Not too many moons ago,AM Radio was the bomb. Nobody believed FM would survive. FM signals were cheap back in the day and considered risky. In the 80's George Beasley was offered 3 big city FM stations for $1 million. Imagine that. The light bulb went on about FM when, according to Lee Abrams, Sgt. Pepper was unlistenable on AM. Today iPods, iPads, music listening App's and Internet technology in the vehicle are considered the next evolution of how we get our musical and spoken word entertainment. And all of them are crystal clear. News and talk fomats that started on AM, and built an audience have been migrating to FM. Some do it to woo the young. Others do it before a competitor jumps on. As this change occurs over time, a group of broadcasters worries what will happen to the 4,700 AM stations across the fruited plain. One of those broadcasters is Ben Downs.
"As an AM broadcaster, I know we've gotten to the point that the proliferation of consumer digital devices work against receiving AM signals. Every time somebody screws in a new CFL light bulb or charges their iPhone, noise is generated. Now as LED traffic lights become the new normal, even car radios are losing AM stations in places where they used to come in clear.
In June 2010 I asked the NAB board to reopen looking for a plan to "Rebuild AM" based on the large areas of territory free of full power TV stations on channels five and six. The process began, there. The similar Broadcast Maximization plan was fatally flawed from an NAB standpoint and we did not support it. This AM Rebuilding plan would consider asking the FCC to let two services share spectrum and then allow AM licensees to turn in their AM licenses in exchange for an FM station on this expanded FM Band. There would be buffer zones established around the remaining full-power DTV stations.
Since these channel 5/6 frequencies are already used as the regular FM band in Japan, we believed there would be little push back from manufacturers as no retooling would be required. Indeed you can already switch some Samsung phones to pick up these channels via the 'Region' switch in the settings.
There are 8 full-power stations left on Channel 6 and 17 remaining on Channel 5. For example, west of the Mississippi, there are only three full-power TV stations remaining on Channel 6; one of which is petitioning to move. And one TV channel occupies the bandwidth of 30 FM channels. Though they are few, these full-power stations must be protected as some cannot move channels.
The NAB Board realized that if there were to be a complete rebuilding of the AM Band, it needed to be built to survive the passage of time and to thrive in the digital age. This includes being part of handsets. As it stands now, there is no time being expended on researching for ways to include AM in handsets. Bob Struble of iBiquity told the Texas Broadcasters convention in August that there is no research being done for ways to include AM in handsets. The noise inside a handset is too loud and the AM antennas are too long. The Board asked NAB Technology to evaluate all the ideas that have been presented and then blue-sky to find others. Ideas we heard at the Chicago Convention like converting AM to a full digital (not hybrid) system, relocation on channels 5/6 or even 4/5/6 were identified along with cutting edge ideas like mobile apps, DTV carriage, FM IBOC and others.
Every single idea has many good reasons why it cannot be done; lack of receivers, lack of standards or prohibition by governmental rules. If there were an easy path, AM operators would have already adjusted. But the day is approaching when generating compelling and unique content will not be enough to justify operating an AM station. We all know that the immutable laws of physics keep AM operators from competing head to head against a mass appeal FM station. Now that the unique AM formats of talk and sports are migrating to the FM band, it is clear the cliff edge is near.
NAB Radio Chair Caroline Beasley and the NAB Board has recognized this and is putting the resources into finding a solution that will work for the long term. Roadblocks, both regulatory and technical will be EASY to find. Our next step is to identify the best solution from the many under consideration and then work around the inevitable insurmountable problems. Without big changes we may not have an AM industry to rebuild.
Ben Downs is managing partner of Bryan Broadcasting in College Station, TX. He is also a member of the NAB Board of Directors. Reach out to Ben mailto:BenBen@BryanBroadcasting.com or feel free to leave you comments below.(10/28/2011 6:37:11 AM)
Great article. However there have been technically remedial solutions for AM for many years, in fact it is clear that AM radio receivers were denegrated in the early FM years to dramatically reduce AM's quality. Furthermore, with the inception of IBOC the single most noise generating "technology" on the AM dial, did much more to add tremendous noise to the AM band. Sure you can blame light bulbs and widgets, but the industry helped kill itself. If IBOC can step on 30 kHz of bandwidth, and AM analog is relegated to 9kHz, then open it up, allow AM analog to return to full 20 kHz bandwidth, reposture the technical advantages of AMAX of the 90's to further reduce AM noise and many of the problems go away. AM analog is still very viable, with far greater coverage and is still the most dependable in times of local and national disasters.
Time for a rebirth of analog AM, and stop the patter about digital. Internet and yes, even digital technologies do fail when the broadcast services are needed most. Listen to how many AM/FM stations lose "HD" after a thunderstorm, or severe weather. Time to get real and return to digital AM, using state of the art circuitry to reduce overall noise, and please return the front end IF sections of receivers that were removed in the late 60's and return AM to full 14 kHz service. Enough of the game playing
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