasting without "wasting" power like a station on the coast would. They're among the few that can still afford to be "local" station with very little syndicated content (and broadcast a lot of sports to vast swaths of the US and Canada that have no local professional sports team), and they'll probably be among the last of the AM stations to shut down.

seba_dos1 4y ago

We generally haven't been using pre-TV big console radios for decades now too. In places where range matters less (such as Europe) AM has been pretty much dead for a while already, not even speaking about transmitting music.

floren 4y ago
Ok sure, but "AM is not currently used for music" is a far cry from "You can't put music down [AM]". I invoked the old radios because you certainly heard a lot of music through them and they all used AM, whether over medium-wave or short-wave frequencies. Same for the ubiquitous All-American Five tabletop/kitchen radios; I've owned them, they sound just fine if you can find an AM station that's playing music.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  You can put music through a PC speaker too. Some old games even managed to play some real bangers this way; but these days I'd say that stating "you can't put music through a PC speaker" when talking about commercially viable means of music playback is justified even if not technically true.