In a sign of the times, Wisconsin’s “most powerful radio station” is getting a translator as it attempts to lure FM radio listeners who rarely, if ever, go to the AM band.
In an announcement made Wednesday morning, The E.W. Scripps Co.‘s longtime News/Talk WTMJ-AM 620 in Milwaukee — a Class B with 50kw from 4 towers during daylight hours and 10kw at night from 6 towers — is getting an FM translator to “expand the programming reach” for the station.
The translator is W277CV, at 103.3 MHz. This facility is moving from Waukegan, Ill., to the heart of Milwaukee, giving it coverage of nearly all of the metropolitan area.
WTMJ is the home of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club and the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
“WTMJ is ‘Wisconsin’s Radio Station,’” said Tom Langmyer, VP/GM of WTMJ and VP of News, Talk & Sports for Scripps. “Bringing WTMJ to the FM band improves our reach in Milwaukee’s quickly developing downtown region — and with the large percentage of FM-only listeners.”
The FM translator will take WTMJ’s feed from the HD-2 signal of Scripps’ Country WKTI-FM 94.5.
RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION: WTMJ says it is Wisconsin’s “most powerful radio station.” Clearly those are empty words, since it is the latest AM station to try to expand its audience by grabbing a puny 250-watt FM to pretty much salvage its long-term future. This is “AM revitalization?” We should have moved AMs to HD Radio signals and pushed hard to get HD Radio incorporated into every car radio and home tuner on the market.
WTMJ’s signal is massive. It’s golden. And … in the year 2017 it is worth less than ever. Who cares that its daytime signal stretches from Kankaee, Ill. to Marquette, Mich.? It’s an AM radio station. Who the heck listens to AM radio?
Well, AM radio station owners, GMs and sales executives will be quick to respond that a whole lot of people listen to AM radio. They’re passionate and loyal and they are good consumers, hence the power ratios with Sports Talk, News/Talk and other key AM-favored formats.
But, let’s face it: AM radio has a death sentence and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s “revitalization” plan is a Band-Aid for a much bigger problem that masks a huge failure of the entire industry. No, we’re not talking about AM Stereo, which sounded awesome in my 1988 Toyota Camry while listening to 54 Rock out of Ottawa. By the way, that station doesn’t exist anymore. Why? Well … it’s AM radio.
This is 2017. People listen to FM, or they listen to audio streams. NextRadio, the best app no one outside of the radio industry has ever heard of, is built on FM radio. My clock radio, built for an old iPhone pre-lightning charger, has no AM band.
Aside from sports fanatics and people in big cities seeking “traffic and weather together,” AM radio has become a static-clogged home for ethnic programming, infomercials, and tourism channels. But, it is also home to big, important stations like WTMJ.
The addition of an FM translator is necessary. But, it’s not “revitalization.” Why did the radio industry not make an effort to shift all of these big AM signals en masse to HD Radio, promote it, push it, and ultimately follow many European nations into silencing AM signals once and for all? Was it to protect “stick value”? How’s that theory working out for you?
The programming that is on AM radio stations such as WTMJ is what matters, not the 50kw signal on a band of the past. AM radio’s future is in digital delivery and in HD Radio.
Or, are we living in a future fantasy and in need of a few kHz?
