RBR+TVBR INFOCUS
On Dec. 13, the last group of FM stations designed for permanent silence by Norwegian government turned off their transmissions, and shifted to a digital audio broadcasting (DAB) band. The move concluded a year-long plan to bid farewell to the FM band.
An American goodbye to radio stations broadcasting between 87.7 MHz and 107.9 MHz is unlikely to be seen for a very, very long time. But, what about AM radio broadcasts?
Nonsense, most industry pundits and executives state. Even FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a true believer in the power and importance AM radio brings to America’s heartland and the most rural of areas.
That’s not the case in much of Europe, where medium-wave (MW) broadcasts between 530 kHz and 1610 kHz have been squelched for perhaps several years. In the U.K., the new year will see the end to what we call AM radio across a wide swath of Britain.
