AM radio

When I was a young lad, still impressionable I might add, I would listen to the big AM powerhouses at night with my little transistor radio.  I have eluded to this in previous posts.  I have also written an article for Radio World in which I suggest turning AM transmitter off at overnight hours to save money, with certain caveats.  I still listen to AM radio quite often.  I have a Kenwood R-2000 MF/HF receiver which, while not the best technical receiver, is the best-sounding AM receiver I have ever heard.  Its wide AM IF bandwidth is 6.5 kHz, which seems to work very well with the high-end pre-emphasis curves most good AM processors employ.  Music, especially oldies, which were recorded in AM’s hay day sounds spectacular.  There is no other AM radio that sounds as good as this unit.   Right now, the sun has just set and I am listening to WFED 1500 KHz in Washington DC.    They are airing a VOA program called “Issues in the News.”  It’s real red-meat radio.  We are 250 air miles from the transmitter site.

I think there is a place for AM stations, not just merely being satellite repeaters, but making a meaningful contribution to their communities of license.  Unfortunately, I am one of the few that thinks so.  For as long as I have been in radio, AM has been declining.  It is a matter of economics, most GMs would tell me.  That being said, the two three-letter call signs that I worked at were consistently in the top four in the rating book.  Clearly, live local programming was the key to this success.

The notion that they sound bad may or may not be true.  An AM station that has a properly tuned and matched antenna can sound very good.  Using a good receiver, one that has good fidelity, good selection and sensitivity can also increase listening pleasure.  Unfortunately, almost all AM radios being sold today have an IF bandwidth that is only slightly better than a telephone around 2-3 kHz.  This is because… I don’t know.  Originally receiver manufacturers began limiting bandwidth to reduce interference.  NRSC-2 was supposed to limit interference by reducing out-of-bandwidth splatter.  Apparently, the manufacturers didn’t get the word.

Who knows, as the FM band gets filled with shit (interference from adjacent channel IBOC, translators shoehorned in, LPFM’s on third adjacent channels) AM radio might be viable again.

Once the moneymen got a hold of the broadcasting industry, everything was geared toward making money.  Not that making money is wrong, it is certainly good to make a profit, however, with the margins on the FM stations, usually between 25-50%, AM stations were relegated to second place because their margins were much less than that.   Even so, many AM stations were initially profitable during the consolidation and still had some ratings.  Not so anymore.  AM stations also require more maintenance, because of directional antennas and all that is associated with those systems.  What a banker or an accountant sees when he looks at an AM radio station is a money pit.  And, if the station has been run into the ground, it is a money pit.

Still, a small AM at a fire sale price might be fun to rehab.  Launch some type of community radio format, put AM radio back where it was 30 years ago, solidly in the community.  It might be fun.

A little story about my local newspaper

So, the other day I was in the convenience store near my house.  I had not picked up a copy of the local newspaper in quite some time, so I looked around for one.  I couldn’t find it anywhere so I asked the checkout clerk, who looked at me rather deadpan and said “They went under about a year ago.”

What? I hadn’t even noticed my own local paper was gone, for a year.

A quick Google search and I found a notice on their website saying that the newspaper was no longer published and a blog entry from a former reporter summing up the end of the newspaper.

Sadly, the Millbrook Round Table was just one of scores of local newspapers forced to close down, because the holding company of many of them, Journal Register Co., defaulted on loans and was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange. However, despite the sympathy I feel for all of those reporters, editors, photographers, graphic designers, proofreaders, ad salespeople and delivery people, no one can say we didn’t see this coming. The truth is, newspapers have been an antiquated technology, and try as they might, they haven’t been able to find a new business model that would enable them to be profitable in the post-paper world of instant, online publishing.

Sound even vaguely familiar?  All of the small local newspapers are bought up by a big consolidator, who then defaults and cuts costs.  Caught behind the technology curve, unable to make up the lost ground, local institutions that have been in place for more than a century fold and disappear in the wink of an eye, sometimes completely unnoticed.

Sadly, I will say that the radio business seems to be on the same trajectory.

Low Power FM, House passes H.R. 1147

The House passed the “LOCAL COMMUNITY RADIO ACT OF 2009 ” (aka HR 1147) last night in one of the last legislative acts of 2009.  This is the companion bill to S. 592, which is still in committee.

The need for LPFM stations is justified thusly:

  • In part due to consolidation of media ownership, there have been strong financial incentives for some companies to reduce local programming and rely instead on syndicated programming produced for hundreds of stations, though noncommercial educational radio stations, including FM translator stations, currently provide important local service, as do many commercial radio stations. A renewal of commitment to localism–local operations, local research, local management, locally originated programming, local artists, and local news and events–would bolster radio’s service to the public.
  • Local communities have sought to launch radio stations to meet their local needs. However, due in part to the scarce amount of spectrum available and the high cost of buying and running a large station, many local communities are unable to establish a radio station.
  • In 2003, the average cost to acquire a commercial radio station was more than $2,500,000.
  • In January 2000, the Federal Communications Commission authorized a new, affordable community radio service called `low-power FM’, or `LPFM’, to `enhance locally focused community-oriented radio broadcasting’.
  • Through the creation of LPFM, the Federal Communications Commission sought to `create opportunities for new voices on the airwaves and to allow local groups, including schools, churches, and other community-based organizations, to provide programming responsive to local community needs and interests’.
  • The Federal Communications Commission made clear that the creation of LPFM would not compromise the integrity of the FM radio band by stating, `We are committed to creating a low-power FM radio service only if it does not cause unacceptable interference to existing radio service.’.
  • Currently, FM translator stations can operate on the second- and third-adjacent channels to full-power radio stations, up to an effective radiated power of 250 watts, pursuant to part 74 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, using the very same transmitters that LPFM stations will use. The Federal Communications Commission based its LPFM rules on the actual performance of these translators, which already operate without undue interference to FM stations.
  • Small rural broadcasters were particularly concerned about a lengthy and costly LPFM interference complaint process. Therefore, in September 2000, the Federal Communications Commission created a process to address interference complaints regarding LPFM stations on an expedited basis.
  • In December 2000, Congress delayed the full implementation of LPFM until the Federal Communications Commission commissioned and reviewed an independent engineering study. This action was due to some broadcasters’ concerns that LPFM service would cause interference in the FM radio band.
  • The Federal Communications Commission granted licenses to over 800 LPFM stations despite the congressional action. These stations are currently on the air and are run by local government agencies, groups promoting arts and education to immigrant and indigenous populations, artists, schools, religious organizations, environmental groups, organizations promoting literacy, and many other civically oriented organizations.
  • After 2 years and the expenditure of $2,193,343 in taxpayer dollars, the independent engineering study commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission concluded that concerns about interference on third-adjacent channels were unwarranted.
  • The Federal Communications Commission issued a report to Congress on February 19, 2004, which stated that `Congress should readdress this issue and modify the statute to eliminate the third-adjacent channel distance separation requirement for LPFM stations.’
  • On November 27, 2007, the Federal Communications Commission again unanimously affirmed LPFM, stating in a news release about the adoption of the Low-Power FM Third Report and Order and Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that the Federal Communications Commission recommends `to Congress that it remove the requirement that LPFM stations protect full-power stations operating on third-adjacent channels’. Until the date of enactment of this Act, Congress had not acted upon that recommendation.
  • Minorities represent almost a third of the population of the United States. However, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s most recent Form 323 data on the race and gender of full-power, commercial broadcast licensees, minorities own only 7 percent of all local television and radio stations. Women represent more than half of the population but own only 6 percent of all local television and radio stations. LPFM stations, while not a solution to the overall inequalities in minority and female broadcast ownership, provide an additional opportunity for underrepresented communities to operate a station and offer local communities a greater diversity of viewpoints and culture.
  • LPFM stations have proven to be a vital source of information during local or national emergencies. Out of the few stations that were able to stay on the air during Hurricane Katrina, several were LPFM stations. In Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, low-power FM station WQRZ remained on the air during Hurricane Katrina and served as the Emergency Operations Center for Hancock County. After Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of evacuees temporarily housed at the Houston Astrodome were unable to hear over the loudspeakers information about the availability of food and ice, the location of Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives, and the whereabouts of missing loved ones, volunteers handed out thousands of transistor radios and established an LPFM station outside of the Astrodome to broadcast such information.

Similar to S. 592, the bill aims to:

  1. Increase the number of LPFM stations by doing away with the 3rd adjacent protections.
  2. Mitigate interference by creating a 1 year period during which a new LPFM station must broadcast “periodic announcements that alert listeners that interference that they may be experiencing could be the result of the operation of the new low-power FM station on a third-adjacent channel and shall instruct affected listeners to contact the low-power FM station to report any interference.”  LPFM licensees are then tasked with solving interference complaints within a licensed full-power FM station’s protected contour.
  3. Protect translator input signals.
  4. Protect reading for the blind services.

I am not finding fault with any of the justifications, they are all true and make a good point about the decline of Radio in general as I have discussed in previous posts.

The potential increase of LPFM stations is in the thousands.

The proposed interference mitigation is a pipe dream.  The FCC enforcement bureau is overworked as it is.  We have had a pirate on one of our frequencies for years, every once in a while they drive out and bust the guy, only to have him return a week or two later.   Somehow this group of overworked people will be able to process hundreds or thousands of interference complaints?

Unless there is increased funding for the FCC enforcement bureau, I am skeptical.  There is no specific discussion on funding, only specifying that the cost should be below $139 million.

We live in interesting times.

And so it begins

Citadel is prepping for chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, according to this inside radio article.  The gem that I most like is this:

Lenders have until Tuesday to sign the deal, which would cut its $2 billion debt to $760 million. Shareholders would see their ownership stake wiped out.

So let’s see if you kept your Citadel Broadcasting stock (CTDB: trading at $0.041 per share) because you thought it might go above $1.00 per share again, you are screwed.  Notice, 60% of the debt is just going away.  Amazing!  How do they do that?  If I decided that I didn’t want to pay my mortgage, would the bank entice me to start paying again by reducing it by 60%?  No, they would not.  They would simply send me a foreclosure notice and eventually some guy would stand on the county courthouse steps and read my foreclosure warrant out loud to the passers-by.  If I am lucky, it will be lunchtime and somebody might actually hear it.

No, what happens when a lender writes down $1.24 billion in debt is it gets passed on to all the other bank customers in higher interest rates, larger fees, etc.  After all, the CEO needs to make his margins to earn that end-of-year bonus.

To recap, shareholders are losing everything and we all are going to pay more because Citadel Broadcasting Corporation overpaid for a group of radio stations, then ran them into the ground.  Fuck us all.