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Transportation Government United States

America's Car Industry Seeks to Crush AM Radio. Will Congress Rescue It? (msn.com) 262

Posted by EditorDavid from the don't-touch-that-dial dept.
The Wall Street Journal reports that "a motley crew of AM radio advocates," including conservative talk show hosts and federal emergency officials, are lobbying Congress to stop carmakers from dropping AM radio from new vehicles: Lawmakers say most car companies are noncommittal about the future of AM tuners in vehicles, so they want to require them by law to keep making cars with free AM radio. Supporters argue it is a critical piece of the emergency communication network, while the automakers say Americans have plenty of other ways, including their phones, to receive alerts and information. The legislation has united lawmakers who ordinarily want nothing to do with one another. Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Ed Markey (D., Mass.) are leading the Senate effort, and on the House side, Speaker Mike Johnson — himself a former conservative talk radio host in Louisiana — and progressive "squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are among about 200 co-sponsors...

A spring 2023 Nielsen survey, the most recent one available, showed that AM radio reaches about 78 million Americans every month. That is down from nearly 107 million in the spring of 2016, one of the earliest periods for which Nielsen has data... Automakers say the rise of electric vehicles is driving the shift away from AM, because onboard electronics create interference with AM radio signals — a phenomenon that "makes the already fuzzy analog AM radio frequency basically unlistenable," according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a car-industry trade group. Shielding cables and components to reduce interference would cost carmakers $3.8 billion over seven years, the group estimates.

Markey and other lawmakers say they want to preserve AM radio because of its role in emergency communications. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says that more than 75 radio stations, most of which operate on the AM band and cover at least 90% of the U.S. population, are equipped with backup communications equipment and generators that allow them to continue broadcasting information to the public during and after an emergency. Seven former FEMA administrators urged Congress in a letter last year to seek assurances from automakers that they would keep broadcast radio available. The companies' noncommittal response spurred legislation, lawmakers said.

Automakers increasingly want to put radio and other car features "behind a paywall," Markey said in an interview. "They see this as another profit center for them when the American driving public has seen it as a safety resource for them and their families...." He compared the auto industry's resistance to the bill to previous opposition to government mandates like seat belts and air bags. "Leaving safety decisions to the auto industry is very dangerous," Markey said.
Lawmakers have heard from over 400,000 AM radio supporters, according to the president of the National Association of Broadcasters.

But the article also cites an executive at the Consumer Technology Association, who says automakers and tech advocacy groups have told lawmakers that requiring AM radio "would be "inconsistent with the principles of a free market.... It's strange that Congress is focused on a 100-year-old technology."
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America's Car Industry Seeks to Crush AM Radio. Will Congress Rescue It? More

America's Car Industry Seeks to Crush AM Radio. Will Congress Rescue It?

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  • AM is free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @03:54PM (#64195268)

    The car manufacturers can't squeeze the owner for monthly subscriptions to something that is free.

    • Costs money to make an AM antenna work inside a dash filled with metal and complex electronics. If there isn't a business reason to keep doing the engineering work and making compromises in the dash then the auto industry is going to stop doing it.
      Goofy smart cars with a million sensors and a dozen cameras is the high margin market the auto industry is going for. Not the 40+ driver with a 12 year old car that flips on the AM when driving through the desert.

      P.s. I wish I cars had better AM radios than they d

      • Re: AM is free (Score:4)

        by YetAnotherDrew ( 664604 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @05:05PM (#64195488)

        Yes, those are all the business reasons not to have an AM radio. Everyone is aware of that. That's why car companies are openly talking about not having AM radios.

        The potential regulation is to force companies to do something that's not strictly for profit but for the public good.

        In civics class, when we children were still unaware of a thing called corporate capture, we were taught that that's supposed to be the purpose of government regulations. This whole topic just makes me nostalgic!

        • Maybe I'm a cynic but a Republican controlled Congress seems unlikely to do something for the public good when industry is telling them to cut it

    • The reason why is because everything electronic creates interference in the AM band now. Numerous switching power supplies, brushless motor controllers, you name it. It's easier and cheaper to stop supporting AM than it is to comply with EMI and RFI emissions.

  • AM is nice for emergencies (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @03:59PM (#64195278)

    AM carries better though it also tends to get more interference. It's dead simple for someone with electronics knowledge to make an AM radio with materials and tools that are probably far more basic than you'd expect.

    If you want to put out an unencrypted signal in the worst conditions and expect the most people to get it, AM would be the way I would suggest to do it. For that reason, I think it'd be nice if AM was kept around as an emergency backup if nothing else.

    • For emergency backup you're welcome to throw a $20 battery + crank AM radio in your glovebox. Not sure why people insist that the automaker has to build it in to the car itself if it's really just meant for emergency purposes.

      • Re:AM is nice for emergencies (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @05:01PM (#64195470)

        >Not sure why people insist that the automaker has to build it in to the car itself if it's really just meant for emergency purposes.

        To ensure the vast majority of people have it if and when it's needed. Most people aren't getting their homes struck by lightning, but a lightning rod is in every building code I've ever heard of.

        • Re:AM is nice for emergencies (Score:5, Insightful)

          by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @05:13PM (#64195528) Homepage

          To ensure the vast majority of people have it if and when it's needed. Most people aren't getting their homes struck by lightning, but a lightning rod is in every building code I've ever heard of.

          Maybe the building codes should mandate that all houses have AM radios?

        • I'm only in my car when I'm driving somewhere and even then, I don't listen to terrestrial broadcast radio. My phone, however, is almost always near me. If we're going to do any regulating for emergency information purposes, it should be to set specific reliability standards for being able to provide emergency information to cell phones.

          That's why, like others I'm convinced Congress's primary motivation here isn't keeping people safe during emergencies, it's keeping the right-wing propaganda faucets flowi

      • I suspect because when the mass audience goes away, so will the transmitters

    • Most cars have an antenna bump on the top that isolates it from the rest of the car, it wouldn't be too difficult to stuff the vulnerable am radio components inside this bump and send a digital signal to the receiver head unit inside the car. Sure there will be an engineering cost developing this but given enough scale it probably wouldn't cost much more that $15 per vehicle.

  • To borrow a British phrase... (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @04:04PM (#64195294)

    "Automakers say the rise of electric vehicles is driving the shift away from AM ..."

    Bollocks.

    Radio in general is dying - not just AM radio. And the internet is what's killing it.

    • From a technical standpoint, the automakers are pointing out that AM in electric vehicles is increasingly less reliable as electronics interfere with the AM signal. It is not an impossible task. It requires more engineering than in the past. That additional engineering costs money on a feature that the automakers cannot monetize. Therefore they would rather not implement it. They make excuses for not implementing it but the real reason is money.
      • maybe this will make aftermarket car stereo sales go up, hopefully companies like Kenwood is listening and builds a good one that is immune to the electronic noise in EVs

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Teun ( 17872 )
          And where in a modern car would you mount such an after market radio?

          • And where in a modern car would you mount such an after market radio?

            Holy crap, this.

            I sorely miss the days when it was possible to upgrade the dash unit every few years. My previous car, a Toyota Corolla, did a good-enough job with its Bluetooth integration, but it didn't do Carplay or Android Auto...and instead of spending $400 and an afternoon on a stereo that did Carplay, I instead would have had to spend a fortune on a unit that fit that dashboard specifically.

            Car manufacturers' excuse to abandon the single-DIN/double-DIN interchangeable unit with difficult-to-replace s

            • I sorely miss the days when it was possible to upgrade the dash unit every few years.

              I fondly remember lots of DIN type Alpine stuff back in the day. And standard 6x9s in the back, are those even a thing anymore?

              That said, my last car had a factory 800w DIRAC tuned system with 16 drivers, including subs under the seats, and was incredibly good. I'm sure an aftermarket system could be better, but integrated systems coming from the factory has its advantages too.

              So yeah, we have given up some standardization, but you can still install a wicked system in any new car, for a price. And

        • The problem is not that you cannot add an aftermarket stereo. The problem is that the aftermarket stereo will most likely use the existing antenna and may be subject to the same interference as the existing stereo. Some aftermarket solutions might come with a different antenna but that is rarer. The thing is that the current radio should work with better shielding if the automakers want to spend money on that. They just choose not to do so.

      • It's supposedly illegal to make a mobile RF noise source already. Was the FCC bribed to ignore EV's?

        • It's supposedly illegal to make a mobile RF noise source already. Was the FCC bribed to ignore EV's?

          Who said anything about bribery? All electronics emit EM which could interfere with other electronics. Most of the time the interference is negligible but it does happen. When I was growing up with a CRT TV, turning on something like the garbage disposal or a mixer in the kitchen would cause the TV picture to get worse. This situation is occurring because cars are getting more and more electronics than ever before. But the responsibility is on the automakers to ensure that AM works with the electronics. The

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kriston ( 7886 )

          This is the real problem.

          FCC type certification should apply to EVs just like they to do televisions and computers.

      • From a technical standpoint, the automakers are pointing out that AM in electric vehicles is increasingly less reliable as electronics interfere with the AM signal. It is not an impossible task. It requires more engineering than in the past. That additional engineering costs money on a feature that the automakers cannot monetize. Therefore they would rather not implement it. They make excuses for not implementing it but the real reason is money.

        Cannot monetize? What?

        I guarantee you without any shadow of a doubt that it's monetized exactly like every other physical feature in a car. If a regulation comes out banning the use of a given material in wiring harnesses, the auto makers research a replacement and sink that cost into the price consumers pay for that car. AM/FM radio is exactly the same. Car-buyers will pay for it.

        These guys seem to think it'll cost $3.8 billion for seven years of shielding or $542 million per year. According to th

        • I guarantee you without any shadow of a doubt that it's monetized exactly like every other physical feature in a car. If a regulation comes out banning the use of a given material in wiring harnesses, the auto makers research a replacement and sink that cost into the price consumers pay for that car. AM/FM radio is exactly the same. Car-buyers will pay for it.

          Let me rephrase: The automakers can technically monetize it. But they would and have received backlash for even attempting to monetize AM radio. Meanwhile the automakers gladly add and maintain satellite radio as they can monetize that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        This is the only insightful, not-politically-baiting comment in this whole damn thread. Thank you.

    • Radio in general is dying - not just AM radio. And the internet is what's killing it.

      Correction. Corporations are killing it. A handful (three?) of companies control the vast majority of radio stations in the country. As a result, a rock station on the East Coast sounds nearly the same as a rock station in Little Rock, Arkansas as it does in Seattle, Washington. The only true place to get anything approaching diversity is around large cities such as New York, Chicago, or Houston where the market can have

      • Like "the public good", competition in a market place is something to be eliminated to increase shareholder value.

        The same can be said of any form of regulation: If they all had to be renewed annually, you'd be living in the worst possible conditions all just to sate the greed of some shareholder stooge fantasizing themselves as a wannabe dictator. Corporations are not society's friends. Hell, the modern corporation is an enemy of society hell bent on screwing it over as much as possible, even to the poin

    • Radio in general is dying - not just AM radio. And the internet is what's killing it.

      Even without the internet, the broadcasters brought this fate upon themselves. Too many obnoxious commercials, banal DJs, and the same 50 songs of the station's assigned genre being played in heavy rotation. Before the smartphone, the iPod, and the Diamond Rio PMP300, I had a pared-down socket 7 Pentium PC in my trunk just for playing MP3s. It was such a breath of fresh air to drive around and just listen to only music.

      AM radio is even worse. I already get more than the recommended daily allowance of po

  • Back in 2020, most AM radio stations added support for HD radio. This means that AM radio sounds great now in digital stereo. Most newish cars have HD radio capability and they are available as tabletop or component radios as well. If you remember AM as really dicey with lots of horrible interference and mono only, you are in for a surprise. However, the programming is still mostly religious or extreme politics, which does suck. I'd like to see a lot lower FCC broadcast licenses for AM and I think we'd se

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      HD Radio on most AM stations happened well over a decade earlier than 2020. What eventually happened is that the stations now turn off HD Radio after dark because the "AM skip" effect corrupts the digital signal making it unlistenable.

      To add insult to injury, most AM broadcasters also turn off their HD Radio signal when broadcasting live sports because of the minimum 20-second delay inherent to HD Radio. It turns out people still listen to baseball games on the radio when in the stadium.

  • Where is the data on either side to support its position? I, for one, haven't listened to AM radio, or ridden in a car with someone else listening on AM, in a car in at least a decade... I would guess closer to 15 years, actually. Even out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere at the Black Rock Desert, BMIR uses FM. So what are the numbers on drivers actually listening to AM? I would be absolutely astounded if they were high enough to justify adding AM radio if it wasn't something that's just always been

    • The Black Rock desert is plain. FM works well in the flatlands, less well in mountains. Cell phones work even less well in the mountains.
      Driving from Butte to Great Falls (Montana) I noticed all the traffic advisory stations were AM.

    • like those janky 12-volt power outlets that I've not seen a useful reason why they're included

      Dash cams are a useful reason. I've been rear-ended leaving a damn Walmart parking lot because the person behind me was distracted on their phone, and had an Amazon van hit my previous car while it was parked in my driveway.

  • Keeping it alive. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hebertrich ( 472331 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @04:19PM (#64195342)

    Anyone who done radio or even a crystal radio knows that AM can be the only game in times of crisis.
    Noone ever would turn to FM for emergencies. In a car there's all good reasons to keep AM
    It reaches WAY further than FM. FM is line of sight, forget about reception in hilly terrain where AM is king.
    FM is not a panacea. All they truly want is to save 5 cents for the chip in the radio.

    • Not quite. With more electronics in a car, it is becoming harder to receive reliable AM radio especially in an EV. It requires more shielding and engineering to make AM as reliable in the past. The automakers would rather not spend that money since they cannot monetize it. Also bear in mind, most of the infotainment systems these days have AM/FM circuitry built into chip as it is easier to do that than design/fab custom chips that do not have those features. The automakers just disable AM. This is really ju
      • The FCC has strict standards concerning RF interference that is now rarely, if ever enforced. A bit like Boeing standards - the side effects can be fatal. Worse is that a thing called SDR makes it easy to pinpoint offenders. So car makers are already on the hook for RFI suppression, radio or no radio. AM radio interference is just a sign of dirty connections - sparks that can warn of future fires, or destruction of some expensive car computer. A similar mistake was Europe mandating car wiring harnesses be

    • Anyone who done radio or even a crystal radio knows that AM can be the only game in times of crisis.

      Yeah, you can build an AM radio from several lengths of thin wire, a ferrite core, a germanium diode, and a variable capacitor. Catch is, those of us who know this typically also already have enough sense to keep a portable radio, a firearm, and other various supplies around in case of an emergency.

    • Hold on let me run to walmart and buy a germanium diode, some magnet wire, a variable capacitor, a high impedance earphone, and a ground rod. The US supply of germanium diodes has dried up but there's plenty of soviet surplus on ebay. Although you could probably substitute a low forward voltage schottky.

  • Frustrating (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wonkavader ( 605434 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @04:20PM (#64195344)

    The money behind this doesn't give the slightest crap about emergencies. They're just using that as their lever. They care about all the money they've sunk into AM. The people arguing for this are right wing talk radio. (Clear Channel, Salem, etc.)

    And it's frustrating because the straw man they are using is actually RIGHT. I really hate to agree with them, especially when I know they're not acting in good faith.

    BUT we could solve everyone's issue here (from an emergency standpoint) but just making a reliable emergency carrier, on a few chosen AM frequencies. The car companies wouldn't have to get all AM frequencies working, or even support analog signals. The emergency carrier could send out analog on one frequency in the AM area, and digital on others. You could use old AM radios to get the analog one (or two or three with a good spread for a little more reliability/avoiding interference) or buy a new radio for the same info (plus maybe pictures, downloads, etc) on a slow digital signal, also in the AM spectrum.

    The car companies would only support the digital, which is fine, since it means they don't need to keep AM un-noisy. People could still use old AM radios, and companies could make money selling trivial digital radios for clear (lo-fi) AM data. The same emergency data could also go out on FM, as that will work most of the time, anyhow. Everyone wins. ... except right wing talk radio. Screw them.

  • There’s nothing about cars that warrants the necessity for an AM radio. Nor is it even the best method for reaching people during an emergency. If the radio is off, it does you no good. If you’re out of range, it does you no good. If you’re on the wrong station, it does you no good. A phone shares some of those, but reception tends to be more available along common transit avenues, will alert you even when it isn’t in active use, and doesn’t need to be tuned.

    I get more emergenc

    • There’s nothing about cars that warrants the necessity for an AM radio.

      During an evacuation in an emergency, the most likely place people will be is a car. Think of a hurricane or winter storm evacuation in the US. Could someone bring a portable radio with them? Yes. But the car having an AM radio would be the simplest solution.

      • I’d argue the phone they already have is the simpler and better solution. No need to figure out the right station, no need to remember to use it. Tailored messages for specific locations.

        • And how many cellphones do you think a tower will be able to handle with all the evacuees stuck on the highway? During normal operation and even rush hour I do not think the towers handle that many connections at once.

      • During an evacuation in an emergency, the most likely place people will be is a car.

        Okay, let's say I get an emergency alert notification on my phone that says central Florida is going to bite the dust when hurricane Cthulhu arrives. I'll load up my car with everything I can't risk losing and head for I-95 northbound. Since I'll be evacuating to somewhere unaffected by the storm, my cell service should continue to work just fine. That's kind of the whole point of an evacuation - to remove yourself from the path of disaster.

        And when it turns out that the alert was just a mistake because

        • Okay, let's say I get an emergency alert notification on my phone that says central Florida is going to bite the dust when hurricane Cthulhu arrives. I'll load up my car with everything I can't risk losing and head for I-95 northbound. Since I'll be evacuating to somewhere unaffected by the storm, my cell service should continue to work just fine. That's kind of the whole point of an evacuation - to remove yourself from the path of disaster.

          And you are the only one to head I-95 northbound? Or do you think that highway might be jam packed with other cars? What do you think happens to the cell tower when there are that many cell phones in that many cars trying to use that one cell tower that is local to them? Now when you get to your final destination away from the hurricane path, your cell phone connection might be fine.

    • If the radio is off, the answer if you're looking for information is to turn it on, if your cellphone isn't working.
      If you're out of range, well, the odds are substantially better that you ARE in range of an AM station, because as people are saying they can have ranges darn close to "coast to coast". Because of this, you are much more likely to find a functioning AM station within your reception range because it's actually outside of the disaster area, even if you're 100+ miles from the edge of it. The FM

  • I use AM when Iâ(TM)m driving in the mountains and see a traffic information sign. I can hit the button on my stereo to go to AM and find the right frequency (they are usually one of three) and instantly get road conditions.

    Trying to duplicate that over the internet is not likely to be possible or reliable.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by djgl ( 6202552 )

      FM stations are more localized than AM stations because of their range and (over here) traffic information is also sent in digital form piggy back on FM stations inside the RDS data. The navigation unit in my parent's car automatically avoids congestions and road blocks reported that way and you can display the information in text form. No internet connection needed.

  • We've dropped so many really useful things for the sake of saving a buck, and now suddenly "emergency AM" should be a showstopper? C'mon.

    Yes, I want my car radio to be able to switch over to AM radio. But mandate it? Really?

  • Of course it's inconsistent with a free market, and that's a good thing. Markets are innocent until proven guilty. That's where regulation comes in. Markets in his industry were found guilty of producing cars where the steering wheel crushed your chest in a crash, where the occupants bounced around like ragdolls, and a host of other flaws that would still be in cars if the free market hadn't been found guilty.

  • and federal emergency officials, seems like the best reason to get rid off it,

  • A little bit of a clickbait title (Score:5, Informative)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @04:50PM (#64195438)
    The right wingers who like every one to think this is against them as there are many conservative talk shows on AM. The real truth is this is about pure capitalism. In the past, it took almost no effort to get AM radio working in car. Newer vehicles have more electronics that interfere with the AM signal. Now automakers will have to spend some money to design and implement better EM shielding. Bear in mind, AM radio cannot be easily monetized for the automakers without backlash. So the automakers want to simply stop offering it. If they could charge a subscription for it, I would bet you that dropping AM would have never come up.

  • In my top-10 market, every top-rated AM station moved to FM years ago. Some of them have been on FM for twenty years now. The top-rated sports talk station (previously "guy talk") has always been FM since the 1990s.

    Most of the rest of the AM stations have low-powered FM translators for the fringe parts of their coverage contours.

    Interestingly, we also have an experimental, all-digital HD Radio station on AM--the only one in the country.

  • automakers say Americans have plenty of other ways, including their phones, to receive alerts and information

    Insufficient cellular coverage. Let's see the automakers go to battle with the telecoms to insist that they provide the 90% coverage that AM does. I'll get my popcorn.

    Automakers say the rise of electric vehicles is driving the shift away from AM, because onboard electronics create interference with AM radio signals

    And shortwave, public safety bands, radio navigation equipment, etc. The only thing keeping them from deleting shielding is the existence of an AM receiver. The interference with which the public is most likely to notice.

    inconsistent with the principles of a free market

    The true free market would demand that al cars be provided with a double DIN hole in the dashboard into which the customer c

  • Congress shouldn't pay attention to 100 year old technology? Like aircraft, Internal Combustion Engines and refrigerators?

  • "It's cheaper."

    Chernobyl was cheaper too. How did that work out?

  • Most come with an Emergency (SOS) function built inside, this is in most cases (at least in Europe) an built in 4G mobile e-sim card solution which you pay for via service. They could use that for emergency broadcasts.

    Also we have RDS traffic radio (mostly via FM), these will turn on when a nearby traffic incident or disaster warning occurs.

    And most people have a cellphone, in theory they can do emergency broadcast reception too.

  • For emergency broadcasts there's nothing that beats AM. I lived in Texas growing up and remember being able to listen to stations in Chicago on good night and long stretches of road where there was no good FM reception because the towers were too far away. AM is also much easier to repair or just completely replace after a major disaster and you need far fewer stations to get complete coverage of a country. Worse comes to worse TACAMO [wikipedia.org] can do it.

    However, the car makers also have a valid point that the m
  • Who wants the am bandwidth and to get it free or cheaply, when currently they cannot.

  • What else should the government save? How about:

    • Phone booths
    • Telegraph service
    • Cable TV (emergency broadcast system uses it too!)
    • Horse-drawn vehicles
    • Paper books (and clay tablets)

    Anything else?

  • The manufacturers can remove AM radios (Score:3)

    by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Sunday January 28, 2024 @08:07PM (#64196026)

    As long as they post some bonds to cover damages and compensation to drivers who weren't able to receive emergency broadcasts. It's all fine in built-up areas, but AM has a much greater reach out in the boonies.

    Pinky-to-mouth - a few billion dollars should cover it.

  • Back in the late 1900's, I used to work at several AM radio stations. Haven't listened to an AM station in at least a quarter of a century. If other means of communications were out, I don't think it would occur to me to check AM. I am not alone.

  • Already in use (Score:3)

    by cstacy ( 534252 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @12:45AM (#64196368)

    In places on the eastern seaboard, the highways are already signed with the AM frequency to tune to, for both traffic (i.e. on tunnel bottlenecks) and also specifically for emergency information about hurricanes and floods (and how the lanes will be used during those events). Those are local area dedicated transmitters. Not to mention that the government (since the 40s or 50s) already has a commercial AM-radio based national emergency broadcast system. (They can access smartphones, too, but what is still working when the cell towers and stuff are down? AM radio, that's what.)

    If the public is as technically illiterate about this as is evidenced here on /., maybe the system needs more clueless-user automation. Maybe the legislation ought to mandate AM radio receivers in all cars that automatically alert the driver when an emergency recognition tone is detected on any AM band. Make it a required safety item in the USA, no need for the user to know anything more than "push the AM button that is flashing, if you aren't already getting better information on the screen in your car or phone". No need to manually tune. Although if you think it's entertaining, you can also dial/scan around and listen whenever you want.

    It's worth the $15 part in the car.

  • FM ownership consolidation = useless in emergency (Score:3)

    by macwhiz ( 134202 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @09:15AM (#64197082)

    Where I live, FM radio is almost worthless during a natural disaster. I'm in hilly terrain, so the stations I can receive are limited, and the selection of stations with intelligible reception may change every few miles. Virtually all of those stations are part of nationally-owned radio networks, which means they're playing content from a central, national studio. There's nobody in the local station; if there's a "local DJ," chances are they prerecorded their schtick for the week on Monday.

    In a regional emergency, the best one can hope for from the FM stations is that they'll start playing the audio feed from an affiliated local TV station. This isn't very useful, because the TV people are working for their TV audience, who can see what they're talking about. They don't always describe what they're broadcasting. In an emergency, you need clear communication of information, and "let's just use the local TV station's audio feed" doesn't provide this.

    While AM radio is increasingly centralized as well, for whatever reason the AM talk stations are more likely to have at least one live body near a microphone in the office, and some vestige of a news organization. That means AM radio is more likely to break into the national programming with local information. I can't recall the last time that happened on FM radio around here.

    If the US wants to get rid of AM radio in cars, we need to address how radio consolidation has all but eliminated useful, timely local news on FM radio first.

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