A popular bill will force car companies to put AM radios in vehicles at no extra charge, despite decreasing interest from drivers and potential electromagnetic interference.
There was an arstechnica piece that was a bit sooner (it’s passed the house). They said 82 million people “use AM radio”. (Most of that is probably while driving.)
The argument for it is basically, that AM-radio listeners are declining and that means stations are closing up. If they remove them, AM radio peeps “loose” the largest segment of their audience.
The “concern” is that the public warning system relies on 77 of the 4.5k stations to broadcast warnings.(emergency and weather/hazard radios)
The issue here is that it’s basically bullshit. They could just buy the towers as a stop gap until better systems come into play. (Though to be fair, as old as it is, it’s pretty much the best for that kind of alert. Might be permanent.) and its really doesn’t matter- AM radio is dying; at least as entertainment ornmews services.
I’m guessing people will just start putting separate radios in their cars and use a bluetooth connector or something.
That’s fine and all, but it will just become a hobbyist thing like CB Radio…
And since funding for NPR has been significantly cut again and again by Republicans over the past few decades and is propped up almost entirely by listener contributions, it wouldn’t last a year without mandatory AM radios in cars.
I enjoy listening to NPR while I’m driving, but I doubt I would go through the trouble of buying a separate radio to keep sitting on my passenger seat or something?
And hey, guess who produces all of your favorite podcasts? That’s right, NPR.
Podcasts aren’t going to give you the latest news. Especially not the local, regional and state news that local public radio stations provide. Information you might want to know in a disaster in a place where FM radio might not reach.
There was an arstechnica piece that was a bit sooner (it’s passed the house). They said 82 million people “use AM radio”. (Most of that is probably while driving.)
The argument for it is basically, that AM-radio listeners are declining and that means stations are closing up. If they remove them, AM radio peeps “loose” the largest segment of their audience.
The “concern” is that the public warning system relies on 77 of the 4.5k stations to broadcast warnings.(emergency and weather/hazard radios)
The issue here is that it’s basically bullshit. They could just buy the towers as a stop gap until better systems come into play. (Though to be fair, as old as it is, it’s pretty much the best for that kind of alert. Might be permanent.) and its really doesn’t matter- AM radio is dying; at least as entertainment ornmews services.
I think it would be very difficult and very expensive to build enough towers to cover states like Alaska. A lot of people listen to AM radio there.
I’m guessing people will just start putting separate radios in their cars and use a bluetooth connector or something.
That’s fine and all, but it will just become a hobbyist thing like CB Radio…
And since funding for NPR has been significantly cut again and again by Republicans over the past few decades and is propped up almost entirely by listener contributions, it wouldn’t last a year without mandatory AM radios in cars.
I enjoy listening to NPR while I’m driving, but I doubt I would go through the trouble of buying a separate radio to keep sitting on my passenger seat or something?
And hey, guess who produces all of your favorite podcasts? That’s right, NPR.
Podcasts aren’t going to give you the latest news. Especially not the local, regional and state news that local public radio stations provide. Information you might want to know in a disaster in a place where FM radio might not reach.
NPR is on FM, too, and, uh, they’ve transitioned to streaming by webcast or app.
(They’ve had NPR One one for years, there’s a new NPR app that’s out to replace it.)
Like the idea of the app - hate the idea of the analytics from the app.
Like the idea of radio where there’s no analytics to collect.
NPR is on FM too.