For over 40 years, a radio signal in the UK has been quietly switching household heating systems on and off. It's called the Radio Teleswitch Service, and it's one of the best examples of hidden data riding on broadcast signals that most people have never heard of. I explain how RTS works, how the…
There's a tiny data protocol still riding inside FM signals after all these years, and it's the reason your car's dashboard knows what song is playing. RDS and its US cousin RBDS are quietly holding up more than most people realize. I cover where the standard came from, how it actually works at the…
Cable news channels have the staff, the brand recognition, and news gathering operations most radio stations can only dream of. Instead of building real audio products, they route the 24/7 TV feed to a streaming platform and call it done. CNN on TuneIn, Fox on SiriusXM, MSNBC's linear feed. You can…
The fight over AM radio isn't really about whether you listen to it. It's about what happens when the land under a tower is worth more than the station on it. Licenses keep declining, copper theft keeps getting worse, and the push to pull AM from new cars is only part of the story. I get into the…
Most of America's radio stations no longer have a chief engineer, and nobody notices until a tower goes dark or the FCC fines start piling up. One station sat silent for six months because no one knew the transmitter had failed. That's not an accident. That's what happens when the people who keep…
The FCC's public file used to be a dusty binder in your lobby. Since 2018 it's a searchable, timestamped online record anyone can dig through, and the political file alone has produced some of radio's biggest enforcement fines, running into six figures. I go through where most violations actually…
Local stations are going dark across the country, and blaming streaming only tells half the story. Media consolidation, voice tracking, and corporate cost cutting hollowed out AM and FM from the inside. Strip out the local DJs, local news, and community connection, and you're left with a zombie…
FM coverage maps look bold and confident, but the actual audience listens six feet off the ground, weaving between buildings and hills where signals get chewed up. That's where audio turns fluttery and listeners quietly tune away. And the old "just add a booster" fix can make things worse in the…
A nearly 100-year-old radio news network is going dark on May 22, roughly 700 affiliates are affected, and the radio news team is gone. This isn't a relic being retired. It's a working system being switched off because it stopped fitting a spreadsheet. The top-of-hour newscast is infrastructure.…
Canada is shutting down Weather Radio Canada, and the timing could not be worse. Those 162 MHz VHF transmitters are a quiet 24/7 public safety backbone, and the replacement plan is apps, websites, and phone alerts. Anyone who has lived through a multi-day outage knows how that goes: power drops…
