"It's the programming, stupid!"

[Larry Sochrin]

I think that part of the reason for the comment below about young listeners is technology.  iPods have FM receivers built in, no AM, and I'm told that new iPads have chips built in that could be used as FM receivers, again not AM.  And I'll assume that iPhones do/will also.  So while the rest of us are listening on car radios and home AM/FM radios,  that's not what many in the younger demo are using any more. (And sure, there are apps that would allow the younger folks to listen via the web to AM, but for those portable devices, they'd be using up their valuable carrier minutes.) Steve Jobs loved simplifying by removing older technology, be it floppy disk drives or CD/DVD drives.  It seems as if he made a decision a long time ago to ignore AM, and the younger generation followed. 

> By most accounts, we're now into the second generation of young listeners who simply do not use AM radio...at all.  As these listeners age into the desirable 25-54 demo, AM stations will take (and most are already taking) a huge hit in their audiences because those people coming into the money demo don't have the AM habit.  The demos for most AM stations skew toward 55+...not what most advertisers want.