Radio in America is very different to that in Europe. There is very little public radio, with commercial radio dominating. There are no true national stations - each transmitter is licensed separately. There are also a number of technical differences. Technical FM broadcasting is much the same as in Europe, except that frequencies below 88 are not used and all stations are on odd channels, i.e. 88.1 and 88.3, but not 88.2. AM radio is very different. Long wave is not used in the Americas and medium wave channels are multiples of 10 kHz (as opposed to 9). The medium wave band extends up to 1700 kHz and is less congested. The maximum transmission power used is 50 kW and many stations have to reduce power after dark. This allows higher bandwidths to be used, with audio bandwidths up to 10 kHz allowed, as compared to 3-4 kHz in Europe and 15 kHz on FM. Many AM stations in the USA broadcast in stereo. Public radio Public radio came late to the USA and is only found on the FM band. 88-92 FM is reserved for "educational" stations, falling into two categories - stations associated with universities and colleges and National Public Radio (NPR). The NPR network was founded in 1970 and there are now over 600 stations. Each station is independent, but most programmes are networked. Programming consists mostly of current affairs, discussion and classical music. NPR stations are funded primarily by individual donations. In some places, local government also helps with the funding. Most college stations broadcast a new music format, aimed at their students. They support upcoming artists that the commercial stations will not play. Commercial radio The USA has more than 12 000 commercial radio stations. Most music stations broadcast on FM, whilst most news and talk stations are on AM. Each station is requried by law to broadcast a local identifier at least once an hour. Apart from this, stations are free to take network programming. Stations vary between all local, all networked and part networked. Networking is more common amongst talk stations. On FM, large cities will typically have 10-15 high power stations broadcasting from the city itself, with further high power stations broadcasting from suburbs and satellite towns and a number of low power stations. There are roughly half the number of stations on AM. In and around cities, the number of transmissions receivable is not greatly different to Europe. However, because each transmission is a different station, there is more choice. To reflect this, music formats are generally narrower. However, the lack of national stations means that, away from the cities, the choice is often less than in Europe. A final feature of broadcasting in the USA is that stations are no longer required to be politically impartial. Therefore, many news and talk stations work to a partisan agenda, with the political right dominating.	Radio in... Australia Belgium France Germany Ireland Netherlands UK Features index
	Radio in... Australia Belgium France Germany Ireland Netherlands UK Features index