AM for every vehicle?

You have probably heard by now that both the U.S. House and Senate are considering a move to force automakers to include AM radios in all vehicles. The “AM for Every Vehicle Act,” introduced in mid-May, would require vehicle manufacturers to include a broadcast AM radio in all passenger vehicles and stipulates that the service be included at no extra charge. I have mixed feelings about that legislation, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Introduced by representatives from New Jersey, Arizona, and Washington, and Senators from Massachusetts to Texas, the AM bill is truly bipartisan and bicameral. It would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require auto manufacturers to include an AM radio in every vehicle. It also stipulates that the service must be included at no extra cost, so it cannot be a rebroadcast under a paid service like satellite radio. The bill also requires automakers who sell a car without an AM radio (before the new law takes place) to disclose the absence of its vital source of emergency information and encourage owners of non-am cars to seek other forms of emergency notification.

Supporters point to the historic ubiquity of broadcast am radio and its long-distance properties. The Radio Advertising Bureau estimates that there are 1.5 radios per household in the U.S., and the 2020 Census counted 123.6 million households in the country, so that tells me that we have about 185 million radios in homes alone. Vehicle registration clocked in at 278 million in 2021, and I’m guessing that most vehicles currently on the road have radios, which doesn’t include your radio at the office or the one on your beach blanket.

Let’s just ballpark it at 463 million radios in the United States. For perspective, there are 433 privately owned guns in the United States, and that’s with an anti-gun subculture that has been dedicated to getting rid of those for years. With thirty million more radios than guns, I think it’s fair to say that broadcast radio is well-entrenched.

OK. We’ve established that radios are everywhere, but why AM? Our broadcast AM bands use amplitude modulation (AM) in the HF (high frequency) range and take advantage of low, fat waves that bounce between the earth and the ionosphere. Those propagation characteristics allow long-distance broadcasts with relatively modest power, but AM propagation has the additional benefit of being subject to atmospheric phenomena that periodically (though unpredictably) allow the signal to travel significant distances beyond the normal broadcast contour.

On the other hand, our broadcast FM stations use Frequency Modulation in the VHF (very high frequency) range to provide a higher quality signal, but at a limited distance. VHF is not as dependent on “line of sight” signals as your UHF wireless internet connection is, but it’s on that same continuum that trades quality and reliability for a shorter distance. For those reasons alone, AM radio is an excellent alternative to FM broadcasts, but the sound quality is diminished, which is why AM is better suited for news, sports, and talk radio than music.

I am an admitted fan of AM broadcast radio. I have always enjoyed AM news radio content, and contrary to popular belief, it’s not all conservative talk radio. Here in Southwest Nebraska, we toss sports talk into the mix, but in other markets, there are 24-hour, straight news formats, gardening shows, cooking shows, financial news, and a variety of non-musical formats that entertain and inform. Other stations offer old radio shows from the days that broadcast AM and shortwave were the only options. Broadcast AM allows us to hear old radio shows the way they were meant to be heard, and I gravitate toward them at every opportunity. On those rare occasions that I drive at night, it’s always a special treat when I can pick up a weak signal from a city a couple of states away.

As a licensed Amateur Radio operator for more than 20 years, I am also an AM over HF fan. Although we have a very nice two-meter FM club in the area, the really cool, long-distance stuff is on the AM Bands, and I also use my ham radio to listen to broadcast shortwave stations from around the globe. Under the right atmospheric conditions, I can sit in my basement and listen to BBC’s Daybreak Africa show. That’s on the shortwave band, which is a form of low-tech, pre-internet global discourse that is generally unappreciated in history. I should also mention that my wife is in radio, so it contributes to my family budget as well as many others in our community.

Are you getting the picture that I am a die-hard AM radio fan? I am, but as much as I am invested in the continued existence of AM radio, I have reservations about the legislation. Is this something that government should mandate? Shouldn’t we let the market decide? Why would we lay that on the backs of the auto industry? What alternative technologies are we crowding out?

If the law were passed, and the life of broadcast AM was prolonged, it might still eventually go the way of the 8-track, Betamax, and the 5¼” floppy. Younger folks get their news from podcasts and as we are aware, technologies come and go. What will Congress do then? Reform the law? How long will Detroit have to bear the burden when the next wave of technology comes around? If the decline of AM is truly inevitable, the legislation would be a buffer, giving an extra decade or so for radio investors to divest, and to set a target date for developing the alternative.

It has also been suggested that the elimination of AM by auto manufacturers is a political push-back because so much of AM radio is dedicated to conservative talk radio. I doubt that. It’s actually because newer, electric vehicles create more sporadic interference than conventional vehicles, and the manufacturers know that younger generations don’t use AM as much. Rather than fix the RF issues, they drop the radio. That’s not political persecution. That’s business. I don’t like it. I would prefer that they fix it, but that’s business.

To my point of view, the truly conservative position would be to keep the government’s hands off and let supply and demand be worked out by the consumers. I know that the inclusion of AM radio is a non-negotiable for me, as it will be for others. I appreciate Congress raising awareness of the issue and hope that it elicits a positive response from the auto industry, but if conservatives practice what they preach, they will encourage Congress to keep their hands off. It’s up to us to tell auto manufacturers that we demand AM radio, and you can bet that I will, but the government should not do it for me.