From: wollman@bimajority.org   
      
   In article <20230520135214.GA333257@telecomdigest.us>,   
   Bill Horne  wrote:   
      
   >AM Radio is a known quantity in Washington, D.C.   
      
   The #1 billing commercial radio station in the entire country is   
   Hubbard Broadcasting's all-news WTOP (103.5 Washington, D.C.), which   
   moved from clear-channel 1500 AM to 103.5 FM in 2006 because the   
   coverage of the "DMV" (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) market was superior   
   and number of listeners left on AM was plummeting.  Yes, the old WTOP   
   had a fantastic signal in New England at night, but advertisers   
   weren't buying WTOP to reach Boston, and it wasn't a great signal in   
   the fast-growing suburban areas in western Maryland and northern   
   Virginia.[1]  (The old WTOP became WFED, "Federal News Radio", because   
   they could still get some advertising revenue from lobbyists and the   
   military-industrial complex even if almost nobody was listening.)   
      
   The right-wing talk in the Washington area is on Cumulus Media's   
   WMAL-FM (105.9), having moved there in 2011 for similar reasons from   
   AM 630.   
      
   (I believe the D.C. station with the largest audience share is actually   
   American University's WAMU-FM (88.5), an NPR member station, but   
   Nielsen does not include "noncommercial" stations in published   
   ratings.  Public radio stations can buy a separate ratings product   
   that includes them under a non-disclosure agreement.)   
      
   -GAWollman   
      
   [1] For historical reasons, the 1500 stations across the country are   
   stacked up with "figure eight" directional patterns pointing north and   
   south; WFED's transmitter is located in Maryland northeast of the   
   District, which made sense in the 1930s but because its pattern has a   
   broad null to the west, protecting KSTP in St. Paul, it misses most of   
   the population growth that has occurred in the market since 1945.   
      
   --   
   Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,   
   wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is   
   Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."   
   my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)