CBS Radio News, 99 years old, to be shut down in May -- & Na Na Hey Hey, the hit that wasn't supposed to happen

CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.

America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.

The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-old news service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."

The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:

CBS News Radio To Shutter Amid News Division Cuts

CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.

And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.

So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?

Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996. 

Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.

Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.

When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup). 

Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."

And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.

When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).

But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.

WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).

WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."

But they were NUMBER TEN in the country. 

"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.

It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?

Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.

I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.

Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.

Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more. Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.

And you can add to that the stations that have left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too, including at least one college FM station in my area.

I know it's just progress, and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.

I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.

I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away. 

IN OTHER LIFE....

In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.

My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.

I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.

The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea

In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.

It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.

Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510

So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.

I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.

Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.

Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W

Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.

It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.

I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies. 

One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).

Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.

Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:

A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.

This is the LONG version. The one that was a hit on radio was a shorter edit. This video shows the Steam touring band miming to the hit. None of the guys in this video were on the record. They were a put together band to capitalize on the hit. The music, of course, is off the CD.

And with that, my friends, until next time,

Peace.

C.C., March 23rd, 2026.

AUSTRALIAN AM STATION 6WF to Leave the AM band for FM

The transmitting tower for sunny Perth, Australia's ABC radio station 6WF, which is moving from the AM band to the FM band after decades of serving Perth and a large part of SW Western Australia.

If you look closely, you can see the Perth skyline in the far background. The tower is in the Perth suburb of Hamerslsy, in the northern part of the city. 

photo from ABC.net.au

A radio station I used to listen to -- at least when they had a shortwave relay -- is leaving the AM band for FM in late February this year, after 94 years on the AM band.

6WF, Perth, Australia's main ABC Radio outlet, is being moved to FM as the ABC determines that with more and more cars being FM only, taking 6WF off the AM band is the best way to serve listeners. The switchover from AM to FM will occur on February 23rd.

6WF-AM has been on the air in the Perth region for 94 years, as the transmitter installation and tower date from 1934.

For those who don't know it, Perth is a large city of two million people on the Indian Ocean, and it's the capital of Western Australia, Australia's largest state by area. Perth is also known as the 'most isolated capital city in the world', being that it is farther from other metros than nearly every other national or state capital on the planet.

A CITY WITH AN EXTENSIVE MUSICAL HISTORY

Perth is the city where late AC/DC singer Bon Scott lived as a kid, after his family moved there from Kirriemuir in Scotland. He got his musical start there as a singer for the Valentines. The Australian rock band INXS also got their careers kickstarted in Perth (they were in Perth for 10 months, as the 'Vegetables'). The lead guitarist for the Divinyls, Mark McEntee, was from Perth, and the excellent Aussie glam rock band Supernaut were also from Perth.

I used to listen to 6WF back when I got my first good Shortwave radio, my Realistic DX-160, which was a Christmas gift. With that radio I listened to a lot of different stations, including Radio Australia, various Indonesian stations at night, 'tropical band' radio stations out of Venezuela and Columbia, and 6WF.

SHORTWAVE RELAY STATIONS FOR THE OUTBACK

How could I receive 6WF? Well, back in the day the ABC had several Shortwave outlets to serve the Outback and desert regions of the Australian interior, and being that more than half of Western Australia is desert, with a lot of isolated mining towns, other small towns and farming and other 'stations' in the interior, SW was the best way to reach those people. 

Queensland also had a Shortwave relay station, VLW4, which I think I heard once. It was used to beam ABC radio to the Outback from Brisbane. The Western Australian shortwave relay came in better here, I think because they beamed their signal more in my direction.

The 6WF shortwave relay was officially called VLW6, and their frequency was in the 31 Meter Band. One night (early a.m., actually), I heard a DJ on 6WF play a bunch of music by the La De Da's (including their cool song 'The Place'), and another night he played almost half an album by the band called Flowers, which changed their name to Icehouse.

The transmitter cable for 50KW AM station 6WF in Perth.

photo from ABC.net.au

The shortwave relay station always identified as '6WF/6WN'. The relationship between the two ABC stations I never clearly understood, but 6WF was the main one.

During the early 2000's when I discovered online radio I 'tuned in' to 6WF a few times, as by then they'd switched off the Shortwave relay.

Of course, today Australia has no Shortwave presence at all, aside from the Reach Out Australia religious station in Kununurra, in the Kimberley district of NW Australia. They broadcast religious programs to ethnic minorities in Southern and SE Asia. I posted a short article on Reach Out Australia and my hearing them a couple years ago, which you can read here.:

https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2024/05/dxing-reach-beyond-australia-hearing.html

The ABC, thanks to the Australian government, pulled the plug on Radio Australia about 6 or 7 years ago, in a move that not only saddened SWL's all over the world, but maddened rural people in the Australian Outback who depended on Radio Australia for news and information.

It's another case of governments not caring about serving people in rural areas. The US took a similar move with pulling the plug on VOA, which took America's message to rural people in Africa and Asia.

You can read the ABC.net.au article on 6WF here.:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/perth-am-to-fm-switch-goes-ahead/106343336

IN OTHER LIFE....

The weather here has taken a turn for the cold again, after a two week respite. The barometer has fallen below 30 inches of mercury, which usually means a low pressure system, which usually means more rain, which usually means higher temperatures in Winter. But that's clearly not the case.

I recently rediscovered my Dad's old barometer -- it's a Stellar brand barometer made in what was then called Western Germany. It seems to be reasonably accurate, despite its age. It's been through a bit over the years. An uncle who was staying with us in the 1980's put it in the trash in a drunken rage, and my former GF shoved it in a box of junk because she didn't know that a) it had been in my family for years, and b) I don't think she really knew what a barometer was.

I'm still not sure if you can forecast the weather by reading the changes in a barometer, but it's still cool to track it.

ON SHORTWAVE, THERE IS NOTHING ON BUT HF STOCK TRADERS

OK, I may be exaggerating here a bit, but not really. High Frequency Stock traders -- a.k.a. 'HFT' stations -- get a lot of criticism from hams and SWL's, but they really aren't taking over the SW spectrum. How can they, especially when the SW spectrum is increasingly nothing but static?

And if you look at the actual number of these HFT stations, there really aren't that many of them. Those stations do put out a pretty solid signal, though, and even when the ionosphere is DOWN, their signals still seem to be UP. At least one of them I've heard recently blasts out a massive signal.

HFT aside, radio here has been a bit dull lately. The Shortwave radio conditions have been absolutely abysmal. Last night I tuned around and there was nothing but static, a couple weak ham radio operators out of Oregon, Nevada and California that I couldn't read through the static, and a digital HFT transmission on 6838 kHz, which was around S3 out of 5, signal-wise. I have no idea where this HFT station is located. Most of the known HFT transmitters are in Illinois, but this signal is too strong for Illinois. I only know it as an HFT (High Frequency Trading) station because signals experts on HFU and elsewhere have said the 6838 Digital hash is HFT. 

One of them said that the HFT Digital signal I'm hearing on 6838 kHz, which slams all my radios with S3-S5 signals (even my little XHDATA D-221 picks that signal up -- just off the whip!), may be located in Ritzville, WA -- a small town in Eastern Washington, about 250 miles east of me, in the middle of desert and wheat country.

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EDIT to ADD: About a week after posting this article, I did some research, and I do not think the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is in Ritzville, as I've looked at the maps online and the FCC address for the Ritzville experimental station shows nothing but sagebrush, and a few curious looking spots that look like boreholes. No towers, no shadows that would indicate towers -- no powerlines, no access roads, really. 

So I don't know what it is I'm hearing on 6838 kHz. It is, so far, a mystery. It also might not even be HFT.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This begs the question: if that station is indeed in Ritzville, why is a High Frequency Trading station located in WA state, and slamming the airwaves with a signal that is estimated to be 400 KW PEP? Are they sending trading data to Japan? South Korea? Taiwan?

Who knows.

When the station on 6838 is not transmitting Digital hash, it often just puts out a carrier. There is another carrier, on 6938, that I often hear. I've not yet heard a digital signal on that frequency.

Down below the 40 Meter ham band is a lot of interesting stuff -- pirates, Indonesian chanters, Latin American fishermen, mystery carriers and military signals, Chinese OTHR, and now, apparently, High Frequency Trading stations. Of course, you'll only hear most of this when the ionosphere is UP. When the ionosphere is DOWN, you don't hear anything except the strongest signals.

And most of Shortwave is basically dead right now. And we're supposedly still in a peak solar cycle period. I'm not buying it, of course. I've said before that this Solar cycle sucks, and I think the relatively dead SW conditions back that assertion up.

EUV is down, and eUV is what makes the ionosphere ionized, and according to NASA, the ionosphere is less ionized than it was in 1995 -- eUV ionization has been consequently dropping since then, and who knows when it will come back?

I've got no idea about that.... Solutions to that problem are far above my pay grade. :-)

BACK TO MEDIUM WAVE

Consequently, I'm getting back into my first radio 'love', MW DXing. Now, the ionosphere sucking also affects the AM band, but there still is plenty to hear on the AM band, especially if you have a good radio and a loop antenna. After a night of hearing nothing but static and unreadable signals (and HFT digital hash) on Shortwave, I grabbed my trusty Sangean PR-D4W and tuned the AM band. It was like night and day. 

I didn't hear any super DX, but I listened to KOAC out of Corvallis, Oregon (550 kHz), with a BBC special on the Indian economy, and then heard some music on KSWB, Seaside OR (840 kHz) and some cool classic hits on CKOR Penticton BC (800 kHz). And it was all in high fidelity, as the PR-D4W has the best sound and performance of any MW radio I own.

You don't even really need an external loop with the PR-D4W, but a loop like the AN-200 will add a db or so, which helps with the weaker stations.

DSP SSB Radios -- they work really well

I'm working on an article about 3 DSP/SSB radios I bought last year -- the Tecsun PL-330, XHDATA D808 and Raddy RF760. My PL-330 has gotten heavy use over the past year, but I've noticed that it does overload, especially on the CB band, and when there is strong, pulse-type RFI. 

A 150 ohm resister clipped between the wire antenna and the Tecsun's whip antenna seems to have cured most of that. I'm hoping the issue (bleedover, blocking, AGC over-reacting to changes in signals, unexpected whistles here and there) is just overloading. We'll see.

I'm also working on an article about a music scene that rose and sort of fell -- the Norway pop music scene, which seemed to really put out a lot of great music ni 2014. That article will come along in 3-4 weeks.

I'll close this article with a great track by the NZ/Oz band The La De Da's, who -- when they made this track -- were headed by guitarist Kevin Borich, who then went on to have a lengthy solo career in Australia.

This is the track I heard on 6WF one warm summer night. "The Place".:

And this track by FLOWERS, the band that became ICEHOUSE, was played a few years later on, some time before 6WF's Shortwave relay went off the air. The song is 'Skin".:

This track, one of my favorites by ICEHOUSE, was not played on 6WF, but it's one of Icehouse's better tracks, from 1984, 'Sidewalk". It's got a kickass bass line and guitar chords, and really cool use of the Fairlight Computer.:

Until next time, stay warm, friends (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere). 

Peace.

C.C., Feb. 19th, 2026.

ADDENDUM, February 25th, 2026:

As I added -- in blue -- in this article, I am not sure the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is High Frequency Trading, and I'm certain it's NOT in Ritzville, WA, because I looked at the online maps -- both Google and Bing maps -- and see nothing but a flat plot of land with sagebrush at the location where the FCC license address says the Ritzville experimental station is. So I do not know what I'm hearing. But it's digital, and it's noisy, and it runs at various hours during the day, for hours at a time. The typical transmission is around 20-30 seconds of digital hash, with the beginning of it having quick 'pulses', and the ending of it having even quicker 'pulses', and there are one second stops, roughly, between the transmissions.

There are no CW / Morse Code ID's whatsoever -- something that apparently is required by the FCC for HFT stations. So this station may not be HFT at all, because in over an hour of listening to this digital racket on my DX-440 this evening, I have not heard one Morse Code ID.

So where, and what, is this station? Who does it transmit to? Japan? Asia? The Pacific in general, if it happens to be military? Who knows?

TRICK-OR-TREAT 2025, and SWLing without Up-to-Date SW Schedules

 

A blast from the past -- a pumpkin I carved for Halloween, 2010!

This was the first or second time I used a stencil I had bought with some pumpkin carving tools at a local box store. A moon and stars -- and if you look at the Jack O' Lantern at an angle, it's also a face.

Today, as I start this article, it is All Soul's Day, November 2nd, and it's rainy out. Not too cold, but dreary weather, which matches the month, being that November is the shittiest month of the year. 

Two nights ago it was Halloween. I had 15 Jack O' Lanterns out, so the front of my house and drive looked fairly cheery. I got about 11-12 trick-or-treaters -- three groups of them -- who braved the light rain and I gave them all extra candy, being that I had a couple bags of it.

I also played my bagpipes outside after the first group of trick-or-treaters left. The new reed I had in my pipe chanter held up really well, and I'm finally getting used to the easier air pressure needed to play the instrument. I played the closest thing I know that sounds 'spooky', a tune called The Dark Island. I don't know if anyone heard it, being that there were few trick-or-treaters out on the streets of my neighborhood, and it was drizzling.

Here is a piper who calls herself the Dark Isle Bagpiper, playing The Dark Island. She adds some Irish trills and plays the tune slightly differently from the way I learned it, but the basic tune is the same. She is playing this tune in Greenland, although she is based out of LA. The Dark Isle Bagpiper has played pipes on several TV shows. If you check out her vids on YT, she plays a lot of really good slow airs, and other tunes, too.

I also was fighting off a cold, so when the night was done I took some extra zinc and echinacea, and spent some time clearing files off my laptop computer before I went to bed. I've found that extra sleep helps kill colds. The zinc tabs help, too.

WRESTLING WITH CONSTANT UPDATES

My computer is over 8 years old, and it needs a lot of older files removed, because the hard drive is getting full -- not just full from my files over the years, but the endless plethora of mostly useless, bloatware updates all have been gradually filling my hard drive with their code.

For the life of me, with all the gigabytes of updates that slam my computer a few times a month, nothing seems to run better. All those 'improvements' never really improve anything. Some of the updates were AI-related programs I didn't ask for, and don't want on my computer because they just take up resources and I never use them.

They always say the updates are for security, but do you really need to slam someone's computer with multiple gigabytes of updates over a period of several months, just for security? How many gigabytes does it take to make a program, app, or OS 'secure'?

Oftentimes, when the updates are kicking in, my computer slows down. I'll hear my hard drive being slammed. In fact, I just heard my hard drive being slammed as I was typing this sentence, and -- looking at Task Manager -- it was another bunch of bloatware updates trying to cram into my laptop.

I'll spend several hours removing files onto a USB drive, and soon enough, the various, bloatware updates will fill it right back up. So far over the past several days, I've cleared off over 2-3 gigabytes of space, only to see it quickly filled by update bullshit.

It's maddening. And it isn't just the company that made the OS. Both browsers push their updates, and a PDF reader's updates slow my computer to a crawl when they kick in. I'm figuring out how to stop all updating, because frankly I don't think they make the computer any more secure, and they definitely don't improve anything.

So it's been an ongoing fight with the software companies, whose 'business model' seems to be to piss off as many people as possible.

NO REAL PLANS, EXCEPT GET THROUGH NOVEMBER

As for the rest of this month, I really don't plan on doing much aside from continuing to straighten out finances and get through November, which is a cold, rainy, dreary month. And, frankly, Novembers are months where people in my family, extended family, and several of my cats have died. Not good overall.

CQ Magazine's DX 'Zones', which ham radio operators use during the big radio contests.

DX HAS BEEN TOUCH AND GO...

On the radio and DX side of things, the ionosphere has been touch and go lately. The past couple days have been mediocre, and the week or two before that, there were a few good mornings and nights to switch on the radio and tune around.

A couple weekends ago, there was a ham radio contest, the biggest contest of the year, the CQWW contest, where ham radio operators all over the world try to contact as many other hams as possible, in as many ham radio 'zones' as possible. 

I tuned in during the morning after it started, and the HF ham bands were quite lively. Even 15 Meters had a considerable amount of activity, which was a pleasant surprise. 15 Meters used to be a popular ham band. I recall hearing LOTS of activity on 15 Meters during the summer afternoons in the early 1980's. That's when I heard A7XB out of Qatar. But ever since the last Solar Cycle died off in late 2017, 15 Meters has never been the same. Most afternoons I'd tune it in during the peak year last year, 15 Meters was like 12 Meters -- mostly a ghost town.

Even 20 Meters is not what it used to be. Every Saturday afternoon 20 Meters used to be wall to wall CW and SSB signals, invariably, with most of them splattering on each other. This recent CQWW contest was the first time I've heard 20 Meters so packed in ages. It reminded me of how the band used to be on a typical weekend afternoon.

It was refreshing.

WHEN SW SCHEDULES CHANGE OVER, YOU GET CREATIVE

This is also the time of the year when SW DXers have to be creative when figuring out what they are hearing. Most SW broadcasts anymore are in non-English languages, so even if you can ID the language, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can understand what's being said. So you have to listen to the TYPE of broadcasts, and tone of it. Does it sound like news? A feature? An interview? Does the programming match the BBC, or CNR-1, or NHK?

And the online SW schedules are a bit off, because it takes some time for their creators to compile the new broadcast information, because the end of October is when SW stations all change their schedules.

So, you get creative. The other morning, I heard Japanese on 7380 kHz (at 0522 UTC), that sounded like NHK. But neither EiBi or Short-wave.info had ANY Japanese programming listed that frequency and hour. I was sure it was NHK in Japanese, but had no schedule info to back up my suspicion.

So I went to Short-wave.info and used the 'Any Station' dropdown and 'Japanese language' dropdown, and I found out that NHK had a regular broadcast in Japanese to SE Asia during that hour. They had moved their frequency lower to the 41 Meter Band from the 25 and 21 Meter Bands because the 41 Meter band is more of a Winter SW band.

Remember, SW listeners -- there are ways to find out what you're hearing, even if the SW lists online are getting out of date. ID the language. LISTEN to the programming, even if you do not know the language! Does it sound like CNR-!? Does it sound like the BBC? Does it sound like NHK? 

A lot of American SWL's bitch and gripe about most SW being in non-English languages. But griping about most SW being non-English is backwards thinking. A lot of the non-English programming is pretty cool to listen to -- and even if you don't understand the language, it doesn't mean you can't ID the station or the program.

I've learned to ID non-English languages, and find it challenging. I also have learned that a lot of the non-English stations play really cool music -- music I'd never hear on US radio. Japan has some really cool soft pop-rock hits from the 70's that NHK plays. I've heard some great K-pop on KBS World Radio. CRI plays some great music, too. And a lot of SWL's poke fun at Radio North Korea, but the music they play is interesting, and very well made -- their musicians are excellent.

I've heard really cool stuff on CNR-1. They have kids' programming over the weekend mornings (evenings, China time). Imagine that: a radio company that cares enough about kids to program a radio show for them. Doesn't happen here in the US or Canada. The last radio company that catered to kids -- Radio Disney -- pulled the plug completely in 2019.

But CNR-1, China's national broadcaster, that has numerous transmitters on SW, has a radio play or storytelling episode for kids that you can hear during the mornings, US time, every weekend.

American DXers and SWLs, open your ears!

MORE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS NEAR THE 40 METER BAND

The only other radio 'catches' of note have been mystery carriers -- dead signals that have appeared over several nights just below the 40 Meter Ham band.

I've logged a dead carrier at 7000 kHz over several nights and mornings, and others have shown up on 6988 kHz, 6938 kHz, and more recently, 6979 kHz.

What the purpose of these dead carriers -- if any -- happens to be is a good question. No one in the SWL community seems to know. The dead carriers don't get mentioned much online, but there have been some SWL's on HFU (HFUnderground) who have logged them.

I also heard a single letter beacon on 7057 kHz, a continuous 'F' being sent, and it was very weak in strength. I haven't heard it since. Most 'single letter beacons', which are continuous repetitions of the same letter in Morse Code, are associated with the Russian military, particularly the Russian Navy, and their frequencies are well known, and appear in many SW lists. But this 'F' beacon on 7057 is a mystery.

There are a lot of such strange oddities in the SW bands. You just have to tune around and listen to catch them.

MYSTERY RANCHERO MUSIC ON 1560 kHz

One other 'mystery' signal wasn't as bizarre as a Morse Code blipping away in the ether, or a dead signal, but I heard a mystery ranchero music station on 1560 kHz last night (the night of the 3rd) beaming mostly North-South.

Usually on 1560 I hear a mix of just two stations -- KNZR Bakersfield, which is a news-talk station that comes in with varying strengths, and KVAN, Tri-Cities WA, which is a Spanish language religious station. This station was neither.

The only ranchero station on 1560 is a daytimer, KIQS, Willow, California -- but when I checked their stream, it was not the same music as what I was hearing on the radio. And KVAN does NOT play ranchero, nor do they have rapidfire announcements and advertisements.

A view from Interstate 5 not too far from Montague, California. Much of the far north of California looks like this -- green and golden ranch country.

pic courtesy Dreamstime

MONTAGUE, CALIFORNIA CHECKS IN ON LONGWAVE

Last but not least, the past few evenings I've gotten really decent catches of a Longwave beacon out of Northern California -- MOG, out of Montague, a small town not too far from Yreka, which is the first city you hit on I-5 after crossing the Oregon/California border.

I recently got an XHDATA D808, and it's great on Longwave. It's possibly my best Longwave radio. That said, there isn't much on Longwave anymore -- the few aeronautical beacons are disappearing. The maritime Longwave beacons disappeared years ago.

But it's great to hear MOG, beeping away.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll close this article with another old Halloween pic. I couldn't take any on my phone or camera because their memories are also full and need to be cleared.

A pumpkin I put in my tree, on Halloween 2023.

Peace.

C.C., November 4th, 2025

Auroral DX on the MW/AM band! OCTOBER 14th & 15th, 2024

My Realistic DX-350A, which for a few years in the 2010's was my mainstay MW DX radio, in front of my Crate loop I made in 2011. I still DX with the DX-350A maybe once or twice a month.... Radios are meant to be played.

Dear Readers: Here is a blog article I'd forgotten about -- I wrote it after a flurry of MW Auroral DX, where the ionosphere makes MW distance listening interesting by boosting signals from Southern US regions. Sorry for the delay, but here 'tis. 

Recently, as even non-radio hobbyists know, we've had a flurry of Auroral activity in the Northern Hemisphere (where there was any in the Southern Hemisphere I don't know -- it obviously didn't make the news here).

When there is Auroral activity, sometimes the Northern Lights show up as far south as the northern tier of US states. And the Shortwave and Mediumwave radio bands are affected as well. The extra solar radiation zaps the ionosphere and makes it absorb radio signals instead of reflect them back to Earth.

The overall effects of an Aurora can vary -- usually there are 'radio blackouts' (as just described). You'll hear distant signals on the SW or MW bands get weaker and weaker as the Aurora hits -- or you'll turn on your radio one night and there's nothing but grainy sounding static.

This happened recently. About three nights ago I turned on my Realistic DX-394 and tuned the SW ham bands. There was very low activity, and as I was tuning through the 40 Meter ham band, any and all signals just faded down to nothing. It was the same thing with the 30M ham band, and the 20M ham band.

The Shortwave broadcast bands were mostly dead. 49 Meters had non-existent audio for WRMI, WWCR, and Radio Marti was barely audible in the grainy static. A couple other stations that are usually on during the evening -- Radio Educacion on 6185 kHz, and Nikkei 1 and 2 on 6055 and 6115, were extremely weak carriers that even the BFO barely made audible -- you had to listen for them.

MW was like a poor summer night.

Then, after a day or so, the Aurora dissipated. When that happens, often it's a fun time to DX the AM band, because here in the PNW US that means that California, Nevada, and sometimes Mexican radio stations will show up!

On the night of the 14th, it was exactly that way. Some Northwest mainstays like KOAC 550 (Corvallis Oregon), KXTG 750 (Portland, Oregon), CBK 540 (Saskatchewan), KONA 610 (Pasco, Washington), and other regional stations were completely gone, replaced by other weaker signals from further south, or just static.

KXTG 750 was missing -- 750 kHz was just static. KOAC 550 (normally always dominant on 550) was gone, replaced by a very weak KARI Blaine WA (about 150 miles north of me), and 

The next night, the AM band returned at least partly to normal. KOAC 550 was in with Oregon Public Radio news, but conditions overall were a little different from normal. Some regular stations weren't in well, and I heard a few California stations much, much better than normally!

On 1270 kHz, I heard KXBX Lakeport, California with Classic Hits, and I also heard KBZZ Reno with Classic Rock and a full, "92.5 The Hawk!" ID! (Actually, they're called "The Hog"). I haven't heard KBZZ since it was a sports station back in the early 2010's! I also heard KEAR 610, a religious station out of San Francisco that plays soft music and hymns at night, and KLBS Los Banos, California, was in on 1270 also! They have Portuguese language talk and music, serving the Portuguese speaking people in the San Joaquin Valley of Central California.

A pic of my Sangean PR-D5 during better days, when I was Solar Eclipse DXing in August, 2017.

MORE ADVENTURES WITH MY SANGEAN PR-D5

As many of you may know, I have one of these Sangean radios that are known for being really good on MW/AM. Sangean PR-D5's are like mini-boomboxes, which also have an AUX IN so you can plug your phone or tablet into the jack and listen to streaming in stereo. I used to listen to Norway's NRK Norske Folkemusikk channel all the time on my PR-D5 that way.

I also discovered a button pressing glitch that seemed to occur on my PR-D5 after the radio had been powered up for several months. It seemed that the constant powering of the radio -- which kept the microprocessor working in the background, waiting for the Power button to be pressed -- would cause the microprocessor's firmware to read the buttons oddly. 

For example, I'd have to press the Power button several times to get the radio to recognise that I was pressing it. Sometimes I'd press a button and an entirely different function would occur (like I would press a memory channel button and the PR-D5 would switch from AM to FM instead).

I discovered the fix out of frustration. I pulled the batteries, and pulled the plug from the AC wall adaptor, and reset the radio that way.

The re-set worked. The radio's buttons started working normally. A few years later, sometimes the re-set wouldn't completely work. I found that pressing the Power button after de-powering the radio did the trick.

I wrote an article about this button issue in 2017 or so. Here is a link to that article, where I go into more detail about it. Other PR-D5 owners who had the issue also found that the re-set fixed their radios.:

Interrock Nation: How to quickly fix a SANGEAN PR-D5 Power Button malfunction -- and other easy fixes

Recently, that hasn't been working 100%. I finally resorted to spraying contact cleaner down the side of all the buttons a couple times, working them after each spray. I wiped the excess off the front of the radio with a paper towel.

Presto! The radio acts like new again.

It appears that if your PR-D5 has been sitting, unused, for several months (I hadn't used my radio in probably a year, using my Superadios in my writing Den instead), the buttons can either oxidise, or they need to otherwise be exercised to work properly again.

NOW, these fixes may work on many of the Sangean AM-FM only radios. I have experienced these button glitches with my PR-D5, PR-D14, PR-D18, and a couple times my PR-D4W even acted up. It's obvious that something in their firmware can develop these button glitches over time. 

The buttons are fine, the radio circuits and 'brain' are all fine, it's just that the firmware will act up if it sees continuous power for too long.

And the buttons themselves either need exercising (i.e., actual use) or they may need a shot of contact cleaner down the side of the buttons now and then. And periodically re-setting your radio (depowering it completely, letting it sit for 15 seconds or so, and maybe pressing the power button to clear the residual charge in the microprocessor) is probably a good idea, too.

This was another article sitting dormant, that I had forgotten I had written. So here it is, nearly two months late. Better late than never.

I still am finishing the article on the mediocre Solar Cycle 25. I have been sitting on that one for almost a year. Here it is, December, during a 'peak year', and the SW DX conditions are mostly crap and MW DX conditions aren't anything like they were in 2011-2014.

So, it's time to publish that article, being that my assessments of Solar Cycle 25 turned out to be very accurate.

I shall get that article out within the week. 

Peace,

C.C. 12-18-2024

So Long ESPN Yakima, 1460 AM -- And What It Means For Radio

What's on the radio? There is still a lot to hear, but with each year, there seems to be less and less stations on the airwaves.

As I write this, we here in the Seattle area are experiencing a slight respite from the freezing weather we had for the last two weeks. It seemed that since the last half of November every time I went out onto the porch to check my thermometer was 25 degrees F (-6C or so) outside. And that cold snap seemed to continue through most of December as well.

We're now in Solstice, the shortest day of the year, and -- consequently -- the longest night of the year. In theory, this is the best time for MW/AM and SW distance listening. The reality is not quite so rosy, but there still is a lot to hear on your radios. You just gotta turn them on and tune around!

But the cold! 25 degrees F is Brrrrrrrr! cold.

That said, I have been doing a considerable amount of DXing over the past few weeks, and there have been some changes to the MW dial here in the PNW at night.

The changes haven't been all positive. And looking at some of the changes, once again I feel the need to opine on the state of the industry that once put food on my table: the Radio industry.

But first -- the changes!

CKJR Wetaskiwin, Alberta -- about 30 miles from Edmonton, has good coverage of the Edmonton metro, and some sports talk hosts in the area decided that Edmonton still needed a sports radio station.

SPORTS TALK COMES BACK TO EDMONTON!

The first major change concerns Edmonton, Canada -- my mother's birthplace. After Bell Canada got rid of Edmonton's sports talk station CFRN 1260 early in the year, when they got rid of 6 or 7 AM stations, another radio company has decided to deliver Sports Talk to Edmonton!

CKJR 1440, which was an oldies and Punjabi station for a few years, has been flipped to Sports Talk. They are now a Fox Sports station, and they apparently have at least a couple local Edmonton shows, too. One of the people behind CKJR's move to sports was a CFRN talk host, who thought that Edmonton still needed a sports talker in their market.

Although CKJR is located in Wetaskiwin, a smaller city maybe 30 miles / 40 km south of Edmonton, at 10KW they do get out OK, and hopefully Edmonton sports nuts will tune in and listen. CKJR does come in well here in Seattle during the night, especially if conditions are good from Canada.

Here at my location CKJR usually dominates the 1440 channel, although KVON, Napa, California is often heard behind them with an interesting mix of Spanish language AC music hits (AC is a radio format that is a combination of pop and soft ballads, and the Spanish language market has their own variety of such hits).

KMED's last logo where they promoted their AM station on 1440. When they were KYVL they didn't have a logo that I am aware of. KYVL, which simulcasted KMED after KMED went FM only, just lasted a couple months at best.

SO LONG KMED AM 1440

KYVL / KMED, Medford, Oregon, which used to dominate 1440, has been MIA. Although the station is, or was, officially KYVL, they were known as KMED for almost 100 years.

I understand that the signal was permanently taken off the air. The Wiki on KYVL 1440 says it is "Silent". That's too bad, because it was fun to hear Medford on my radio. The only other Medford station I can usually hear is KRTA 610, which plays Regional Mexican music (often called "ranchero" by DXers).

I really like the area of Southern Oregon where Medford and Ashland are. It's one of the reasons I enjoy hearing stations from that area. One of the better ones is KAJO, 1270, Grant's Pass, Oregon, a decently large city on the Rogue River maybe 20 miles from Medford. The weather in the Rogue Valley is moderate -- a lot drier than Seattle, but greener than the Eastern halves of Washington and Oregon, which are desert-like. It's a really nice place to visit, and being that they're further south than Portland or Seattle, the cities of Medford, Ashland and Grants Pass get a lot more sun, because it's higher in the sky.

KRLC's last logo -- the LC stood for "Lewiston-Clarkston"

Another AM station that's had its plug pulled is KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho, which used to dominate 1350 kHz. I noticed that it wasn't present in local 1360 KKMO's ranchero splash several nights in a row, which was unusual. Then I went online and found out that the owners had pulled the plug.

Lewiston is a nice area. It's on the Snake River, and there are a lot of orchards there, and it's near the Palouse wheat region in WA and a similar wheat region just south of Lewiston in Idaho. Right across the Snake River is Clarkston, in Washington -- it's Lewiston's 'twin' city. The climate is somewhat desert like, and it's an interesting place, with maybe 40K people in the two cities combined. For those oldies music enthusiasts, the song "Hot Rod Lincoln" was written about a real hot-rod race that took place in the 1950's on the switchbacks on Highway US 95, just north of town. You can see some of the switchbacks in the pic below.

Lewiston, Idaho from the north hill on US Highway 95. Clarkston, WA is to the right side of the pic, in the distance. Photo from Wikipedia.

By Iidxplus, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2452755

KRLC used to be a Top 40 station back in the 1960's and 70s, and then went Classic Country. I used to hear it nearly every night when I got back into MW DXing in 2011, and even during the crap DX conditions after late 2016 I would hear KRLC most nights.

Now it's off the air forever -- another AMer that can't pay the bills to make it worthwhile to operate apparently.

Some celebrate this sort of thing. Even some MW DXers online celebrate this 'culling' of the band. I never have.

ESPN YAKIMA 1460, R.I.P!

Recently, there has been yet another station that used to dominate a MW channel here, 1460, that is no longer on the air: ESPN Yakima, KUTI. ESPN Yakima was generally a friendly standby -- a station I could hear nearly any night, and a couple times I could even hear them during the daytime as well. About two weeks ago I noticed they were MIA. Every night I'd tune in, and I would hear nothing but a very weak KION, Salinas, California, and maybe a little bit of the ranchero station that broadcasts out of Santa Rosa, California, KRRS.

Now, I like hearing California at night, especially when it's cold weather time here in Washington state. But I wondered what was going on with ESPN Yakima? Their Wiki said they were still on the air. The website seemed to still be intact, also.

Earlier this week another DXer online, who lives in Central Washington, informed me that ESPN Yakima is off the air permanently. I guess they don't care much for national sports in Yakima? Sports radio generally does well, and the sports stations don't need much in ratings to sell advertising. But the radio advertising revenue is not what it used to be, and I suppose the owners just decided to pull the plug on KUTI.

Checking out ESPN Yakima's website, it still exists, but there is no streaming button that I can see. It's a page with a table full of news, sports-news, and some infotainment story thumbnails. 

Here is a link to their website:

1460 ESPN KUTI – Yakima's Sports Station – Yakima Sports Radio (1460espnyakima.com)

There is a link to download their app. What their app does, I wouldn't know. Maybe it's the ESPN radio app. It claims to play 1460 ESPN Yakima. They also promote their Alexa stream. Which begs the question: what about commuters in cars and trucks? The ones who apparently use radio the most?

I suppose they are either going to use the app, connect their phone to their soundsystem via Bluetooth, or you won't hear ESPN Yakima.

This is an indication of the future of radio: it's heading online.

PERSON TO PERSON, VIA THE RADIO -- A DECLINING TREND

The demise of 1460 KUTI is sort of sad, because when Mt. St. Helens blew up in May, 1980, I remember listening to this station that night, when the Yakima region was covered in several inches of volcanic ash. A DJ on the station (then called KMWX) was telling the listeners not to despair. "We can beat this thing!" he said. Of course, he was right. But it was interesting hearing the DJ encouraging the listeners to keep the chin up -- there might have been ash everywhere, but all was not lost.

It was a case of radio being used, person to person, live and local communication. Something the radio industry no longer values, because -- according to their beloved research -- the listeners no longer value it. Of course, research shows that listeners no longer value radio all that much, either -- especially the younger demographics, under age 30. The internet has changed everything to a form of 'content.' 

Some of the radio people out there treat the demise of stations like ESPN Yakima with a yawn, like "so what else is new?" Some even have a smug, 'good riddance' attitude towards this station, and other similar stations' demise. They refer to AM stations like ESPN Yakima and the former KMED/KYVL 1440 Medford as "dogs", stations that companies want to get rid of.

And these same experts seem to embrace streaming to a bizarre extent, almost viewing it as being this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that -- compared to modern day OTA radio -- will be just like pulling the arm on a slot machine and getting nothing but jackpots. There will be no transmitters, no antennas to deal with, no STL's, less hardware -- you'll just curate playlists, put them online, and make tons of money!

American author John Steinbeck's seminal novel The Grapes Of Wrath. The book was set in the 1930's, when the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression wiped out family farms in places like Oklahoma. Poor farmers, kicked off their land, drove West to California in old, teetering jalopies like the one pictured on the book cover. The poor farmers thought that California would be a land of dreams, but for many of them it was a place where they were either used, left to go hungry, or otherwise were not wanted. The book is a must for anyone who wants to understand how the Great Depression affected a lot of Americans. The 1940 movie of the same name, even though it is in black and white, is a classic.

NO POT OF GOLD, NO ENDLESS JACKPOTS EITHER

It's almost like reading John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath, a classic American novel about the plight of Oklahoma Dust Bowl refugees seeking work and a new life in the agricultural areas of California in the 1930s. Early on in the book the grandpa is enthusiastically talking about how awesome it would be once they get to California, where he's going to eat grapes all the time and even splash in a tub full of them. Of course, the reality in the story turns out much different. The grandpa dies before they even get to California, and the family starts to starve (because the California farmers at that time treated Okies like trash), and the oldest son, Tom Joad, ends up on the run from the police. The ending of the book is quite dim. 

Reality often doesn't turn out to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

In the same way, the reality that hits radio, once it goes 100% online, will be different also.

The majority of radio experts I read and/or interact with seem to be out of touch about this. These guys obviously know radio. There is absolutely no doubt about that. But online streaming is not radio. Online streaming is digital, internet-based audio content distribution. It's a completely different animal. It's a completely different industry, really, and the market dynamics are different, too.

So, even though many in the radio industry embrace the demise of AM stations like KUTI, KRLC Lewiston, and KMED/KYVL Medford as "dogs", just junk, yesterday's trash radio to be discarded, soon enough, it will happen to all of them. AM, FM, TV, Satellite -- it's all headed in the same direction: Online Content. 

And thousands of radio (and TV) people will eventually lose their jobs.

Actually, all of them will.

I don't give the radio industry much more than 20 more years.

Streaming on your radio, the old fashioned way. Back in 2014 -- when I took this pic -- I used to stream several different online radio stations on my Sangean PR-D5, using the AUX IN jack. I listened to KBRE the Bear, NRK's Norsk Folkemusikk and P3 channels, and a few others. It was fun. It was like tapping into the future of radio.

Then I lost interest. Some of the online platforms, like TuneIn, would have dead links, thanks to geo-fencing, and I just tired of having to lug my tablet or phone around and plug it into the radio. I never got into the earbuds / phone thing, either. Either way, this method of streaming -- using a device to stream a radio station's website, has taken second fiddle to just using an online playlist app like Spotify or Pandora. It's a brave new world for what we call "radio".

THE RADIO INDUSTRY LEADERS SIMPLY DON'T GET IT

I hang out at a lot of radio forums, some of which are populated by radio professionals. These are the guys who run the stations, run the networks, fix and install the equipment at the stations we listen to. They also are involved in the business side. They are very knowledgeable people.

Many, if not most of them know the listenership stats: a 50% drop in listeners ("persons using radio") overall since 2008, when the Portable People Meter was introduced. In 2000 the percentage of "persons using radio" was around 18 to 20%. When the more accurate PPM was introduced in 2008, that percentage dropped to 12%, and it's 5% now -- barely 16 years later. 

Here's an article on how one radio personality lost audience due to the introduction of the PPM. The article talks about some of the controversies surrounding the use of the device to measure radio audiences.:

The Queen of FM Fights for Her Throne (bloomberg.com)

LOSING AUDIENCES, BUT WHAT NEXT?

The experts definitely understand the writing on the wall. They all have seen the numbers, and are aware of radio audience research.

Yet, they seem to have their heads in the sand when it comes to radio's actual future. On one hand, they admit that the internet is the future. Everything audio is headed for streaming. Streaming is already the dominant music consumption model, and increasingly it's becoming the dominant non-music, audio delivery model. The experts all know this, and admit that this is happening. In that they are correct.

But what they don't understand is that once your content is completely internet based, you instantly have infinite competition for the same couple of device screens. And you also have nearly infinite competition on whichever streaming platform you are using to deliver your audio entertainment. 

Indie book authors already deal with this effect on just the one or two dominant retail platforms they use to sell their books. Once you put a book up for sale, your new book is instantly in competition with 5-6 million other books on the platform, with thousands of new books being added daily -- all dependent on search algorithms, and all of them competing for screen time. As an author, you may have over 5-10K competing books in your own genre. And -- as said before -- you are also dependent on the platforms' search algorithms.

In one of my book genres, I have at least 5K other authors I am competing against. Maybe 2-3K of them are no longer active. But that leaves maybe 1000 authors whose works are competing with mine. Most of them probably have more than one book out there. Many have 30-50 books or more.

That's in just one genre. 

This is how it is when you are an online content creator / marketer. Your competition is MASSIVE.

You are competing with thousands of other creators. And you are completely dependent on search algorithms. And EVERYTHING is Visibility. In the case of radio, of course, they're not necessarily content creators -- they are also music curators, but the same basic rules apply. 

They are the middleman. Right now, because people still listen to FM and AM radio, they can still make money as middlemen.

But who needs the middleman anymore? Record companies are discovering that fact already. Musicians bypass the middleman. Curators? Gatekeepers? Who needs them?

But -- ignoring that trend, let's look at the next 10-15 years from the standpoint of your average radio company.

If you are running a radio company, and you already have your own dedicated streaming radio website, or channel, your streaming site is already in competition with a gazillion others, worldwide. And what is keeping your station's streaming website visible is your Over-The-Air station, which is sending listeners to your streaming site.

Remove the Over-The-Air station, your visibility is going to drop. You'll be dependent on whatever big tech platform's search algorithm pushes or dodges -- or ignores -- your content channel. Good luck on that. Chances are high that you will be as vital locally as your local #2 or #3 newspaper that maybe went online in the 2010's. I.e., a massive drop in viewers / listeners, lots of clickbait to try to bring in some revenue, etc.

Even if you try to market your own 'streaming app', you are already in competition with a gazillion other apps people will load on their phone's tiny little desktop screen, and then instantly forget about, or move aside, once they load the next one.

Today, if you have a radio station, you maybe have 10-20 competitors in your market. Once you're online-only, you have competition from every other form of internet audio and visual content available -- millions of channels, from all of the channels on Spotify and Pandora, to YouTube channels, to Instagram, to X content 'channels', and even to the thousands of content 'channels' on sites like OnlyFans -- the choices are literally infinite.

And they are all competing for the same one or two screens.

While it's true that -- in a sense -- Radio is already competing with these other, internet based media, once the antennas and transmitters disappear, all bets are off. Your prime source of visibility promotion is gone. You are now completely dependent on the platform, and many stations are already dependent on big platforms for their streams -- TuneIn, IHeart, Audacy, etc.

I've been in convos with some of these expert radio guys about this particular aspect of "radio's" future, and they just don't seem to get it -- they don't seem to be taking the negatives of online-only seriously. 

They seem to think that 'you just build it, people will come' (a paraphrase from the movie Field Of Dreams). But this isn't a baseball fiction movie. This is internet business. And Visibility Is Everything. 

The Radio folks see the future implications, to a certain extent, but the negatives to what remains of the Radio industry are not on their radar screen. They're all caught up in the exciting new technology, but the marketing aspect of it -- i.e., facing all that internet competition -- is not apparent to them. Not yet.

Maybe they don't need to: by the time everything goes 100% online, those guys will be long retired.

But I fear that radio's days in general are numbered. If Dereg 1996 slashed radio jobs by 50% or more, as some seem to think, the move from Over-The-Air radio to online-only will finish off the other 50%. Right now, a lot of stations have their streaming websites, but by 2050 there won't be many, if any, of those radio sites active. They will be reduced to some 'channel' on a large streaming website, and the revenue simply won't support them. The ad revenue really isn't supporting them enough now. Subscription rates only can go so high before people balk at paying for them. And digital music royalties aren't going down. 

Right now, the big streaming sites are still mostly in the red. If they can't make money now, how is podunk online radio going to in a few years?

RADIO: LOOKING AT THE CLIFF

So the entire industry is looking at a cliff, and the movers and shakers, who apparently haven't dealt with online content marketing to the extent that I have, as an indie author, really are in for a rude awakening when they go all online and pull the plug on their AMs and FMs completely -- which the experts admit eventually will happen, sometime later this century. I would say 2040-2050 -- when the older Millennials start to "age out" -- will be the breaking point for that to occur.

They're all going to lose their jobs. The revenue won't support them.

Some of the experts on the radio forums disparage AM stations for running what they think are wonky and questionable ads -- for ED medications, gold and hard assets investments, insurance, timeshare removal, alternative medicines, etc.

But take a listen to your local FM station sometime. You'll often hear the same sorts of ads. I even hear them on highly rated, local FMers -- spots for ED meds, timeshare removal, alternative medical procedures, hair transplants, dental implants, pay as you go cell service, etc. At least two highly rated local FMers run these sorts of ads. It's not just for AM talk radio anymore.

Radio in general, even today, is desperate for revenue. I don't think the online model is going to save the industry in the future. It will be nails in the coffin once the antennas come down and the transmitters are recycled into beer cans.

Even so, as a MW DXer and radio fan, and as one who worked in the industry for nearly 20 years, it's sad to see stations go off the air. 

A bird's eye view of Yakima, Washington -- sometimes known as the "Palm Springs of Washington" because of its generally sunny and dry climate, especially during the Spring, Summer and Autumn months. Photo from Wikipedia.

By Cacophony - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:YakimaWashington.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1374302

250K PEOPLE ISN'T ENOUGH TO SUPPORT A SPORTS STATION?

Back to ESPN Yakima: the situation seems to beg the question -- can't a market of over 200 thousand people support a network sports station? KUTI seemed to be a station that might have a decent enough audience to keep the lights on and the signal on the air. The Yakima market is a metro of around 250K people (98K live within Yakima itself). You'd think there would be enough sports fans in a 250K market to support the station. 

I guess that wasn't the case.

So now that station is 'lost' to the airwaves. So long, KUTI/KMWX/KIMA. You had a long run.

GET 'EM WHILE YOU CAN

I'll end this article on the most positive note I can think of right now: Get 'em while you can.

If you're a radio fan, enjoy what you can hear on your radio before that radio becomes as useful as a paperweight or doorstop -- or, for that matter, as useful as that electronic calculator in your drawer, or that flip phone that no longer works on the cell system but you didn't throw away. Maybe you've got a digital snapshot camera you don't use. You've replaced it with your smartphone's camera, so you can post grainier, semi-HQ and lossy looking pics of your meals on the internet. Even though the old device may still work, it's just too old-school for you.

OK, that happens.

Tech seems to make a lot of devices redundant over time, and radios eventually will be made redundant. I don't like the idea at all, but it's inevitable. Give radios maybe 20-30 more years before all bands -- AM, SW, FM -- are nothing but hiss and static. The revenue eventually won't support the Over-The-Air infrastructure. It's that simple.

Bob Dylan once wrote a song called The Times They Are A Changing, and they always are.

Sometimes you've got to appreciate what you have now, because you never know when it's going to vanish. It's just a part of life.

So, if you're a radio fan, switch it on, throw on the headphones, tune around, grab a book, and just listen. If you're a DXer, enjoy the sound of the distant signals, allowing you to travel hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles, without leaving your chair.

Appreciate what you've got. MW curmudgeons, please quit bitching about what's on the air at night. Would you rather hear nothing but static?

And if you work in the Radio industry, hopefully you get at least ten more years of employment before they slash your job. Not trying to be negative here, but the media business isn't exactly kind to people. The radio industry wasn't always known as being kind to its workers, but it's even less so now. And as the march of audio/internet tech progresses, and "radio" continues to gravitate towards the online model, the radio / TV industry is going to shed jobs that will make Dereg 1996 look like a birthday party.

Keep your wits about you, guys. 

Peace.

C.C. Solstice, December 21st, 2023. Picture of Steinbeck's book Grapes Of Wrath and accompanying description added on Christmas Eve -- December 24th, 2023.