By Chihiro Inoue,
Is Japan witnessing the death of AM radio?
Since February, some commercial radio broadcasters have begun a trial suspension of AM radio, with a real possibility the pause will extend to a permanent discontinuation across the country as broadcasters look to cut costs.
Thirteen of the 47 commercial operators in Japan have shut off their transmitters to see what effect the temporary end of AM broadcasts will have. AM was launched in 1925, bringing Japan into the radio broadcast age, but may not last long enough to see its 100th anniversary next year.
"Radio was at the center of the home, a medium enjoyed by the entire family," said Tadanobu Okabe, curator of the Japan Radio Museum in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture.
The museum in central Japan displays a wide collection of radios and documents, mainly covering the "golden era" of Japanese radio from the 1930s through the 1950s, organized in a way that lays out the chronological history of broadcasting in Japan which emerged five years after the world's first radio broadcast in the United States.
Like elsewhere in the world, AM broadcasting in Japan was the first method of making audio radio transmissions.
It brought to the people such historic events as the "Jewel Voice Broadcast" on Aug. 15, 1945, when Emperor Hirohito announced that the Japanese government had accepted unconditional surrender at the end of World War II, among other major news events.
Okabe explained that the advancement of radio broadcast technology, specifically the first application of electronic circuits using vacuum tubes, eventually led to a transformation in how radio was enjoyed in Japan. After television broadcasts began in February 1953, for a while TV became the focal point of family entertainment.
"Radio became something people listened to alone," Okabe explained. But a youth culture was spawned in 1967 by "All Night Nippon" and other long-running programs, while FM broadcasts with a clear, crisp sound also took off.
But as attention was drawn to other forms of entertainment and commercial AM radio broadcasters saw their equipment and studios age, the medium began to wane.
AM broadcasting requires large-scale transmission facilities, and the cost of upgrading them is several dozen times that of FM facilities.
AM, which operates at a lower frequency, has radio waves with larger wavelengths, meaning they travel farther but struggle to penetrate solid objects like buildings. The transmission stations also have massive antennae and are installed in large, open sites -- typically along riversides or other waterfront areas.
AM transmissions are vulnerable to static such as radio noise and radio frequency interference created by both atmospheric electrical activity such as lightning and electronic equipment. Due to the size of AM infrastructure, they are more vulnerable to natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods and earthquakes.
In contrast, higher-frequency FM broadcast facilities are installed on mountain tower sites or at higher elevations than AM sites, with shorter-range broadcasts which can transmit well even inside buildings.
AM radio operators in Japan have already been implementing complementary broadcasting called "Wide FM," in which the same programs are broadcast simultaneously on FM radio for disaster announcements, for example, but maintaining both AM and FM is costly.
Thus operators requested the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications conduct an impact study by suspending AM broadcasting for a fixed period.
The ministry says the trial shutdown could finish as late as January of next year, and after that, "it will be up to each company to decide what to do."
However, at an expert panel meeting held by the ministry in April, there were comments, such as from one broadcast official who said, "We hope that AM broadcasting will be promptly discontinued," suggesting it is very likely the trial will lead to the effective end of AM broadcasting in Japan.
With AM radio, if not nostalgia, on the way out, mediums like internet radio and podcasts are meeting many people's listening needs.
"I miss the static sound of AM broadcasting," said a 39-year-old woman from Tokyo who used to enjoy AM broadcasts when she was in junior high school. She has been recently tuning in to "radiko," which allows users to listen to radio programs via the internet.
Kaoru Yakisoba, 49, a writer with extensive knowledge of radio, pointed out that podcasts -- with high fidelity being one obvious advantage -- make it easy to listen to old programs and new ones alike.
"Young people find this appealing," said Yakisoba, stressing that there is still room for growth to pass on the legacy of Japan's radio culture to future generations.
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