Where Things Stand: NAB Rallies AM Listeners

Lawmakers say most car companies are noncommittal about the future of AM tuners in vehicles, so they want to require them by law to keep making cars with free AM radio. Supporters argue it is a critical piece of the emergency communication network, while the automakers say Americans have plenty of other ways, including their phones, to receive alerts and information.

The Wall Street Journal reports proposed legislation has united lawmakers who ordinarily want nothing to do with one another. Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Ed Markey (D., Mass.) are leading the Senate effort, and on the House side, Speaker Mike Johnson—himself a former conservative talk radio host in Louisiana—and progressive “squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are among about 200 co-sponsors.

“I would challenge anyone to find any issue where Bernie Sanders and heavy hitters on the right are co-sponsors. It doesn’t exist,” said Curtis LeGeyt, president of the National Association of Broadcasters.

There are more than 4,500 AM radio stations across the country, LeGeyt said, including 600 that broadcast in a language other than English. The industry group has produced ads and briefed radio personalities about the issue, and more than 400,000 listeners have emailed, called or sent social-media messages to their lawmakers, LeGeyt said.

AM radio’s decline

A spring 2023 Nielsen survey, the most recent one available, showed that AM radio reaches about 78 million Americans every month. That is down from nearly 107 million in the spring of 2016, one of the earliest periods for which Nielsen has data.

The medium has long been in decline. FM radio audiences surpassed those on AM in the late 1970s, and consumers now have even more choices with satellite radio and internet podcasts. 

Tiffany Moore, senior vice president of political and industry affairs for the Consumer Technology Association, said automakers and tech advocacy groups have told lawmakers that an AM radio requirement would be “inconsistent with the principles of a free market.”

Moore noted that her association started about 100 years ago to represent radio manufacturers. “We’ve innovated with the companies we represent. It’s all about adapting to a new environment. It’s strange that Congress is focused on a 100-year-old technology.”

Automakers say the rise of electric vehicles is driving the shift away from AM, because onboard electronics create interference with AM radio signals—a phenomenon that “makes the already fuzzy analog AM radio frequency basically unlistenable,” according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a car-industry trade group. Shielding cables and components to reduce interference would cost carmakers $3.8 billion over seven years, the group estimates.

Markey and other lawmakers say they want to preserve AM radio because of its role in emergency communications.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says that more than 75 radio stations, most of which operate on the AM band and cover at least 90% of the U.S. population, are equipped with backup communications equipment and generators that allow them to continue broadcasting information to the public during and after an emergency.

Seven former FEMA administrators urged Congress in a letter last year to seek assurances from automakers that they would keep broadcast radio available. The companies’ noncommittal response spurred legislation, lawmakers said. Automakers increasingly want to put radio and other car features “behind a paywall,” Markey said in an interview. 

Carmakers counter that FEMA’s own alert systems are designed to break in with safety alerts across multiple platforms—including AM, FM, satellite radio and via smartphone alerts—negating the need to rely on AM for emergency communications. Most Americans received the Oct. 4 nationwide test of the emergency alert system on their phones, while a tiny fraction, about 1% of the population, heard it on AM radio, according to a study by the Consumer Technology Association.