More sports on FM: WIP(AM) to simulcast on 94.1

[Paul Hopfgarten]

And FM will probably not make it out of the 21st century with the 
Smartphones and who knows what else coming down the pike..

I think I'll go listen to my 45s now and watch some static on my B&W 9" 
Panasonic TV with....UHF!!!!  (I think the Stooges are on 38 right now....)

-Paul Hopfgarten

-----Original Message----- 
From: Martin Waters
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 4:42 AM
To: Dan.Strassberg
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: More sports on FM: WIP(AM) to simulcast on 94.1

--- On Fri, 8/19/11, Dan.Strassberg <dan.strassberg@att.net> wrote:>Without 
question, WIP (AM) has the best signal of any 5 kW-U AM in the
>Philadelphia market . . .     Many of us who hang out on this newsgroup are 
>still interested in AM radio, but the public -- more strongly the younger 
>the people are -- just doesn't listen to AM radio, period. It doesn't 
>matter what's on or how good the signal is. To the average person, just the 
>fact that it's in mono makes its sound quality extremely inferior to FM. 
>Looking at the Arbitron top-line numbers, it looks like only somewhere 
>around 10-15 percent of the overall radio listening now is to AM 
>stations -- and it's been declining just recently. On FM, someone using the 
>scan button might stop on your station, discover it, and keep listening. AM 
>is like the tree falling in the forest when there's no one to hear it. 
>Except maybe in some fringe-rural places, the trend is extremely strong 
>toward only a handful of heritage stations nationwide with a combination of 
>huge signals (read, Class A stations), formats not duplicated on FM (read
news, sports, talk -- an advantage now beginning to disintegrate) and long, 
long-time prominence in the market still pulling any significant numbers. 
And even they are beginning to simulcast on HD-1 signals or change bands 
altogether.      So it's more than an issue of coverage maps. And even they, 
IMO, overstate most AM stations realistic listening area. Your average 
person is horrified if they drive past a utility  pole with an improperly 
grounded electrical transformer or drive beneath a 500 kv electrical 
transmission line, etc., and hear a few seconds of nasty-sounding 
interference. And most of them quit ever turning on AM radio back in another 
century. There's my extremely bummerish $0.02 for this morning. So, shoot 
me. :))