In the Internet Age, AM Radio Needs Fine-Tuning

"I'm so glad you asked, Ann," replies guest Ben Stein, an author who has apparently slipped and confused Ingraham with another blond conservative firebrand, Ann Coulter.

Syndicated talk shows make up most of the English-language programming on any scan of the AM dial these days. It's vastly cheaper and easier to carry nationally syndicated shows than to produce original programming.

So big stations carry Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the sports guys from ESPN and Fox, while scratchier signals beam in second-team conservatives such as Michael Medved, Michael Reagan and Bill Bennett. Over at WWRC (1260), what's left of the attempt to create a liberal alternative to right-wing talk radio struggles on, with Ed Schultz, Bill Press and Thom Hartmann finding a tiny audience for their daily menu of complaint about the rest of the media, plus Bush-bashing of the awkward-presidential-sound-bite school.

And then station managers wonder why listeners have migrated to live, local programming over on the FM dial. The ratings say the audiences for many AM stations number only in the low thousands or perhaps even lower.

Yet from a spot in Northwest Washington, it's possible to hear 35 AM stations by day and dozens more at night, when signals from clear across the country come sailing in.

At least six of those 35 stations broadcast in Spanish, three more in Korean or Chinese, a couple of others occasionally in Amharic or French. These are the proto-Facebook groups of an earlier era, subcultures invisible to much of the population, yet thriving in their own little corners of the culture.

The voices on AM radio are too often canned and delivered by satellite from distant places, saying nothing about life in the Washington area. Once-great local stations such as WAGE in Leesburg and WMAL in Washington now rely largely on talk shows pulled off the satellite.

But whether it's a Spanish station in Manassas offering listeners a chance to vent their views on Prince William County's crackdown on illegal immigrants, or longtime local talk host Bernie McCain talking D.C. politics on WOL (1450), there are still a precious few spots along the dial where the programming sounds like the place from which the station is broadcasting.

A comeback for AM is a long shot, but it is only possible with programs that cannot be heard anywhere else, not even on the Web, with the daily recitation of the police blotter, the triumphs of local high school athletes and the voices of the places where we live.