What is the future of FM

gmfgmfgmf1 said:
Will streaming kill FM

I have a couple McIntosh tune tuners but rarely use them

Where I live FM station programming is poor and getting worse

Opinions?
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I think FM will continue as a viable and good sounding (when done correctly by a good engineer) unless the FCC does something crazy :(

IMHO, biggest commercial threat is lossless streaming (Tidal, etc.) but it’s expensive to stream in a car on your smartphone. As others have noted, I like being “surprised” by a new album or new artist.

I live in NW North Carolina, and have some good college stations in NC, TN, & VA to choose from.
 
Let me rise in (limited) defense of news/talk on FM. Don't get me wrong - I love music, and I regret the number of classical and jazz signals that have switched over to news/talk.

But...

The truth is NPR is now radio news, for all intents and purposes, at the local and regional level. In all but the biggest markets, commercial radio has abandoned local news, so if you want to know what's going on, and you want it from your radio, you're listening to NPR. NPR has built a very strong network of local stations across the country with lots of talented local reporters, and those reporters get a lot of training, including in areas formerly reserved for the local paper - deep dives into government records, investigative work - but now largely abandoned by newspapers.

Besides, you just learn more about more things. I keep CNN/Fox/MSNBC on in my office all day, five days a week, and they all concentrate on two or three stories, which they beat to death. At least with NPR news/talk, I stand a fighting chance of hearing other news. The world is a more interesting place than the cable newsers make it out to be.

As for the original question, dunno. As more and more "local" advertisers are bought up by big, out of town companies, and as retail collapses into Amazon versus everything else, the economics of running a local FM station get trickier. People are still making good money with FM stations, but like everything else in media these days it all feels fragile.

s.
 
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amptramp said:
What does it cost to run an FM station and how much do they take in for ads? That will determine what survives.
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For the club station I supported back in Silicon Valley (KKUP Cupertino), we made do on $100,000 a year.
That's with no paid staff but there is rent on the transmitter site and studio, electricity, FCC license fees, and office supplies. A big expense was the broken CD players that got hard use.

The station engineers were professionals who moonlighted just to do FM right.

100k is about your baseline and all from donations.
 
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I listen to two FM stations at night for jazz. NPR and WDNA 88.9 in Miami. I have tried the streaming versions, and the FM just blows them away.
Some nights I just can't pull myself away to play or watch anything else.
 
Here's my take on FM.

I don't see it going anywhere, at least immediately - the technology is dirt cheap and plentiful (virtually every car has a stereo in it, plenty of stereo gear out there, etc.), and still pretty useful for the most part - people can still receive FM broadcasts when the internet, and/or the power goes out. FM is still very practical as a whole.

But FM will need to evolve to remain relevant as a popular consumer format for discovering music - streaming offers far greater music selection than many FM stations do - at least in my area, too many of the FM stations have a habit of playing too small of a selection of songs, far too repeatedly (with only specific time blocks dedicated to deviating from this). I'd love to see more stations go back to dedicating more time to newer artists, and bringing them exposure, but perhaps finances are tight - and they feel it's safer to milk the same roster of classic rock tunes to maintain their audience than to take risks like in the past.

Personally, I hope radio stations see this and adapt to the times, as I'd rather listen to a good FM signal than a low bit-rate MP3 stream. Otherwise, FM could follow the path of AM radio and become more of a sports/news/talk source.

Only time will tell.
 
Sports/news/talk is already happening. As far as music, the larger percentage
of listening happens in cars. That's one reason playlists are so small. Most people
don't spend hours at a time listening to radio.
 
If no FM in the near future - why are ebay Kenwood tuners (as an example) upwards of $1000 ?? There won't be anything to listen too ... (analog anyway)
 
What would the average listener do? The switch to all-digital bands would be
station owner-driven. They're the ones who pushed for HD radio in the first place,
as a response to the so-called "threat" (not much of one, as it turns out) from
satellite radio. But there does not appear to be a similar will for a complete
change-over now or for the foreseeable future. I believe part of that reluctance
is from the very slow pace of adoption for the hybrid system.
 
The future of FM is so bright you must wear shades to view. There will be more music, less commercials, as advertisers figure out that a grateful public responds better to the next ten minutes of music is brought to you by Widget Sales vs the usual, loud hard-sell crap. Stations will play better, more varied music, changing formats when they notice there are no local jazz or blues, etc, stations. Good vibrations transmitted through our airways will lead to a whole new era of a spirit of cooperation throughout the nation and the world ushering in a whole new golden era of radio. Radio will then kill the video star, and singers will have to have voices, not just good (or weird) looks. Even politicians will respond, and begin keeping as much as 15% of their campaign promises. Well, maybe 8%, then. Got carried away there.
 
FauxHall said:
For the club station I supported back in Silicon Valley (KKUP Cupertino), we made do on $100,000 a year.
That's with no paid staff but there is rent on the transmitter site and studio, electricity, FCC license fees, and office supplies. A big expense was the broken CD players that got hard use.

The station engineers were professionals who moonlighted just to do FM right.

100k is about your baseline and all from donations.
Click to expand...

Great station - I always wanted to hear it and they started streaming about a year or two ago. KKUP and KFJC are at the top of my listening list.
 
Well, I'm not helping the FM cause any. Based on what I read, I just tuned to WDCB streaming and what nice music!
 
Local college station has started running Undercurrents again. NPR SQ with eclectic music selection instead of the compressed commercial same-old same-old.
 
Suggest all FM afficianados relocate to the UK,the BBC service is outstanding.I live fairly high above sea level and my old Trio pulls in a lovely dynamic signal.Radio Three BBC is just one long aural delight.
 
FM will stick around--just like AM did. I remember when everyone said that FM would kill AM, and AM would go away--and that was 40+ years ago. The "face" of AM certainly changed, but it is still here. FM is in the same boat that AM was 40 years ago--obsolete when competing with streaming, but I don't see it going away anytime soon. And most FM stations are now live-streaming via the internet, so they are still reaching a "market", so the advertisers aren't running away anytime soon either. It's just another method of distribution--net vs OTA.
 
Destructor said:
My only contact with the outside world from home is FM, I have no cable, no TV, no land line and no computer.
Click to expand...
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sangean-...l-Multi-Band-AM-FM-SW-Receiver-Black/21800524

Or

https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-010970


You need a Shortwave Radio.. .
Both of the above are Excellent because you can listen to single sideband upper side band and lower sideband ..

Many people today don't even know what shortwave radio is.
Many hours of entertainment in this Hobby searching out stations and listening to amateur radio operators.
I'm currently listening to 5.830 am like I do every morning until 9 a.m. eastern
 
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