Several influential Democrats for a variety of reasons are pushing to remove the exemption that allows radio stations to play music without paying the artists royalties for their work. Internet streamers and Sirius / XM have to pay, and the NAB was influential in making sure they would have to pay to keep them from competing with “real” radio.
It’s pretty widely expected that if the “Performance Tax” passes, that many FM Music stations will switch to FM Talk, a process that was well underway already, as radio owners nudge their older listeners to the FM band and try to attract younger FM listeners to talk.
(When you go to a music concert and buy a ticket, do you consider that a “music tax”?)
If this does happen, the radio stations that switched early will have the best choices of which syndicated talk programs they carry on FM. I just got through adding 3 FM stations that are switching to FM talk or adding new FM simulcasts. Other AM talk stations are adding FM translators, which the FCC recently encouraged AM stations to start doing.
If AM Talk mostly moves to FM, what will be left on AM? One of the big purchasers of AM radio stations in the past few months have been local Catholic groups, with encouragement from Rome. The times, they are a changin’
I think FM talk would be a grwat idea because AM tends to fade in and out at night.