"Stephanie Weil" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Sep 27, 9:23 am, "David Eduardo" wrote:

This is why, then that major markets like Houston now have only 12% of
total
listening going to AM stations, and in 18-34, it is less than 5%? AM is
dead under 45, and dying as its remaining listeners age out of the
desirable
sales demos.

It's all got to do with content. Nobody's going to waste their time
listening to the snake oil and bible thumper drivel that dominates
over the large majority of AM stations. Why do:

A) These stations remain on the air, if practically nobody is
listening.

Either they make money or someone thinks they can make money.

B) Why are people paying for time on these things. Do they not know
any better?

The evangelists and preachers judge media by the amount they get in
donations; if the show pays for itself and allows the "word" to be spread,
they continue to buy time. Most want not just the time cost but some extra
money for their church, though.

I keep saying it's time for the paid-programming peanut whistles to go
off the air, and open the band up to mega-powered stations doing a
contemporary general interest talk formats, no matter what the
language (English, Spanish, Korean, etc.).

The dominant stations on the band were licensed for population centers and
city sizes that existed in the 1930's... the basic plan goes back to 1928.
Cities have outgrown all but a few AMs in every market.... sometimes all of
them in markets like DC. The whole system is out of date, and a huge
cleansing and reallocation would be needed. The AM band and its technology
are approaching 100 years of age; the delivery system is defective by
today's standards and the allocations are such that in the top 100 markets
only about 250 stations are even competitively viable.

Music may be dead on AM, but I have a gut feeling that properly
programmed talk shows could bring back some attractive demos and
revitalize the band quite a bit.

AM just doesn't exist in the minds of most under-35 listeners. And
experiments like Air America have shown that there is not a deep talent pool
of entertaining liberal talk hosts.

Get RID of the paid programming. All that is doing is damaging the
long-term survival of the band in return for quick immediate profits.

I don't think there is a valid model for the bad technical facilities other
than brokered time or religion.