Sadly, it’s no longer big news when a U.S. radio company turns in a license for an AM station. But when Cumulus Media did so last month for WFAS in White Plains, N.Y., it also ended its experiment with all-digital AM HD Radio on that station.
In 2021 Cumulus decided to give all-digital AM a try. WFAS, a 1 kW station located just north of New York City, broadcast on 1230 kHz and could be heard in the northern suburbs of the largest media market in the United States.
Chief Technology Officer Conrad Trautmann led the conversion process; he told Radio World at the time that Cumulus worked with consultants at Carl T. Jones to redesign the existing antenna to support IBOC HD Radio. He told us soon afterwards that the conversion seemed to have added about 10 miles of radius to the signal. (Read more about that project.)
Of course when a station flips to all-digital, anyone listening on an analog-only radio won’t be able to hear its programming. So it tends to make the most sense where an AM either doesn’t have a lot to lose, or it owns an FM translator where analog listeners can still find the content. WFAS didn’t have an FM translator.
The FCC canceled the AM station’s license on Oct. 15 at the request of Cumulus. (Wikipedia has a history of that station going back to the 1920s.)
Asked by Radio World about the digital AM aspect of this outcome, spokeswoman Lisa Dollinger told me: “Cumulus’ testing of MA3, the all-digital AM HD mode, confirmed that the technology performed beyond expectations, extending the signal coverage and improving the sound quality. The all-digital test was not a factor in the decision to cease operations.”
That said, I see little evidence that the radio industry has any substantive interest in all-digital AM HD Radio at this point. I believe there are only two AM stations in the United States operating with the MA3 mode. Hubbard’s station in Frederick, Md., continues to broadcast in all-digital under the watchful eye of Dave Kolesar, though the company recently changed its call sign from WWFD to WSHE. And Crawford station WYDE(AM) in Birmingham, Ala., went all-digital last year and continues in that mode.
I invite any others to notify me at radioworld@futurenet.com.
More broadly, the FCC recently reported that the total number of licensed AM stations in the United States was 4,400 at the end of September. According to Radio World calculations, the total is down by 52 stations from a year ago, and down by 315 from 10 years ago. In the 1990s there were close to 5,000 AMs.
[Related: “WNYC(AM) 820 Set to Test All-Digital AM in December“]
