In article <...>, ... (Geoff) wrote:

I really do think that sadly AM has really had its day and while
from
a nostalgic point of view a nice strong signal from an offshore
station would be fun. But I doubt that after the novelty wore off
it would last, unless there were rich people of the ilk of those
who kept BigL's AM on air for so long around.

I could be wrong, but I have the feeling that I sadly may not be.

As they say, you can take the man away from anoraks, but you can't take the anorak out of the man :-)

The above noted I do have the odd AM scan basically to find out how strong WS is on AM and/or Dutch stations – in the evening obviously.
I scan, listen and say Hmmmm and then move on – I don't really listen. Plus, if I have people in the car the chances are they will all complain as we go under the first high-power leccy lines – AM is killed.

The only slightly different thing is that there has been no constructive reason to go digital.
With terrestrial TV, once ITV-D got out of the way, Freeview gave people a reason to buy and it has worked – yes it has look at the figures. Digital satellite gave the same results and even with pay-TV you can see offering consumers a well planned digital service reduces churn, which means people like it.

Then look at the Net increases – the list just goes on.

Then consider that which people call the great music on AM – der, if I was listening to See Emily Play I'd rather hear it in CD quality, not a signal that means potentially I miss have the track. So if I had a choice of AM or nothing, I'd probably spend more time with my MP3 player plugged into the in-car system or damage the environment even more and make more CDs.

My point being, Anoraks love the love of AM – real people don't.
A car with AM on doesn't mean people will push the AM button. Manufacturing radio with AM on doesn't mean the car company will buy them. If they want to sell cars that appeal to 24–45 age group company car drivers the chances are it will have to have an MP3 plug-in, and today an internet connection may well make the difference when the sales-manager says 'Which Car Would You Like Chris?'. He will reply, for a huge range of reasons, that one guv.

SO if you want to encourage the next wave of listeners – Am isn't the way forward and isn't a long-term business strategy UNLESS, as I has said so many times, you are going for an older/talking audience. Then you may have 10+, but that's local and NOT a national station.

I doubt if this debate will ever cease on here until the radio spectrum is digital, then we'll have 'It Didn't Happen Like That In The Good Old Analogue Days'. Actually no it didn't. Signals didn't go away quite so quickly – they remained audible in-car even though the white noise on the signal was greater than the audio you tuned into hear. But Anoraks will carry on listening convincing themselves that above the white noise they can still hear The Crazy Frog, which anyone else around will tell them isn't the case.

Oh well

Eric