this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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I understand the benefits for emergency alerts but don't we also have WEA on phones for that same reason? Let's be honest, the only time we ever get a big one on our phones it'll either be for something terrible we have no control over, or the president announcing pee is stored in the balls.
In general, AM radio is the playground of the right wing and I'd love nothing more than to fuck them over because that's the only thing they've ever known. They'll survive on FM, sure, but as they like to say: The cruelty is the point. Emergency broadcasts can be made on FM, its not as big of a loss as we fear it will be.
This is an unhinged take. Kill off the most simple to implement and farthest travelling radio system that would be essential in the event of a nationwide blackout or other emergency (and let the spectrum get sold off to some megacorp), just to own the cons because they broadcast stuff that nobody listens to anyway?
It would be a big loss. FM does not travel beyond the horizon. AM does not require a functioning electrical grid powering the whole country and hundreds of towers linked to telecom services. AM receivers can be built with household scrap. We can get by currently with FM for emergencies, that's what NOAA weather radio is, but vast swaths of the desert and rural areas are presently left uncovered, and a nationwide power grid or telecom outage would severely impact the service.
I know it may sound crazy, but not everyone is driving around with a phone. That's why you sometimes see updatable signs on highways telling you what AM station to tune into for whatever alert it is they have to issue .
You're right that AM is mostly used by right-wing hatemongers in the US, but they will always find something else. It's not the platform that's the problem.
It's a bit funny to me that this move is coming from Japan. It's been a little more than a decade now, but I used to live in Japan, and good radio stations playing music were all over AM radio when I was there. Maybe it's regional.