AmateurRadio.com

The photograph, below, captures a compelling moment of technical mastery during the formative years of American broadcasting, set deep within the inner workings of the Crosley Radio operation in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 1930s. This was not just a studio but a nerve center for one of the most ambitious radio experiments in history. In the frame, an unidentified announcer sits with a quiet, practiced focus before a sensitive microphone, his presence framed by a formidable wall of equipment that served as the control interface for Powel Crosley Jr.’s broadcasting empire.

WLW, W8XAL, and WSAI

The machinery in front of him represents the sophisticated control panels for three distinct stations, labeled for WLW, W8XAL, and WSAI. These panels were the operational gateway to a signal that redefined the reach of radio. WLW, in particular, earned the nickname The Nation’s Station, and for a brief but legendary period in the mid-1930s, it was granted special authorization by the Federal Communications Commission to experiment with a massive power output of 500,000 watts. This made it the most powerful radio station in the United States, a true technological titan of the era. The signal was so incredibly potent that listeners across North America and beyond often reported hearing the broadcast under unusual circumstances, such as through the metal teeth of fillings, in the coils of mattress springs, or even through the humming of household plumbing.

Beyond the standard AM broadcast of WLW, the inclusion of W8XAL in this control room highlights the critical role shortwave technology played in the Crosley vision. While the standard AM signal was meant for domestic reach, W8XAL served as an experimental shortwave companion, designed to project the Cincinnati broadcasts far beyond the limitations of local and regional airwaves. Shortwave radio waves possess the unique ability to bounce off the ionosphere, allowing signals to travel thousands of miles and transcend national borders. Through W8XAL, the Crosley organization was testing the feasibility of true international broadcasting, turning the modest studios in Cincinnati into a point of origin for listeners located as far away as South America or Europe.

This shortwave capability was a significant leap in the evolution of mass media. It represented a deliberate attempt to overcome the geographical isolation that had defined the earlier, more fragmented era of radio. By operating on shortwave frequencies, the announcers and engineers were participating in a grand experiment to see if a single localized voice could truly become a global one. It was an ambitious pursuit that demanded even greater precision than standard broadcasting, as atmospheric conditions and solar activity could frequently disrupt the long-distance transmission path.

Working in this control room was a task that required both the poise of a performer and the precision of an engineer. Each dial, needle gauge, and switch was a critical element in maintaining the integrity of the broadcast, as the announcer had to carefully monitor the modulation levels to ensure the signal remained clear and stable for millions of listeners. A lapse in focus could mean a technical failure or a broadcast error that reached a massive, dispersed audience in real time. It was a high-stakes, high-pressure environment, yet it functioned as the primary, and often only, window to the wider world for families weathering the depths of the Great Depression.

Powel Crosley Jr. was a man of intense vision, and he understood better than most that radio was the ultimate tool for domestic and international unification. These transmitters were the engine that bridged the vast geographical distance between his studio in Cincinnati and the living rooms of families scattered across the continent and beyond. When people turned their dials to find the station, they were connecting to a piece of engineering that stood at the very cutting edge of the twentieth century. Looking at this image today, it is easy to feel a sense of awe for that era, when the simple act of turning a knob could bring the world into a home, effectively shrinking the vastness of the country and changing the way society experienced culture, news, and shared humanity forever.

With the copyright terms used by The Spectrum Monitor, my cover article in last month’s August issue is now freely available. I’ve put a PDF of the article with cover page and table of the issue’s contents over at FoxMikeHotel.com. I hope you will take a look at it if you do not already subscribe to TSM. Ken Reitz publishes a highly informative magazine in a reasonably priced PDF-only format. It’s more than singularly focused on amateur radio but the hobby sort of drives the car. At $24 a year, it is very, very reasonable.

An Op-Ed piece that I’ve written by invitation from Editor Paul McLane is scheduled to appear in Radio World soon. That is the industry magazine for radio broadcasting and associated technologies and activities. I’m sure that not everyone will agree with my assessment of where both the AM and FM radio industries are on the “death and dying” spectrum. My argument is based on publicly available data from the FCC, Edison Research and Nielsen, plus some thoughts about the industry from various outlets on the Internet. But all are publicly available.

As Paul McLane of RW and I have discussed privately, we do not have a key leading indicator of local media market prosperity available publicly. That is ad-revenue to AM stations in that market. One can license the data at some expense but not publish it. These data are indeed a bread-and-butter product of the collector. Thus, that is that caveat to my findings that this leading indicator is simply not available…unless the vendor releases it.

My argument is that even with this omission, the outcomes of AM ad-revenue within the local media market are not (yet) manifested in levels of annual shutting of AM stations or audience reach to warrant a prognosis of the death of the industry. It may be worthy to state that this might be a valid prognosis in some local media markets as my analysis shows. The famous author Stephen King’s closure of several AM stations appeared in the New York Times as a sign of the death of AM radio. As Allan Wiener, owner of WBCQ shortwave and several AM stations in Maine wrote me, this is a very struggling local media market. It is not a national issue.

The annual percent change of both AM and FM stations from my article is reproduced here. Yes, there has been about a 1% annual decline in station licenses since 2010. One percent per year. It has also been apparent that FM station licenses have been in a similar pattern of decline. Thus, whatever the local media market ad-revenue to AM stations is, FM radio is also suffering some small annual decay as well. Things are not unique to AM radio, regardless of the myriad of statements that AM is “dying.”

The alternative thesis that I show evidence supporting is consistent with Wiener’s observations. It is not a national trend but a “shake-out” in some local media markets. As I show, even after market size and audience reach is controlled, the absolute number of AM stations is a better predictor of the number of station licenses relinquished over this period of time. This also holds true for FM station closures, something that adds stronger support for the shake-out interpretation since it not unique to AM broadcasting in local media markets (called DMAs).

One question that arose to Editor Ken Reitz of TSM after my article appeared came as an e-mail letter from John Schneider W9FGH. He questioned whether the numbers were skewed by “licensed and silent” AM stations. I produced the map of L&S AM stations below using the FCC LMS for licenses tagged as such. My narrative response appearing in the September 2025 TSM issue is reproduced verbatim below in italics. I greatly appreciate thoughtful questions like this from John W9FGH, a long-time contributor to TSM and its predecessor, Monitoring Times.

My response to the Editor, published in the September 2025 issue, with a note that Ken sent me some National Radio Club information on listener reports on “licensed but silent” AM stations:

As you know, it’s important to have some basis for comparison when focusing on one narrow phenomenon so as to avoid siloed thinking. If ‘licensed and silent’ status AM stations are an indicator of ‘dying’ markets, then the FM broadcast industry is in as much or more trouble than is AM! According to the FCC’s Licensing and Management System (LMS) as this is written, there are 130 Full Power AM stations in the LMS status. But there are more (148) Full Power FM stations in this license category. These include 101 Full Power, 43 Low Power and 9 Booster stations. The upshot to me is that ‘silent’ stations have an unknown basis. Temporary financial issues, death of owner while license is active, storms putting them off the air, and so forth.

My market ‘shake-out’ thesis, which Allan Wiener seems to also embrace from his experience in a challenging media market [author’s note: see Allan’s letter to me reproduced by TSM in the September 2025 issue], would actually be buttressed if the LMS AMers are in DMAs where more outright cancellations occurred (they may be on the skids but have not lost or turned in their license yet). I produced the map which has a base of DMA-level number of AM cancellations for the years 2010-2025. The 130 AM stations that are tagged ‘Licensed and Silent’ in the FCC LMS as this is written are overlaid as points, symbolized by blue stars.

I’ve not done a tabular summary but here’s what I see here. There are few ‘silent’ AMers in DMAs with the lowest number of cancellations over the 15-year period. Most are in markets with the higher numbers of AM cancellations.

On the NRC reports, these may well be very prescient. But note that a listener report that s/he hears nothing on a given date gives preference to close-by listeners as these stations aren’t likely the Clear Channel occupants. It may be an indicant of full non-operation but it could also be temporary until it reaches the FCC list as shown above. We do not know.

Without doing the extended analysis, my take on these data is that, should I add them into the officially cancelled AM licenses, it would only make the results stronger with regard to the ‘market shake-out’ interpretation as well as point to the FM sector as having as much of a problem as does AM. The totals of another 130 AM stations would change the absolute numbers by about 3 percent, but not the conclusions.

So I hope you take the time to read the TSM article in full. We need less heat and more light on issues like this. While no study is complete enough to reach closure on the issue, it is enough to state with care and reason that there is no public evidence that AM broadcasting is dying. Rather, it is changing with several local media markets facing serious challenges to remain profitable. The same goes for FM broadcasting as my analysis illustrates.

The Departments of Communications and Continuing Education at Georgia College & State University are hosting me for a public talk on this study during their Student Media Day on October 17, 2025. We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the college FM station I founded back in 1975 as WXGC, now WGUR. If you are in the area of Milledgeville GA, you are invited to attend.