A Quest to Save AM Before It’s Lost in the Static

The digital age is killing AM radio, an American institution. Long surpassed by FM and more recently cast aside by satellite radio and Pandora, AM is now under siege from a new threat: rising interference from smartphones and consumer electronics that reduce many AM stations to little more than static. Its audience has sunk to historical lows. But at least one man in Washington is tuning in.

Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai is on a personal if quixotic quest to save AM. After a little more than a year in the job, he is urging the FCC to undertake an overhaul of AM radio, which he calls “the audible core of our national culture.” He sees AM — largely the realm of local news, sports, conservative talk and religious broadcasters — as vital in emergencies and in rural areas. “AM radio is localism, it is community,” said Commissioner Pai. Critics say its decline is simply natural selection at work, and many now support converting the frequency for use by other wireless technologies. A big sign of AM’s weakness is that one hope for many of its stations may be channeling their broadcasts onto FM. Commissioner Pai wants to eliminate outdated regulations, for example, like one that requires AM stations to prove that any new equipment decreases interference with other stations, a requirement that is expensive, cumbersome and difficult to meet. Commissioner Pai also wants to examine a relatively new technology known as HD Radio, which has allowed some stations to transmit a digital signal along with their usual analog wave, damping static. In the longer term, Commissioner Pai said, the FCC could mandate that all AM stations convert to digital transmission to reduce interference. Such a conversion, however, would cost consumers, who would have to replace the hundreds of millions of AM radios that do not capture digital transmissions.