Ford to Discontinue AM Radios in Most New Vehicles Starting in 2024.  Ford plans to drop AM radios from most of its new vehicles starting in 2024, raising concerns about public safety communication.  The automaker had previously announced plans to drop the AM radio from its electric vehicles due to "interference" between the electric drive train and AM reception.  The Detroit Free Press reports that beginning in 2024, Ford will no longer offer AM radio in the majority of its newly released gas and electric-powered vehicles.

Soros-Backed Media Consortium Is Buying, to Censor, Conservative Radio Stations.  Wait until Americans with origins in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other lands demolished by communism find out that their favorite conservative radio stations are being bought by a media consortium headed by a longtime henchman of the Marxist founder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza.  And wait until Mexican Americans, with roots in this country going back to the 17th century or earlier, find out that this BLM confidant, Jess Morales Rocketto, includes as one of her goals to tear down a society and culture that has taken generations to build, or that she told Latinos to follow BLM's lead during key moments of instability.  And wait until all these voters find out that the justification the consortium, Latino Media Network, gives for the $60 million purchase of 18 stations is that they are too stupid to be able to tell truth from lies, and have been duped by "disinformation" into voting for conservatives.

Hispanic Leaders Protest Soros-Backed 'Progressive Woke' Takeover of Spanish Talk Radio.  Leaders of the Cuban-American community in Miami held a press conference on Wednesday to protest the proposed sale of 18 Spanish-language radio stations, including iconic anti-communist station Radio Mambí, to a left-wing media network funded in part by an investment fund with ties to George Soros.  Radio Mambí and WQBA, AM stations in Miami, are two of the 18 Spanish-language stations that a group calling itself the "Latino Media Network," run by an Obama White House alum and a left-wing immigration activist, have agreed to purchase from Univisión-Televisa for $60 million, reports confirmed by Univisión indicate.  "Latino Media Network" raised its money from, among other sources, Lakestar Finance (the Soros-linked investment fund) and left-wing celebrities like Eva Longoria.  The individuals leading the effort have described combatting conservative "misinformation" in Spanish as a goal of the purchase.

George Soros-funded group of Hispanic investors buy up dozens of radio stations.  A group of high-profile Hispanic investors bought up 18 radio stations across 10 cities in a $60 million deal bankrolled by an investment firm tied to billionaire liberal activist George Soros.  The group was founded by former Obama administration staffer Stephanie Valencia and campaign veteran Jess Morales Rocketto, who worked for both former President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. [...] The radio stations form the new Latina Media Network.  The network's association with the Democratic Party and the connection to Mr. Soros, however, alarmed Republican lawmakers.

The Editor says...
Generally speaking, if you're a white guy and you want to buy a radio station in the U.S. — other than a debt-laden station in the middle of nowhere that nobody else wants — you have to get a non-white puppet to act as the ostensible head of the company.  Someone who will make no decisions of his own but will do whatever you say.  I've worked for a company that did exactly that.  Minority ownership seems to be the FCC's highest priority.  Also, unless you have deep pockets and buy multiple stations in large markets, broadcasting is a quick way to lose all your money, because you'll be competing with a few giant companies — as well as the Catholic church — who run dozens if not hundreds of stations, and have eliminated every bit of unnecessary overhead.

Is Spanish-Language Radio Really a Threat to Democracy?  [Scroll down]  An October article in HuffPost by Lautaro Grinspan titled "How Spanish Language Radio Helped Radicalize a Generation of Miami Abuelos" is the acme of this:  Grinspan's old timers aren't human beings with agency, but confused and pitiful vessels for misinformation.  "Virginia, a 58-year-old Cuban immigrant who lives in Broward County, north of Miami, says that many of her mother's radical views stem from the same source:  misinformation on regional Spanish-language talk radio.  To her growing dismay, Virginia says her mamá, 79, is an avid listener, with particularly strong allegiance to right-wing commentators on Radio Mambí, Miami's leading Cuban-exile station."  The article is filled with many such misinformed abuelos  (I can drop Spanish words for authenticity, too) to feed the fears of white Democrats while also allowing them to feel grave concern for the poor, the downtrodden, the people of color.  The key to reading reporting like Grinspan's is to understand that the popularity of anti-communist radio among Cuban refugees in America is actually a very old story.  These outlets have always trafficked in ideas that elite white audiences would consider "hard right" or even "radicalizing."  But they only became sources of "misinformation" once Democrats started losing Hispanic votes.  Is that a coincidence?

Want to Hear Chinese Communist Propaganda Right on Your Own Radio?  I recently spent a few days in Northern Virginia visiting friends from my two decades working in Washington, D.C.  While driving around the Beltway, I happened upon WCRW, 1190 AM, a radio station in Leesburg with 50,000 watts of power, enough to blanket the nation's capital and its environs.  What makes this noteworthy is that the station is leased around the clock by China Radio International, a propaganda arm of the communist regime. [...] Academics are preferred over officials as presenters.  An economics professor from a Chinese university reported on the State Council's new report, "China:  Democracy That Works."  It opens with the claim "democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal that has always been cherished by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people."  But it is a unique form — what the paper calls "whole process democracy," where the test of the popular will is the success of state policy, not merely whether there are elections now and then.  Western concepts of multiparty contests are merely a façade behind which special interests conspire against the public interest.

U.S. Broadcaster Under Scrutiny for Disseminating Autocratic Propaganda.  Federal officials are scrutinizing the U.S. government's Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty news service, established to promote democratic values abroad, after complaints it has distributed foreign propaganda favorable to authoritarian regimes in Central Asia, according to the network, its employees and an internal State Department memo.  State Department officials sent a six-page memo to the leaders of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty earlier this year criticizing a pro-government stance by the service's Tajikistan network and urging them to intervene following repeated complaints by U.S. diplomats, network employees and academics specializing in Central Asia.  They said the network was providing programming favorable to Tajikistan's president, Emomali Rahmon, his government and family.

What is the deal with those FEMA/DHS AM backup transmitters?  In the light of current government trends where the FBI engages in a one year sting operation on a Amish farmer selling raw milk, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is running guns to Mexican drug cartels, the US Department of Education employing its own SWAT team to serve warrants for delinquent student loans (they say no but offer no other explanation), Gibson Guitars being repeatedly raided for improperly labeled wood products, and so forth, makes me wonder what the government is doing.

FCC Votes To Eliminate Main Studio Rule.  By a 3-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission today [10/24/2017] scrapped the nearly eight-decade-old rule requiring radio and television stations to operate and staff a main studio in their community of license in order to originate live programming.  The move also does away with the requirement that the main studio have full-time management and staff present during normal business hours.

In 2017, Norway will be first country to shut down FM radio.  Norway will shut down FM radio in the country beginning in 2017, Radio.no reports.  The Norwegian Ministry of Culture finalized a shift date this week, making it the first country to do away with FM radio entirely. The country plans to transition to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) as a national standard.  A statement released this week by the Ministry of Culture confirms a switch-off date that was proposed by the Norwegian government back in 2011.  The government has concluded that the country is capable of meeting all the requirements necessary for a smooth transition to digital.

"Progressive" talk radio station shuts down, feels betrayed.  From the website of WVKO 1580AM in Columbus, "Ohio's Progressive Talk":  ["]It is with great sadness I must inform WVKO's listeners that once again, Progressive Talk will be silenced on the Columbus airwaves.  Our one-year lease on the station is about to expire, and at this time there is no way that we can continue operating the station.["]

The Editor says...
Left-wing talk radio has been tried many times and has never been commercially successful, because (1) there aren't that many leftists, partly because they feel free to abort their offspring, (2) if you've heard one episode of a left-wing rant program, you've heard them all, (3) advertisers won't support tax-and-spend anticapitalists who are trying to put those advertisers out of business, or under the control of the government, and (4) the message from left-wing talk radio is tiresome and disheartening:  There is never anything uplifting in the extemporaneous rant of a baby-killing totalitarian marxist.  A lot of late-night right-wing radio is tiresome, too, but at least it's punctuated with pride in our country, love of freedom, and faith in God.

Talk radio's not dead, just moonbats' radio.  Less than 20 percent of the radio audience ever listens to AM radio — and it's a mighty old audience, too.  They don't call it "Ancient Modulation" for nothing.

Electric Car Manufacturers Remove AM Radios Claiming Safety Concerns.  Some electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are scrapping the AM radio from their cars, claiming safety concerns.  Although conservative talk radio dominates AM radio ratings, it is also considered a critical safety tool, as it is one of the primary ways that federal, state, and local officials communicate with the public during natural disasters and other emergencies.  Automakers such as Ford and Tesla have ditched the AM radio from their newer EV models, arguing that the motors on EVs interfere with AM frequencies, creating buzzing and signal fading, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.  But former emergency officials are warning that scrapping the AM radio would mean EV drivers could miss important safety alerts.

The Editor says...
I worked in broadcasting for 48 years, so I have some opinions.  [#1] This is exactly the kind of radio interference that the FCC was created to prevent.  [#2] If you can't listen to AM radio in your car because of all the interference, what does that do to the car behind you?  I'll have to keep my car radio tuned to an empty AM frequency, e.g., 530 kHz, to see if I can hear electric cars as they pass by.  [#3] If the AM radio is a safety issue, why isn't the FM radio a hazard, too?  Perhaps the primary "danger" of AM radio is conservative talk shows, and the EV manufacturers have found a way to censor it.  [#4] Hardly anybody listens to AM radio any more; not like they used to.  AM radio was king, until about 1974, when FM radios started appearing in cars.  Then FM really took off.  The death of AM radio was delayed for about 20 years by Rush Limbaugh, but now it's on the way out again.  In the event of a storm, anybody who's hungry for government "information" and "protection" will turn on their TV — which will probably already be on, because they never turn it off — and in the case of the storm chasers and weather nuts, they'll either listen to ham radio channels or tune to the robotic announcer of NOAA Weather Radio for an endless series of alert tones and dire warnings.  In the middle of a thunderstorm, you won't hear much on AM radio.

Mark Levin Criticizes Automakers Dropping AM Radio.  Major automakers are removing AM radios from their new models in a move that heralds the end of an era, sparking outrage from listeners, station owners, and politicians alike who lament the potential loss of an iconic part of American culture and criticize the move as "tone deaf."  Mark Levin commented on the change, saying: "The automobile is essential to liberty.  It's freedom.  So the control of the automobile is about the control of your freedom.  They finally figured out how to attack conservative talk radio."  The Washington Post reports that in a move that marks the end of an era, major automakers are disconnecting AM radios from their new models.  The rapid pace of technological advancement and shifting consumer preferences has caused AM radio, once the soundtrack of America's road trips, and more recently the home of conservative radio giants like Rush Limbaugh, to become obsolete.

The Editor says...
Perhaps a law similar to the All-Channel Receiver Act could be passed, requiring radio manufacturers to include AM tuners.  The AM stations are licensed by the government, and the frequencies on which they operate have been set aside for broadcasting, so the extinction of AM receivers would mean that all AM radio stations would be a waste of electricity.  (More so than they are already.)  Yes, AM radio is unfashionable, and it doesn't work as well as it once did, due to overcrowded frequencies and a higher noise floor than we had 50 years ago, but if we're going to get rid of AM radio, let's vote on it first.  (Also, if we must have ethanol in gasoline, let's vote on it first.  If we must have low-flow toilets, let's vote on it first.  If we must do away with coal and natural gas, let's vote on it first.)

Ford Reverses Plan to Drop AM Radios in 2024 Cars, Trucks, and SUVs: Will Restore on Two Previous Models.  Ford announced Tuesday it has reversed plans to cut AM radios from most of its new vehicles starting in 2024, with car, truck and SUV owners all benefitting from the decision.  The manufacturer will also restore AM on two electric vehicles from 2023.  CEO Jim Farley used social media to confirm the company is walking back a decision to scrub the radio band after speaking with government policy leaders concerned about keeping emergency alerts that often are sounded on AM stations.  "We've decided to include it on all 2024 Ford and Lincoln vehicles," Farley wrote on Twitter and LinkedIn.  "For any owners of Ford's EVs without AM broadcast capability, we'll offer a software update."  [Tweet]

The Editor says...
If enabling the AM radio is just a "software upgrade," that means the AM receiver was in there all along, but it was disabled.  In other words, Ford decided to prevent you from listening to the AM band, but they'll turn it on if you insist.  This "upgrade" should cost you nothing, if all they're doing is resetting a code in the radio.