![]() Route 195 – say they’re offering an essential service that an unusually captive audience continues to demand. While AM radio, particularly in rural areas, has felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and been branded an anachronism by car companies, those who fill the airwaves – particularly on the Palouse, where the AM band buzzes to life as you roll down U.S. In late May, Ford’s chief executive officer announced on social media it had reversed course and would provide the service in all 2024 Ford and Lincoln models after planning to remove it from some models because of higher costs and lack of listeners. That pressure, which included the introduction of legislation that would have required manufacturers to install AM receivers in new cars, appears to have made the point. Electric vehicles, growing in popularity and headed for a likely continued boom, especially with Washington outlawing the sale of new gas-powered cars beginning in 2035, create interference with a signal that can make AM transmissions difficult to hear, according to automakers. ![]() and pushed federal lawmakers to pressure carmakers who were pondering an end to AM receivers in new cars. The future of the format seemed in jeopardy just a few short weeks ago, when broadcasters convened in Washington D.C. “People are tuning in to AM because they are listening to content they can’t get anywhere else,” said Shannon, operations manager for the group that is behind six stations on both the AM and FM dial broadcasting in Moscow and Colfax. And they reach a monthly audience that’s still more than 82 million strong across the country, most of them in areas just like the Palouse, according to a fall 2022 survey by broadcast tracking company Nielsen. They’re also the reason the AM radio dial remains important in this expansive, rural stretch of the country.įM broadcasting is based on line-of-sight, but the pesky thing about AM waves is that they pass through anything, Shannon explained. The rolling, green-turning-golden hills just outside Steve Shannon’s studio window at the offices of Inland Northwest Broadcasting north of downtown Moscow aren’t just pretty to look at.
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