Canada's AM Band - Is It Over?

Some eye-opening stats from M Street Journal on the amazing decline of AM in Canada.

DX’er Barry McLarnon in Ottawa has been keeping tabs on what’s left of Canada's AM dial and he says that there are just 237 AM stations still on the air (not countin glow-power relay transmitters under 100 watts).

Ontario leads the pack with 54 AMs, followed by British Columbia with 45 and just 28 each in Alberta and Quebec. Prince Edward Island has just 2 AM signals, as do the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and there’s just one in chilly Nunavut.

Barry says Canada now has fewer than half the number of AM signals per capita that the U.S. does — but notes that the pace of AM-to-FM conversions has slowed dramatically, with most of the remaining AMs in large markets where they’ll likely stick around for a while.

..which is why we were delighted last week to see radio awards go to our friends at Harvard-owned CKRM-AM, Regina. Best medium market newscast and the Charlie Edwards Award for Spot News at the Prairie Regional meeting of the RTNDA.

AM won't be viable if we don't offer unique, local, topical and compelling content. (nor will FM for very much longer!) Nice to see that GM Michael Olstrom's Regina crew gets that.