"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

Neither the FCC nor the broadcasters have much incentive to eliminate AM.


As long as someone can, or thinks they can, make money from a station, it
will remain on the air.

A good example is 1070 / 1080 in Miami. The old WVCG was a competitive
beautiful music station 40 or so years ago... as FM took over, it tried
numerous other formats and ended up a while back as a Black talk station. It
could not make money, so now it has been sold and will be paid religion.

Except for a couple of viable or semi-viable AMs, like 560, 610, 710, 940
and 1140, (1140 and 710 really only viable in Spanish) the rest of the AMs
in Miami have become niche stations with Kreyol, Radio Disney, brokered
Spanish and brokered religion on them. Some make a little money, some change
owners when the last one runs out of cash.

Most AMs have been outgrown by their markets. And all are being out-aged by
the audience. News talk is migrating to FM. This week we saw a sports talker
go to FM. Eventually, the talk formats will also be on FM, and AM will be a
bunch of brokered, niche and ethnic plays that will bring station values
down and make the band irrelevant to most.