ABSTRACT
Is AM radio on the verge of extinction? Some in the industry—not only FM operators—believe so. Over the last two decades, listeners have steadily abandoned AM; just 20 years ago, AM comfortably claimed the bulk of the total radio listening audience, but by the late 1980s, FM had three-quarters of the audience. And in January 1992, for the first time since the medium’s golden age in the 1920s, the number of AM station authorizations dropped. True, the number slipped by just three, but it’s symptomatic of the medium’s deepening malaise.
