Why aren’t regulators helping AM radio and forcing carriers to turn on the FM chips in smartphones?

By Linda Stuart

TORONTO - While radio stations in general face many of the same issues thanks to burgeoning competition from streaming audio services, the separate AM and FM bands have their own unique challenges to overcome, as was apparent during the North American Broadcasters Association’s Future of Radio & Audio Symposium, held last week at the Glenn Gould Studio in downtown Toronto.In his keynote address to the symposium held 10 days ago, Ajit Pai, commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, outlined two issues for AM/FM radio: the revitalization of the AM band and the activation of FM chips in smartphones.In 2013,...