From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Subject: But it IS dying... 
Originator: wdp@gagme
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 15:23:13 GMT

I did not intend to keep this going, but people are misreading what I
am saying. Clarification is in order:

rfa@Turing.ORG (Robert F. Alexander) writes:

> [John Higdon's claims that AM is dead, killed by market forces, deleted]
> 
> NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!	

But you do not have anything to do with it. It is not your fault.
Neither you nor I nor anyone else on this side of the radio has the
power to do anything about it. The battle was lost years ago when
broadcasters were driven out by the investors. The broadcasters are
coming back, but the whole unpleasant experience left a corpse in its
wake.

> W>> AM is getting better, and for programmers with guts
> W>> and creativity, it can be a great venue for new innovative programming.]
> 
> This is the attitude that will keep AM alive.

Attitudes can no longer keep AM alive. Believing in the tooth fairy
have little impact on the evil old marketplace that you somehow would
like to ignore. No one will ever stop you from spending your own money
to construct, maintain, and operate any AM station you can squeeze onto
the band. It is just that you will in all likelihood not be able to
attract real capital from serious investors since your chances (other
than some notable exceptions) for making a profit are slim.

> I'm broadcasting a bandwidth of 10khz. Your cheap radios
> just can't hear it. How much REAL sound is in the domain
> above that point..? (NOT MUCH)

My cheap radios and all the other cheap radios. Broadcasting is a
closed system. It requires a transmitter AND a receiver. There are
millions of fine, well-performing FM radios out there. There are even
more crappy AM radios, and the general level is constantly dropping.
Even with all the AM stereo hype, the receiver manufacturers have been
snoring through the "resurgence of AM". And it matters not WHY AM
sounds crappy, the fact is that it does on any radio you can buy at the
counter. How it sounds through your Belar or TFT monitor is
irrelavent.

> MY AM kicks the CRAP outta the FM in every book. EXPLAIN that if
> you will.

There are exceptions to everything everywhere.

> Your arguments are all a bunch of marketing hype
> and the general public doesn't care nearly as much about the
> sound quality as you would have us all believe.

Do you think I have some kind of an agenda here? Do you think that I am
some member of "The Society for the Bad Mouthing of AM"? If you don't
believe me, then I invite you to look at trends across the country.
Look at Arbitrons, formats, and financial statements. It is all public
record.

> People want to hear what they want to hear and are very well willing to
> give up 5khz uf the upper cymbal crashes.

And it is that attitude that has helped kill AM. I have never been able to
understand where this elitist attitude originated that "the public has
tin ears". Young listeners today are very sophisticated. In fact, they
take that upper octave quite for granted, and it is effortlessly
reproduced on everything except AM radio.

> Why are YOU trying to KILL AM radio? Too lazy to do the work
> to keep one of them running right is my guess. Go buy
> yourself a decent radio and stop all the tech crap. The
> general public DOES NOT CARE. 

Why do you attack the messenger? I have no reason to want AM to die;
quite the contrary. I would lose substantial income. The AM stereo
station entrusted to me (long before it WAS stereo) is one of, if not
THE best sounding AM signal in the market. Accusing me of being lazy
does not solve AM radio's serious technical problems. And what is radio
from an engineering standpoint if it is not "tech crap"? Years ago, too
many managers and owners of AM stations thought THEY could deal with
technical limitations with hype and bravado. We now see that it didn't
work.

> [Moderator's Note:  Gentlemen gentlemen, This is not an issue worth fighting
> and flaming over.

I agree. And I really do not have any investment in the failure of AM.
I merely report what I see. I concede that talk radio is alive and well
on AM, and the figures and other observers back me up. I maintain that
musical formats on AM are BECOMING a thing of the past. Again, there
are statistics to back my observations up. Many claim this should not
happen and that it is mysterious. Maybe so, but from where I stand it
is no mystery and I have so explained.

This was nice:

lgold@callahans.Cadence.COM (Lynn Gold) writes:

> A radio junkie friend who lives in San Francisco came to visit me
> while I was doing my traffic reporting shift on an AM/FM pair of
> stations I know you're well familiar with. :-)
> 
> As I revved up to do my break, he tuned his walkman-style AM stereo
> receiver to KEEN (he'd been anxiously awaiting this) and listened to
> my traffic break.
> 
> "Wow!  It's WONDERFUL!  You've just GOT to hear it!" he exclaimed.

That is gratifying, and indicates perhaps that I am not just sloughing
off and not bothering to give AM stereo my best shot. Quite the
contrary; I have taken great pride in maintaining the quality of KEEN's
stereo signal. With my very fine AM stereo receivers (plus the custom
wideband receiver at the studio), I can hear audio that is amazing and
fun to listen to. For AM, that is. But I also maintain for the same
owners the top rated FM in the market. Once you get used to the AM,
when you shift to the FM it blows you away.

In essence, I give radio in general my best. I find FM far superior to
AM technically. It always has been. But the decline of the AM band is a
relatively recent phenomenon. This would indicate that AM's troubles
are not all technical in nature. So why is it dying? You tell me. But
please don't just get defensive and tell me that everything is fine.
That answers nothing.

> I thought you'd like to know your work is appreciated.

Thanks.

[Moderator's mouth agape:  Recently while calling the Program Director of an
AM/FM combo (because I was DX'ing the FM signal) I was shocked to find out
that the P.D. had NO idea what frequency their simulcasted AM was on.  Geez] 

-- 
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115
    john@zygot.ati.com      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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