[geeks] XM or Sirius Radio

[Patrick Giagnocavo +1.717.201.3366]

On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 11:05:45PM -0400, Andrew Weiss wrote:
> On May 30, 2004, at 9:20 PM, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> 
> > Sun, 30 May 2004 @ 15:17 -0500, Judy Loomis said:
> >
> >> It's my husband's birthday and they just killed the last hard rock 
> >> station
> >> in Dallas.
> >
> > Was that one of those Clear Channel type executions?
> >
> > Radio is being ruined nationwide.
> >
> > Clear Channel isn't to blame for local problems, but they seem to be a
> > common destroyer of good radio elsewhere.
> >
> > Someone in the AM industry tells me that by contrast, Clear Channel is
> > the only reason AM hasn't died.
> >
> So why is AM incapable of stereo transmission?  I've always wondered 
> this.

Seems to me that there was AM Stereo at one point.

Anyways, a number of factors are credited with keeping AM alive,
depending on who you talk to:

1.  Rush Limbaugh

2. or talk radio in general (sound quality doesn't matter so much when
you are sending voice not music)

3. higher costs for FM advertising made AM look more attractive by
contrast

4.  AM stations are a limited/finite number, thus their value as a
media property went up

Personally I would love to have a zillion different low power radio
stations, sort of like a bunch of "audio blogs" while you are driving
around.  Not sure if the FCC will do it though.  Maybe we will have to
be content with lots of Wifi.

--P