"elaich" wrote in message ...
Bob Dobbs wrote in news:496ec8ca.3687390
@chupacabra:

Must be an awful slow death, cause there's an AM station every 10kc at
night and although there are gaps, plenty of stations during the day.

He's been pushing this "AM is dying" agenda when it's just not true.

Yes it is. While stations are still on the air, and AM in smaller markets is
somewhat viable as is very low cost, low income niche programming (like
farsi in LA), the listening to AM is decreasing every year. For example, in
Houston, it's onloy 12% of all listening, and under age 55, it's in single
digits. Since advertisers essentially never look for over-55 audiences, and
most AM audiences are over 55, the revenue has been collapsing for a number
of years.

The key indicator is that major AM talk stations, crippled revenue-wise by
the old audience, have moved to FM or are simulcasting on FM in transition,
with more of this happening as the problem gets worse.

What we will end up with is a bunch of stations appealing to smaller ethnic
groups, lots more religious staitons, and a few where any Joe with an ego
can buy time to do their own show.

He's using this agenda to promote his "we need IBOC to save AM radio"
agenda, when there is no reason to save anything. If anything kills AM, it
will either be finances, or the coming revolution of Internet radio fed
into almost anything you can imagine. IBOC will die along with it, and
that's only a few years away.

HD Radio will not help AM in this economy. People won't buy the radios, and
new car sales have collapsed. AM, already near death before the recession,
will end up a wasteland of infomercials and other stuff with no audience at
all.