While the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is still pursuing its goal of getting Congress to pass the “AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act*,” the number of AM radio stations on-the-air continues to shrink. How Many Radio Stations Are There? Inside Radio published the latest FCC radio station count and the number of AM radio stations on-the-air continues to shrink. In 1968, I passed my 3rd Class Radiotelephone FCC License, Broadcast endorsed, it was also the year that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began publishing its Broadcast Station Totals reports. At that time the FCC sa ..read more

While radio advertising is still being heard by radio listeners, the relevancy of those ads to listeners is low. In contrast, the audio ads heard by podcast listeners were deemed highly meaningful.* The Radio Ad Disconnect Once upon a time, radio stations employed gatekeepers. (Gatekeeping – “the process of controlling information as it moves through a gate.) Let me give you a personal example of what I’m talking about. In the 80s, I was managing WFPG-FM in Atlantic City, New Jersey. WFPG-FM programmed a Bonneville Beautiful Music format and was the market leader in the Atlantic City-Cape May ..read more

In 1984, when I was hired as a general manager in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Pierre Bouvard was my first sales representative from the Arbitron Company. I’ve known Pierre for forty years and have great respect for him. But his latest research presentation “Nielsen: AM/FM Radio Expands Its Ratings Lead Over TV And Smashing AM/FM Radio’s Drive Time Myth” https://www.westwoodone.com/blog/2024/03/04/nielsen-am-fm-radio-expands-its-ratings-lead-over-tv-and-smashing-am-fm-radios-drive-time-myth/ does something that really troubles me. It combines AM listening with FM listening, as if they contribute ..read more

How important is it to have AM radio in cars if the majority of the people don’t listen to any AM radio stations? I loved AM radio and my five decades plus career started on AM radio back in the 60s, but if I’m being honest, I can’t remember the last time I listened to any AM radio station, even though both of my older cars have decent AM radios in them – and I’m a “radio guy.” Can we get real about AM radio’s problems? Mandating AM radio in all vehicles won’t cause more people to listen this radio service. 650AM – WSM When I worked at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, t ..read more

Twenty-four years ago, in October 2000, a new relationship website launched called “Hot or Not.” The premise of the site was for people to submit photos of themselves (or others) to have users of the site rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 on their attractiveness. Within a month of launching, the site reached around two million page views per day. Mark Zuckerberg’s original idea was to do something similar with a site he created called FashMash, which became TheFacebook.com in 2004 (now just Facebook.com). Likewise, the founders of YouTube said they originally set out to create a video version ..read more

I just finished reading the public radio research report “An Audience Growth Strategy for Public Media” prepared by Jacobs Media and Mark Ramsey Media for Maine Public radio service. What really stood out to me was how clearly this report shows where the future is for all traditional linear media. Linear Is In The Rear-view Mirror Broadcast radio and television – traditional media – was built on a linear program schedule, delivering to the media consumer, information and entertainment on a schedule determined by the broadcaster. The VCR (video cassette recorder) developed in 1956 became widel ..read more

When commercial radio was born in the 1920s, radio’s WHY was thought to be a technology that could provide nationwide communications that would be a unifier for cultural and social systems. Radio’s regulatory guiding principle was to “operate in the public interest, convenience and/or necessity.” When people were still trying to wrap their minds around what exactly radio would be, there was one common reoccurring theme about what radio broadcasting could do, and that was to unify a nation and create an American identity. It could accomplish this in several areas: Physical Unity: the ability ..read more

It’s been my tradition since I began this blog nine years ago to look back on the year just past and share with you the Top 5 Most Read articles over the last 52 weeks. To date, 441 articles have been published and have been viewed over 296,300-times from folks around the world; maybe you missed them or perhaps you’d like to read them again. Most Read Article of 2023 Radio’s talent pool is shrinking, and those people still working in radio are “wearing more hats” than ever with 54% of radio personalities saying that they are responsible for more than four different areas of their radio statio ..read more

Back next week with the year’s most impactful articles on DTB in 2023 ..read more

Growing up, I had a few favorite radio stations and when I think of the reasons that I was so attracted to them, the top three reasons would have been: Air Personalities Station Imaging/Jingles Music Favorite Songs When it comes to music, the number one way most people today access the songs they want to hear is via streaming with YouTube now the top source for streaming people’s favorite songs. No longer in our “I want it now” world does anyone want to wait until a radio station decides to play their favorite song, we just ask Alexa, Siri or Hey Google to play it. Gone for radio is the #3 ..read more