There are growing voices lamenting the demise of AM radio on Capitol Hill.
Several automakers, most notably Tesla and Ford, have decided to stop equipping their electric cars with AM radio. They claim that electric motors interfere with the sound quality of the signal, and that FM and satellite radio are sufficient.
Given that people who listen to radio tend to listen primarily while driving, such a trend could threaten the commercial viability of the more than 4,000 AM stations currently broadcasting in the United States.
The radio industry is fighting back, lobbying for legislation that would force automakers to install AM radio as a matter of public interest. These efforts led to the AM Radio in All Vehicles Act being considered in both houses of Congress.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who introduced the bill in the Senate, called free AM radio “an essential tool in emergencies and an important part of a diverse media ecosystem, providing a wide variety of services for news, weather, “It’s an irreplaceable source of information on sports, sports, etc.” Entertainment for tens of millions of listeners. ”
As a media historian, I welcome hearing AM radio described as a public utility, especially after decades of free market orthodoxy dominating discussions about its fate.
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When AM (short for “amplitude modulation”) emerged in the early 20th century, it was championed as a revolutionary technology that could bring nations together in time and space. Over the next decade, engineers developed new technologies such as uniwave arc transmitters to transmit the signal and vacuum tubes to amplify the signal as it was received, allowing first voice and then music to be heard on AM broadcasts.
Early amateur radio took advantage of the potential for connectivity and information provision, but concerns that the new medium could be misused to spread foreign propaganda and divisive content led to unlicensed amateur broadcasting. The era ended during World War I.
After KDKA became the first licensed commercial station to begin broadcasting in Pittsburgh in November 1920, AM radio stations sprang up across the country, serving local audiences in a variety of formats. Homes were filled with the sounds of news, baseball games, radio dramas, or crooners singing popular music. Radios overflowed from the shelves in response to demand.
Because listening stimulates the imagination in unique ways, broadcasters, and the advertisers who paid for access to audiences, found new ways to use radio to capture listeners’ attention.
By the 1930s, AM radio had become the primary form of American mass media, with both local and syndicated programming provided by networks of stations such as NBC, CBS, and Mutual. Although commercial interests viewed radio as a means to generate profits, a growing number of supporters saw radio as a public service that should be created for the public good.
This public conversation inspired the Communications Act of 1934 and the creation of the Federal Communications Commission. The Federal Communications Commission was tasked with ensuring that licensed stations adhered to certain standards.
These standards arose from ongoing discussions at the FCC regarding radio broadcasters’ public interest obligations. In the late 1930s, the station began requiring its licensed stations to remain neutral on news and political issues. The “no-editing spirit” of the Mayflower decision forced the FCC in 1949 to establish the Fairness Doctrine later that year.
New regulatory oversight helped keep a check on Father Coughlin, America’s first radio agitator, whose conspiratorial rants were heard by some 30 million listeners. Over the years, Coughlin was demoted from radio networks for refusing to follow regulatory guidelines for fear of sponsor backlash.
It also comes with a radio.
AM radio audio began accompanying car drivers in the late 1920s.
Vehicles of the time had enclosed cabins that protected the driver and passengers from weather and noise. People who listened to music on their home radios embraced the idea of listening to music while driving. Companies such as Automobile Radio Corporation promoted expensive Transitone radios that ran on 6-volt batteries with the tagline, “With Transitone, you’re never alone.”
In 1930, General Motors began installing radios in new Cadillacs. Chrysler advertised luxury cars that were factory wired for owners to install Transitone. Drivers can now listen to the radio while navigating America’s vast and growing national highway system.
As the decade progressed, factory-installed radios (floor-mounted, with controls on the dash and speakers on the windshield) became touted as a way to improve the driving experience. Ta. A 1934 Philco radio commercial said, “There’s no way you don’t have a radio at home, so why not have one in your car?”
By 1940, 61% of Americans regularly listened to the news on the radio, and 20% of U.S. cars had a built-in radio.
Companies capture the airwaves
In the 1950s, transistor technology made it possible to install small radios in the dashboards of more than half of the cars on the market.
But now drivers have access to another technology: FM radio.
This spectrum, short for “frequency modulation,” requires more power but produces less static electricity and provides better sound quality. FM’s early years were characterized by innovation and vibrant local programming. But as big media companies consolidated their power, they gradually succumbed to commercial pressures. Slowly but surely, music programming migrated from AM to FM.
By the mid-1980s, the once lively debate that radio served the public interest was silenced by lobbyists and politicians pushing for profit-boosting deregulation. Guidelines for news and public relations programs are being enacted one after another, including rules that require broadcast stations to allocate a certain amount of time to public relations programs, rules that limit the number of broadcast stations that a company can own in the media market to seven, and principles of fairness. It will be done. I fell like a pawn in an industry that only pursued profits.
The FCC and Federal Trade Commission shrugged their shoulders as big corporations bought and consolidated radio stations, cut local programming and replaced it with syndicated content delivered by satellite.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 threw everything out, effectively leaving decisions about the future of AM and FM radio to corporate interests and asking little in return.
Over the next two decades, American radio stations would be swallowed up by a handful of conglomerates, including Clear Channel, now known as iHeartMedia. Most AM stations, especially those in rural areas where people spend most of their time listening in their cars, prioritized right-wing talk shows.
And although radio agitators like Rush Limbaugh and his many imitators saved AM radio’s profitability, in vast swaths of rural America, the captured spectrum was as strong as Father Coughlin’s in the 1930s. It functions as a distribution system for monotonous partisan programming, much like the Instead of providing farm reports, emergency information, and local news to foster a knowledgeable public, most corporate-owned AM stations now provide divisive, dissatisfying information channels that serve the needs of their owners. We are broadcasting entertainment.
on the street again
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The FCC once required broadcasters to serve the public interest in exchange for licenses, a regulatory reward that produced a wide range of programming that better served the community.
It is possible to go down that path again. Look at low power FM community radio. It emerged as a nonprofit answer to industry homogenization, designed to serve the public interest.
Homegrown, low-power FM community radio, free from corporate control, supports local democracy by providing microphones for local musicians and various commentators. The voice was often denied access to commercial radio. Stations can apply for a low-power FM community radio license. Although coverage is very limited, the number of stations serving communities from Iuka, Mississippi to the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon has doubled to more than 1,500 stations over the past decade.
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AM radio can be used as well.
If Congress and the FCC are going to position AM radio as an important public service, I think they should once again promote public interest standards in exchange for licensing. Only then can AM radio live up to the spirit of the AM Radio in All Vehicles Act.
In other words, if the U.S. government is going to direct automakers to install AM radio in the public interest, shouldn’t it also require broadcasters to prove that they are worthy of the public’s trust?
Matthew Jordan, Penn State Professor of Media Studies
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.