National Interference Day

Have I told you that I can't get AM radio in my car? I can't get AM radio in my car.

Happy National Radio Day!

Okay, about that AM radio thing -- it's not precisely true, because there IS an AM radio in my car and I CAN turn it on and it DOES transmit sounds. I don't drive a Tesla or any other electric car in which AM radio is taboo for some esoteric technical reason I've never bothered to investigate. There's a screen and buttons and when you hit "RADIO" you get a bunch of choices, and AM is one. However, when you choose "AM," you get buzzing. Buzzing and crackling and random pops and buried deep underneath that noise are broadcast radio signals. Two of those are strong enough to overpower the buzzing, both 50,000 watt nondirectional stations with towers a short distance from here. Everything else is a rich stew of electrical interference with the occasional recognizable sliver of right-wing ranting and Dodgers play-by-play breaking through.

It's a known issue with my car. I bought the thing years ago as a lightly used car, and it's fine and everything still works well, except for the AM radio. I did some extensive research (I Googled it) and it's a problem that the manufacturer is aware of but for which it has only a hit-or-miss solution, installation of a metal strip in a spot inaccessible to the mortal car owner, and the general consensus is that it isn't worth the trouble. I did ask a dealer about it and he had no comprehension of why I or anyone else would be concerned with AM radio. AM? You have FM, SiriusXM, Bluetooth streaming, the cat trying to get out of her carrier on the way to the vet's office, so many better choices for audio entertainment than AM, don't you?

And that's why I never fixed it.

I was reminded of that the other day, when I had to run a quick errand and decided to check out what talk radio was up to that afternoon. The buzzing noise was terrible throughout, but I made the effort. I shouldn't have bothered. What I heard beneath the static was... okay, you know how I've told you that too much of traditional talk radio is so predictable and repetitive that you know what you're gonna get without even having to listen? I assumed that I'd hear a) anti-mask, vaguely anti-vaccine rhetoric, or b) Afghanistan rants. I tuned around the dial, national and local shows, L.A. and San Diego stations, and what did I get? Anti-mask, vaguely anti-vaccine rhetoric, and Afghanistan rants, none of which told me anything I hadn't already seen in social media posts. Nobody had a new thought. Some of it was shameful in its misinformation. All of it could have been scripted. Most of it was the same stuff I'd heard last week.

I'm a motivated listener, and I would put up with static or have the radio fixed if there was enough on those stations worth the trouble. There's one news-talk station with strong local programming here, and a very good all-News station, and those happen to be the exceptions to the interference problem. I can also stream them. There are a few good shows on other stations we should be able to hear in this area, but not enough of them to bother fixing the problem. I can stream what I want. Problem solved.

Also, problem created, for radio. Once I'm bumped to streaming, I have a lot more choices, Better yet, I have the choice of spoken word programming of all sorts, on demand. What I want, when I want it. Why would I bother with AM radio? For that matter, why would I bother with FM? Or satellite? If it's becoming easy to hear podcasts or streaming in my car, and it's already easy to do so at home or anywhere else on phones and smart speakers, what's the value of a radio signal?

This is why I'm happy not to own a radio license. It was once my dream to own stations; now, not so much. It's a problem if you DO own stations, and it's a problem if you saw your career being solely working for people who own stations. But for everyone else, it's a Golden Age for audio entertainment, and it'll really be golden, or platinum, or whatever precious metal you want to invoke, when the inevitable happens and the majority of the mass audience goes digital, taking the revenue with it.

How can traditional radio be part of this, besides producing podcasts itself? Simple: Do what Spotify and Amazon and SiriusXM are trying to do with podcasts, but with live radio. Create (or buy) great shows and make it exclusive to your platforms. If I know that someone's doing a great radio show and I can only get it from your station, I'll be more likely to go out of my way to get your station, on the air or streaming or, later, as a podcast. I'll even put up with the AM buzz in my car if I really want to hear you. It's like going out of your way to go to a particular fast food joint and putting up with an interminable drive-thru queue: If you really just gotta have that spicy chicken sandwich, you'll drive across town and you'll wait in line.

But you're not going to get that by doing what I heard on AM the other day. In any form of entertainment, if you can predict what you're going to get, and it's what you can already get more in a more convenient way from other media, you lose. If it's something unique and good, you win. It's that simple and we've all known it forever. Why, then, are so many shows so lazy and predictable? Are program directors paying attention? Is this what they WANT it to be? Are they concerned by shrinking cume numbers and impossibly aged demographics?

I don't know. I only know that my car radio still buzzes on AM, and I don't feel the need to fix it. Are you an AM radio talk host? It's up to you to make people like me go back to the dealer and insist that they fix that interference problem. Give me a reason to get rid of the buzz.

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By the way, Friday, the 20th, is (or was, depending on when you're reading this).National Radio Day, declared by I-don't-know-whom and, as usual, totally ignored by the industry except for the inevitable social media posts from jocks emulating Dr. Johnny Fever with long lists of stations where they've worked. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never miss an opportunity to blow your own horn. Radio consistently misses those opportunities. I'd make suggestions, but nobody's paying me to do their marketing. Okay, one hint: Putting up a canopy and table in a car dealer's lot while two bored street teamers shuffle around and a thirty-year-old boom box plays the station in the background is no way to promote what you have. Unless that's ALL you have.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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