In his radio engineering blog Paul Thurst gets very blunt about the declining state of AM radio today. It's worse than we thought.
His blog of Oct. 23, 2015 is titled "The Inglorious Task of AM Antenna Array Maintenance":
http://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/
This is a rant about a station that was allowed to slip into disrepair due to virtually no maintenance over several years. I can assure you that the directional array station where I work looks nothing like this. We have tower doghouses, coils and capacitors too. They're not falling apart. Every thing is well maintained and operational. I can assure you that up at WNMT in Hibbing, KPRM in Park Rapids, KKCQ in Fosston, KKIN in Aitkin, and dozens of other AM stations within a two hour drive of me, none of the facilities are in this state of decline.
Like anything else. If you don't want it to fall apart, you have to budget for and take care of your infrastructure.
Sure, there are plenty of AM's in trouble. There are also plenty that are not. But to decree this station as the "raw truth" about AM today is not accurate. It's the raw truth about an ill-maintained station trying to claw it's way back.
Throughout the upper midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, N and S Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, etc) there are hundreds of thriving independently owned and operated radio stations, including many AM stations. People who are busting their ass maintaining their stations, pumping out locally produced programming, getting involved in their communities, and providing a public service. Granted, I'm not silly enough to say ALL of them are doing this. But a great majority are.
They naysayers come along talking about how AM radio is garbage, old hat, dried up, and all but dead. While the sales staff who sell the spots that pay my salary are going out day after day telling clients that all this negativism is wrong, and we're churning out great local radio every day, fighting the uphill battle.
Now, you may live where corporate radio has taken over. A while back someone on this list ranted about how there was a weather emergency in their area and no station provided information. They claimed to listen to them all. I looked up their location, and the stations they could receive. There were over 50 stations, AM and FM available to them. Really? They listened to ALL of them long enough to determine that not ONE had a working EAS system or live programming? I listened to streams for many of those stations, thy were live and local. Huh?
In Minneapolis/St. Paul there were so many AM and FM stations on the bands I couldn't even attempt to count them while driving. Most were clearly local with live people. Some clearly were not. Both the AM and FM bands were jammed full. There was plenty to choose from.
I realize that we can't all always find a station with the format or business model that we prefer, but there's a hell of a lot of radio out there, and it doesn't all suck.
TIB
I know my local AM station WICH AM 1310 in Norwich Connecticut which is owned and operated by Hall Communications and has an ERP of 5000 Watts, a 3 DA, actually plays music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, calls them selves "personality radio" covers the local games at a minor league baseball park, some of the U-Conn huskies games as well as the local high school games from Norwich Free Academy and other high schools.
You might think this station has no listeners, but during their potperri program with Stu Bryer at 10:00 AM weekdays, which is a local call in discussion program, Stu gets a lot of callers.
I know Hall Communications does not participate in the ratings such as neilson, but this station is doing quite well for an local AM station.
All of their music is played by live in station DJ's not syndicated programming.
Bruce.
Having spent many years in commercial advertising and religious propaganda broadcasting, I may be inclined toward the sensational headline (The Raw Truth About AM Today).
It is welcome for the cold water splash of truth from Tim in Bovey to remind that many AM stations in the country are splendid in their quality performance in every respect.
It would likely be fair to say that the day to day success of an AM station depends on two basics: 1.) capable management able to achieve a good balance of maintenance and attractive programming, and 2.) fortunes of the marketplace, providing enough cash flow for the station to support itself.
I have heard from engineers whose companies skimped on budget and doubted the need for costly repairs, which must be very frustrating for those engineers.
The local market has always been the crossroads of mediocrity and only three stations come through with live reporting during violent weather, unless a major sporting event is in progress, in which case they favor the game and commercials.
I know from intimate knowledge of the local stations that most of them have not, do not and will not wake someone up to piddle with weather or "breaking-news," so there's no point tuning in to verify what I already know.
The very best weather coverage in my experience was a small station in Aurora, Missouri, heard online because I'm out of their range, where two guys placed their desk facing out a big picture window to report on an ice storm, listeners calling in to share viewpoints, and all other programming suspended during the heart of the action.
Keep AM analog, open it up to LPAM and other low power experimentation, and take all your radio advice from this website.
I would love to buy an AM station at any power level and turn it around but unless I win the Kentucky Lottery, I'll just have to manage this flea powered AM.
Years ago the station I was working for had their AM up for sale, $400.000 i think, would have bought it. Looking back, I made a mistake not trying to buy it.