The Decline of AM Radio Will Hurt More Than Conservative Talk Shows

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Decline of AM Radio Will Hurt More Than Conservative Talk Shows" On the Media
Host: Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger, WNYC Studios
Release Date: July 12, 2023

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Introduction

In this episode of On the Media, hosted by Michael Olinger with insights from Katie Thornton, the discussion centers around the recent trend of automakers removing AM radio from their latest electric vehicle (EV) models. While this shift has sparked significant backlash, particularly from conservative talk radio hosts, the conversation delves deeper into the broader implications for the AM radio landscape, highlighting its vital role beyond political discourse.

Automakers Removing AM Radio

The episode begins by addressing a significant move by several major automakers. Companies like BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda, and Tesla have decided to exclude AM radio from their newest electric vehicles. This decision has raised concerns about the future of AM radio, especially in the context of emerging electric mobility technologies.

Backlash from Conservative Talk Radio

Katie Thornton highlights the intense reaction from conservative talk radio personalities regarding the removal of AM radios. This backlash is rooted in the perception that AM radio is predominantly a platform for conservative voices.

• Katie Thornton: "Sean Hannity, in an appearance on Fox, said something to the effect of this is definitely going to have political ramifications, because it will quiet conservative talk radio, which is what people turn to AM radio for." [02:05]

The hosts discuss how conservative talk radio has historically been a dominant force on the AM band, but this movement to phase out AM radio threatens not just these shows but the medium's diversity.

Bipartisan Efforts to Preserve AM Radio

Recognizing the broader significance of AM radio, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has stepped in to address the issue. Senators Ted Cruz and Ed Markey co-authored a letter urging automakers to retain AM radios in their vehicles. Additionally, Senator Markey and Representative Josh Gottheimer introduced bills mandating the inclusion of AM radios in new cars.

• Katie Thornton: "It is a bipartisan issue which I think should immediately raise questions for folks about what else might be on the AM band besides just conservative talk radio." [02:59]

The Importance of AM Radio Beyond Conservative Talk

Contrary to the common belief that AM radio is solely a platform for conservative voices, Thornton elucidates the medium's diverse and critical roles:

1. Accessibility and Diversity:

   • AM radio remains the most accessible way for various groups, including minority communities, to broadcast their voices.
   • Katie Thornton: "AM radio continues to be home to some increasingly rare locally owned stations, non-English language stations. The diversity of ownership on the AM band is significantly higher than the FM band." [05:48]

2. Local Content and Community Engagement:

   • AM stations often provide hyperlocal content, including community meetings, local sports, and cultural events.
   • Example: KYNK, an AM station on the Yakima Reservation in Washington, broadcasts tribal events, local news, and serves as a vital communication tool for the community.

3. Emergency Broadcasting:

   • AM radio plays a crucial role in disseminating emergency alerts, especially in rural areas where other forms of communication may be unreliable.
   • Katie Thornton: "The emergency alert system is still crucially important... This is an essential life-saving technology and life-saving medium." [14:38]

Historical Context of AM Radio

Thornton provides a historical overview of AM radio, emphasizing its evolution and the shifting regulatory landscape:

• Public Interest Mandate:

  • Initially, AM radio was regulated to serve the public interest by presenting multiple perspectives on controversial issues.
  • This regulation fostered a diverse range of voices on the airwaves.

• Deregulation and Consolidation:

  • Starting in the 1980s, sweeping deregulations led to the consolidation of radio stations under large conglomerates.
  • The 1996 Telecommunications Act eliminated the national cap on station ownership, allowing companies like Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) to dominate the market.

• Rise of Syndicated Conservative Shows:

  • The deregulated environment facilitated the rise of nationally syndicated conservative talk shows, epitomized by Rush Limbaugh's breakout in 1988.
  • Katie Thornton: "Rush Limbaugh... used barter-based syndication to explode into national syndication in 1988." [09:29]

The Role of AM Radio in Rural and Emergency Situations

The episode underscores the indispensable role of AM radio in rural settings and during emergencies:

• Rural Connectivity:

  • In remote areas like Sandpoint, Alaska, AM radio serves vast regions where other communication infrastructures are limited.
  • Katie Thornton: "AM radio has ease of distribution that something like newspapers do not." [12:39]

• Emergency Alerts:

  • AM radio remains a reliable source for emergency information during natural disasters when other services fail.
  • Katie Thornton: "This is an essential life-saving technology and life-saving medium." [14:38]

Current Challenges and the Future of AM Radio

While acknowledging the challenges facing AM radio, including dwindling listenership and technological shifts, Thornton remains cautiously optimistic:

• Listenership Trends:

  • Although only about 20% of radio listeners tune into AM, this still represents a substantial audience.
  • The demographic is aging, posing long-term sustainability questions.

• Technological Adaptations:

  • Some AM stations have sought ways to adapt, such as adding web streams or FM translators, though many lack the resources to do so effectively.

• Cultural Significance:

  • Efforts to preserve AM radio must consider its multifaceted role beyond political talk shows, ensuring the survival of diverse and local voices.

Conclusion

The removal of AM radio from electric vehicles is not merely a political maneuver but a pivotal moment that could reshape the medium's future. On the Media emphasizes the necessity of preserving AM radio to maintain its diverse voices, essential local content, and critical role in emergency communications. As bipartisan efforts seek to safeguard the AM band, the broader implications for media diversity and community connectivity remain at the forefront of this ongoing debate.

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Notable Quotes:

• Katie Thornton: "Sean Hannity... said this is definitely going to have political ramifications, because it will quiet conservative talk radio." [02:05]

• Katie Thornton: "AM radio continues to be home to some increasingly rare locally owned stations, non-English language stations." [05:48]

• Katie Thornton: "AM radio has ease of distribution that something like newspapers do not." [12:39]

• Katie Thornton: "This is an essential life-saving technology and life-saving medium." [14:38]

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This comprehensive overview captures the essence of the episode, highlighting the multifaceted importance of AM radio and the potential consequences of its decline in the modern automotive landscape.

Transcript

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[Michael Olinger]

You're listening to the on the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Olinger.

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Carmakers are taking steps to eliminate AM radio from their newest electric vehicles. BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda, Tesla say they won't include AM radio in their newest models.

[Katie Thornton]

This announcement drew so much outrage that at least one automaker, Ford, actually said forget it, they reversed their decision.

[Michael Olinger]

Conservative talk radio hosts helped lead the backlash against the removal of AM radios from electric fleets. Claiming the engineering change was really an act of political sabotage, they finally figured.

[Katie Thornton]

Out how to attack conservative talk radio.

[Michael Olinger]

Whether they're doing this intentionally or not, the consequence will be if the radio industry does not adapt an all out attack on AM radio.

[Katie Thornton]

Sean Hannity, in an appearance on Fox, said something to the effect of this is definitely going to have political ramifications, because it will. It will quiet conservative talk radio, which is what people turn to AM radio for.

[Michael Olinger]

Katie Thornton, freelance journalist and host of OTM's Peabody Award winning miniseries the Divided.

[Katie Thornton]

Dial and that part really stuck out to me because there is this sort of widespread understanding in the US that AM radio is the home of conservative talk and almost nothing else.

[Michael Olinger]

But this isn't really a simple story of conservative censorship.

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Now a bipartisan group of lawmakers are.

[Michael Olinger]

Trying to stop the manufacturers of electric vehicles from excluding AM radio in their new models. In late June, senators Ted Cruz and Ed Markey co wrote a letter to seven major automakers asking them to commit by July 7 to keep radios in their new cars. And in May, Senator Markey and Representative Josh Gotheimer, both Democrats, helped introduce bills that would require car companies to include AM radios.

[Katie Thornton]

It is a bipartisan issue which I think should immediately raise questions for folks about what else might be on the AM band besides just conservative talk radio.

[Michael Olinger]

And we'll get there. But just a kind of technical question about what it would mean to require automakers to include AM in their cars when it comes to electrical vehicles, which is kind of how the brouhaha started. AM doesn't sound good in electrical vehicles, right? There's like interference. So what does it mean that car companies may be required to include a service that isn't even going to be fully enjoyable to its listeners?

[Katie Thornton]

So basically, AM radio, it never sounds great. The thing about AM that sort of sets it apart from FM is that it can go really far distances. It can penetrate buildings and mountains and obstacles like really, really well. But the sacrifice is the sound quality. Fm, on the other hand, doesn't go very far, but it sounds comparatively crystal clear. Over the last century or so, as we've had more and more electrical appliances, the sort of buzz and the interference on the AM band has actually gotten worse over the last century. A lot of electrical appliances and devices operate at a somewhat similar wavelength to AM radio. And, and that's especially true in electric vehicles. Some automakers have figured out a technical workaround. There are things that you can add to the radio to block interference that likely adds weight. Wouldn't be surprised if some of these automakers are just trying to reduce weight everywhere they can. And cost cutting, it's another cost. It's an engineering workaround. Some of these carmakers have actually removed AM radios from their electric vehicles already. Like Tesla doesn't have it. Audi and BMW models that have already phased out AM radios. But I think one of the reasons why this got back onto people's radar is not only that Volkswagen and Mazda have announced that they're going to take out AM radios from their future electric vehicles, but Ford actually announced that they would take out AM radios from all of their vehicles, internal combustion or electric. They've since gone back on that and said that they're going to keep AM radios in all of their vehicles because.

[Michael Olinger]

Of the political pressure. And like the conservative talk radio backlash.

[Katie Thornton]

They made the decision around the same time that there was a lot of bipartisan pushback and introduction of this bipartisan bill in Congress. And Ford just went ahead and said, you know, we'll take care of it ourselves. We will be putting AM radios in all of our vehicles.

[Michael Olinger]

I'm curious to hear why you think progressives like Ed Markey are kind of standing up to defend AM radio, given its reputation as like a primarily conservative medium, a reputation that you dispute. What is it that Democrats see in am?

[Katie Thornton]

The AM band is much more accessible to get onto than the FM band. In my piece for the Guardian, I was able to speak with the person who runs the national association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Jim Winston. He noted that getting on the AM band, it's the most accessible way to get on the broadcast spectrum at all. When the FM band opened up and it's left the AM band in some ways languishing, you know, before finding its saving grace in talk radio, it became much more affordable. It's generally the most affordable way to get on the broadcast spectrum. And so that has meant that a ton of folks who have not had access to get onto, say, television or FM radio have found a home on AM radio as well. AM radio continues to be home to some increasingly rare locally owned stations, non English language stations. The diversity of ownership on the AM band is significantly higher than the FM band. And so even though it is certainly the case that these nationally syndicated conservative voices dominate, there is a lot more on the AM band. And what I think is really important to consider is that those nationally syndicated conservative voices, I mean, you'll hear them all over the country, basically. Chain radio stations are everywhere, from big cities to small towns, and they sound almost exactly the same day in, day out. Those companies are often massive conglomerates. They have a lot of financial resources. They're in podcasting, they're on social media, they're on YouTube, they're sort of everywhere. But a lot of these locally owned AM stations haven't had the resources that these massive media conglomerates have had. And so those are the stations that I think would really be in the most dire straits if there are major changes that come to the AM band.

[Michael Olinger]

AM radio didn't always skew, right. There was a time, thanks in part to government regulation, that the AM band was home to a diverse spectrum of political viewpoints. Right. Can you give us a bit of that history?

[Katie Thornton]

There was absolutely a time when radio sort of thrived on differing perspectives. Some of this, as you said, was organic, but there was also a role that government regulation played well. They started with the advent of radio when the government said, you have to serve the public interest. That was part of the original mandate to get on the radio back in the 1920s and after World War II in particular, they clarified that that meant that you had to share multiple perspectives on issues that were considered controversial. And in the late 40s and through the 1950s and into the 60s, this was actually really a boon for conservative talk and conservative political pundits who used this regulation to get airtime. During the 1960s, there was also massive media justice initiative that was happening within the civil rights movement. There was one court case in particular that clarified some of these rules about how stations can go about serving the public interest and ended up getting a lot of civil rights voices on the air on stations that had never broadcast or had refused to broadcast voices from the civil rights movement previously. Throughout the decades, there has been government and legal decisions that have enabled a lot of different voices to get on the airwaves. A lot of that started to be eroded in the early 1980s and increasingly through the 1990s was when there was.

[Michael Olinger]

Basically a series of sweeping deregulations, as you've described them, that helped some businesses consolidate power and influence by buying up lots of radio stations. This was also around the time that we saw the rise of a breakout star on the AM band, Rush Limbaugh.

[Katie Thornton]

Mm. Rush Limbaugh. He goes into national syndication in 1988, and the owner of the show ended up using what was at that time a pretty novel approach. It's now known as barter based syndication. But basically they would give the show away for free to stations that wanted the show in exchange for nothing more than the advertising time on that station. So the Rush Limbaugh show could get these big national advertisers and say, look, we have an audience here, we have an audience on this coast, we have an audience in the Midwest, et cetera, et cetera, and use that to sell their show to advertisers. But that's really sort of how he explodes into national syndication in 1988.

[Michael Olinger]

And.

[Katie Thornton]

And this is again happening at the same time that there's all of this widespread deregulation happening so crucially in the 1980s. There is the erasure of the requirement that you air multiple perspectives of controversial issues. And throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the long standing policy that said that a single company could only own a relatively small handful of radio stations across the country, those policies had been changing, and the number of stations that a company could own nationwide or was kind of steadily increasing. By 1996, that number was at 40. A single company could own 40 radio stations across the country. With the 1996 Telecommunications act, that national cap was eliminated. There was one company that within a decade exploded to own over 1200 stations. That company was Clear Channel, also now known as iHeart. And that company, come 1998, owned the rush Limbaugh show. And that made it quite easy for them to put this show on many, many, many of their stations that they now owned across the country.

[Michael Olinger]

Yeah. And to your point, AM is, isn't a monolith today either. Many public radio stations, including wnyc, broadcast on am. But in the public imagination, AM is still synonymous with conservative talk radio, which you've described as, quote, a myth to that has dangerous implications for the medium. What do you mean by that?

[Katie Thornton]

Yeah, you know, the thing is there is so much more. I mean, this is where we have a greater diversity of ownership than the FM band. This is where we still have some of our locally owned stations. It's a vital resource for rural communities because the signal can travel so far and penetrate obstacles and mountains and terrain so well. It's also a vital resource in a lot of cities. It's where there's a lot of non English language programming. And so even though certainly like nationally syndicated conservative talkers are very, very, very well platformed on the AM band, there's so much more to it.

[Michael Olinger]

As you mentioned, AM radio has become an essential news source, especially in rural areas. For your piece, you spoke to the general manager at KSDP in Sandpoint, Alaska, on the Aleutian Islands, where they've only recently acquired satellite Internet. They have an enormous service area that's about twice the size of Massachusetts. Paint a picture for us about the role that AM plays in disseminating news in very remote places like Sandpoint.

[Katie Thornton]

Yes, certainly. So Sandpoint in particular is largely serving an audience of folks who are out doing commercial fishing work. AM radio carries very, very well over water. And so folks are able to pick up the signal way far out on these boats and also way far out on different islands that they may be living on. FM radio, again, doesn't have the same sort of physical reach that AM radio has. And so a lot of folks who may live on distant islands or who may be out working for many, many days at a time on these boats are not necessarily able to attend community meetings in a specific town on a specific island. Things like this, there's hyperlocal content. There are broadcasts of local high school sports. There are broadcasts of community meetings and town hall conversations and forums and political meetings. It's a connection to civic engagement in places where it's just physically hard to do so. That area is served by some newspapers, but it is very difficult to distribute newspapers across an area twice the size of Massachusetts. AM radio has ease of distribution that something like newspapers do not.

[Michael Olinger]

Then of course there's the fact that AM transmissions from America's national public warning system have saved lives during natural disasters, Especially when people lose power and cell service and need something reliable like AM radio.

[Katie Thornton]

The emergency alert system is still crucially important, as you said, in rural areas often, but in urban areas as well, during times of power outages. This is a really sort of resilient, reliable technology. It's been around for, for a very long time. And it is required that some stations in any given market broadcast these emergency alerts. Not everybody has a smartphone. Not everybody can afford Internet access. Not everywhere has Internet infrastructure built out. This is an essential life saving technology and life saving medium.

[Michael Olinger]

We're really talking about the loss of AM radio in electric cars. These are vehicles that are less popular in rural areas. So what makes you concerned that this is like the beginning of the end of Amazon?

[Katie Thornton]

Yeah, you know, I don't know if I would say it's the beginning of the end of am. I think that since radio's birth, there have been rumors of its death. Radio remains an incredibly influential medium. Over 80% of Americans hear the radio every week. Only about 20% of those folks say they're specifically listening to AM, but that's still a pretty large number. So I don't necessarily think that this is the beginning of the end of AM radio. I'll also say that the areas where AM is often most vital in these rural areas is often the areas where the infrastructure for electric vehicles is not yet built out. I think that some of the reason why there's backlash right now is because the right has made it yet another culture war issue. But I will also say that listenership has been dwindling for years. It is an audience that is certainly getting older. AM radio is, is facing changes, it's facing challenges. There are so many other places where many people are getting their news and information. There are many people who cannot get news and information anywhere other than the radio. And some stations and personalities and voices that can only be heard on AM radio.

[Michael Olinger]

Can you give an example of some kind of AM resource, whether a station or a show, that offers a rare tool for civic engagement, Some really hyper local content that maybe won't find a home anywhere else?

[Katie Thornton]

Yeah, you know, in, in the piece that I did for The Guardian I had the privilege of speaking to a man named Reggie George, who is the program director and one of two paid staff at kynr, which is an AM radio station on the Yakima Reservation in Washington. That station has about a 60 mile radius, so quite a significant reach. It is run by the tribal organization and they have public service announcements and they have coverage of local events like government meetings and powwows as well, and also a mix of music. Reggie George, who's the program director, hosts an oldie show on the station that he loves and that is well loved in the community. He said that whenever they have any issues with their transmitters, if there's inclement weather or anything like this, they get calls right away. People are listening and they know that the station is off the air. That is a station that hasn't had the resources to be able to afford a web stream, let alone an FM translator, let alone podcasting or a swanky app. This is the kind of station that can only be found on AM that is a vital community resource. And while I don't think that in the short term they will be majorly affected by AM radio being removed from some electric vehicles, I do think that deprioritization of AM or any other sort of changes that might come to the AM band, these are the stations that are going to be hardest hit because unlike someone like a Salem radio station or an iHeartMedia radio station, they haven't had the resources to get out on other platforms and that's a huge loss.

[Michael Olinger]

Katie, thank you very much.

[Katie Thornton]

Thank you so much for talking with me. Nice to be back.

[Michael Olinger]

Katie Thornton is a freelance journalist and host of on the Media's Peabody Award winning miniseries the Divided Dial. Check out all five episodes in our feed. Thanks for listening.

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