AM Radio Being Removed From Cars
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Tesla, Mazda, Volkswagen, and BMW are no longer going to have AM radios in their electric vehicles because electric engines interfere with the sound of AM radio. Ford Motor Company, according to The Washington Post, is taking an even bigger step and eliminating AM radio from all of its vehicles, electric or gas operated.
Are we witnessing the end of a golden era? We were raised on the radio. My love affair with radio goes far beyond the time when I first came into a radio studio and sat down and punched the start button to begin to play Engelbert Humperdinck.
We were raised on AM disc jockeys. We all had our stations that were like, I suspect, baseball teams. When you meet kids from other cities their team was the Reds, another kid’s team was the Yankees, or another kid, his team was Boston. My team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, and my radio station was WAMO. It was a principally black station that played the kind of music that made sense to a bunch of blue-collar working class white and black kids. It introduced us to women and cars, and now has the time come? We no longer sell buggy whips, rotary phones, or transistor radios. Or call your favorite disc jockey on Friday night and request a song.
It’s bittersweet to read these stories. I love the promos that the radio station I’m working for now is running, asking the government to preserve AM radio. It’s like these are people who normally don’t want the government within a thousand yards of their personal lives. Now asking the Biden administration to save five thousand directional AM radio stations because they protect us.
Radio had great renewal when music went to FM for sound and fury leaving the void of what was on AM to talk radio. And a sidebar to that, it has now become dominant in sports talk and sports betting radio. A lot of what’s diminished AM talk radio is the conservative tribal approach that seems to want to exclude rather than include so many audiences.
A golden era has come, and a golden era has gone. What do we have now? What offerings are out there for us now? We are diminished.
We on this side of the microphone have long asked, “are we giving people what they want, or are we giving them what we think they want?” There’s been a whole lot of — this is what we think you want — and the ratings and revenue reflect that might not be the right choice.
With the explosion at Fox News what is to come next for CNN? Maybe radio finds its place again as others in the business have pointed out with podcasting and on-demand radio. And maybe the little engine that could, can in fact, like the wolf, survive.
But I tell you I would miss it.
— Peter Boyles
