Who Will Control The Dashboard? - Conservatives Fight To Keep AM Radio

In a pitched partisan environment, members of both parties have teamed up to stop a business measure that could censor conservative political discussions and prevent religious broadcasters from reaching Americans with the gospel.

Several automakers -- including BMW, Ford, and Tesla -- have announced plans for some upcoming models to eliminate AM radio. Electrical vehicles say their engines interfere with the signal's reception, which they would replace with various subscription services such as satellite radio or streaming podcasting services.

The proposal to phase out the AM ban -- the one medium dominated by conservative political voices -- touched off waves of protests from rural farmers, emergency personnel, urban listeners, foreign-language speakers, and religious broadcasters worried about losing another avenue for evangelism to Big Tech.

"What it's really all about is who's going to control the dashboard," said Troy Miller, president and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters. "The top three genres that are on AM radio are teaching and Christian talk, conservative talk radio, and Spanish language radio. There's a real push here to be able to take those genres off, which are available to tens of millions of people around the country. And that would allow those car companies, those services providers, or social media to control the messaging that goes out through the cars."

He also warned that listeners would lose the privacy and anonymity they currently enjoy by listening to AM radio if they subscribe to streaming services, which can track the listening habits down to the second. "Data collection is now a multibillion-dollar business around the world. And so being able to track your subscription services, to track the apps that you're listening to, to track the podcasts that you're listening to, all of that information is key to marketers," Miller told Jody Hice, who hosts "Washington Watch" each Friday. "Also, some nefarious folks may try to figure out what you're doing."

"Christians should definitely care about this issue," said Miller.

Nielsen ratings show roughly 82 million Americans listen to the nation's 4,185 AM radio stations every month.

Miller said replacing AM radio with streaming services would deprive low-income audiences of free content and hit rural listeners particularly hard. "Rural audiences rely on this as their only form to be able to get free content," said Miller.

"We're talking about free content," Miller added. Without it, Americans will "have to pay for subscriptions in order to hear these same programs."

"If you can take away free radio, then that gives you a real leg up in being able to control the content that goes to the drivers and passengers in every car in this country," Miller told Hice last Friday.

Although FM signals have a clearer signal, their design limits their reach to a smaller geographic area. AM station signals bounce off the ionosphere after sunset, allowing stations to broadcast for hundreds of miles. An overlapping quilt of AM stations blanket the nation with their broadcasting signals.

AM radio forms the basis of the nation's response to emergency weather events, such as Hurricanes Milton and Helene. National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt called AM radio "a cornerstone of everyday life for many that also serves a critical life-saving function during extreme weather and natural disasters." The National Association of Broadcasters has noted that "77 radio stations play a crucial role serving as Primary Entry Points (PEPs) across the country, a vast majority of which are AM stations."

"The emergency response system has been built for decades now around AM radio, and it's the number one way to get the word out. AM has a unique frequency set to it that allows it to be able to broadcast even during storms that are going through," said Miller. "In the two recent hurricanes, AM radio was vital to keep listeners updated in those areas, so they knew when to take shelter, and then at the end, when to and where to find aid."

"One of the first things that goes down in these storms are the cell system, so your cell towers and your internet become useless. And AM radio is where you're going to depend to get your information," Miller stated.

The threat to the AM band has united a diverse coalition of lawmakers across the aisle and knit together constituencies across the nation.

"During and immediately after Helene, the impacted population relied upon AM radio to navigate their families away from rising water, to receive updates on where to access supplies or shelter, to know which bridges and roads were out and which remained passable, and sometimes just to hear another human's voice while stranded alone in the dark," a group of first responders from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas wrote to House and Senate leaders. "The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act will ensure that the public retains access to this vital public safety tool at all times. Not acting on this bill will threaten the safety of Americans in future disasters."

The issue looked to become more polarized, as President Joe Biden unveiled sweeping new mandates requiring that electric vehicles make up two-thirds of all new vehicles by 2032. If implemented, the EV mandate would cost 200,000 American jobs, according to the America First Policy Institute. But President-elect Donald Trump plans to overturn EV mandate and erase the Biden-Harris administration's $7,500 tax credit to Americans who buy EVs -- a subsidy that benefits upper-middle-class Americans and the Chinese-dominated electric battery industry. 

A group of rural American advocacy groups has sounded off against the bill. So has the National Urban League. "AM radio is a lifeline for local communities, including the predominately African-American and underserved communities that NUL serves. It plays a vital role in providing underserved communities with reliable news, entertainment, sports and information in critical times of emergency. 

Across the nation, over 82 million Americans tune in to AM radio every month, which is at least 90% of the American population. There are over 100 Black-owned radio stations that would be impacted if AM radios were removed from vehicles. Those radio stations not only provide a voice for Black America, but serve as a source of opportunity, creativity and ownership for marginalized communities," wrote Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League.

"Additionally, AM radio provides a sense of community in underrepresented neighborhoods who have a strong focus on religious or in-language programming," noted the letter, dated December 9. 

He added a personal note: "I know firsthand the impact that AM radio plays as we approach the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In my home state of Louisiana alone, over 1.7 million people were affected by the storm. When the power went out and cell service was down, AM radio was a resilient communications source, providing live and continuous news alerts regarding storm warnings, evacuations and community resources."

The groups support the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (S. 1669/H.R. 3413). Each version of the bill enjoys a bipartisan coalition of co-sponsors broad enough to pass, if brought to the floor for a vote. The legislation's supporters range from Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib to Ted Cruz and Jim Banks.

"I believe these automakers stood up to remove AM radio as part of a broader pattern we see of censoring views that are disfavored by Big Business," said Senator Cruz (R-Texas).

The plan is not without controversy. Libertarian-leaning Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a measure to repeal the bill's mandate and the EV tax subsidy. Steve Kent of the Consumer Choice Center called the bill "a betrayal of limited government principles."

But Miller said he had lobbied on Capitol Hill with American Family Radio, among others.

"Speaker Johnson is behind us, so we have really good support," he stated.

Originally published at The Washington Stand