"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
9 May 2004Actual end of an eraFor those of you who were wondering when Top 40 AM radio officially ended, the answer is "this past Thursday," when WQMA, licensed to Marks, Quitman County, Mississippi, ceased operations on AM and moved its programming to an FM station about 20 miles away in Clarksdale. According to Scott Fybush, who keeps track of such things, this was the last standalone AM Top 40 outlet in the nation. Growing up in the FM era, I never understood why one would wan to listen to music on AM. I can hardly stand to listen to bumper music on AM, much less a whole song. What am I missing? Posted by: Dan at 5:48 PM on 10 May 2004In days gone by, record producers mixed these tunes to pack the maximum possible punch on AM. And with the rise of FM, AM receivers have actually declined in quality; AM, given a good signal, is a decent middle-fi medium (top end can exceed 10 kHz), but today most manufacturers just throw in an integrated circuit that's good enough for voice and nothing more. |