Automakers Want AM Radios Out of Cars. Congress Is About to Require Them
A popular bill will force car companies to put AM radios in vehicles at no extra charge, despite decreasing interest from drivers and potential electromagnetic interference.
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This is an absurd abuse of government power, which "small government" Republicans are going along with because the AM radio listening audience skews right. By the same logic, I suppose the next step is to force homeowners to subscribe to a landline and cable TV.
This is being spearheaded by Ed Markey, a Democrat. The reason lawmakers want to keep AM radio is that it's still used for emergency broadcasts. AM radio may seem like a joke if you live in a urban area with good infrastructure, but if you live in a rural area with poor internet and cell service, AM radio may be vital in getting emergency alerts. Auto companies are fighting this because EV components interfere with AM signals, so they have to spend extra money to shield EV components. The narrative about Republican lawmakers wanting to amplify right wing radio hosts is neat, but this is just another case of automakers not wanting to shell out a few extra bucks for a safety feature.
Then people living in rural areas, who need AM radio, can spend a bit more to get it as an optional package. Or like 5 bucks to get a stand-alone radio. Why force everyone else to get it?
Same reason we force new cars to come with a LATCH system for car seats, even if you don't have kids; we want safety features to ubiquitous, even in the resale market, and we don't want car manufacturers charging consumers more for them. This legislation would basically make carmakers treat AM radio like a safety feature, so they can't up-charge rural consumers who need it more. Also, this legislation doesn't put the entire burden on the carmaker. It also requires the government to look for alternatives to AM radio that could serve the same function (although I doubt they'll find a non-digital alternative with the range of AM):
The proposed legislation would also direct the Government Accountability Office to study whether “an alternative communication system” could replicate and have the same impact that AM radio has for transmitting emergency information. (Source)
When I built a house in 2018 I was required to have a landline phone hookup somewhere in the house.
This is an aside. Using the term "skews" the way you did is common and incorrect. Generally, it'd be best to avoid the word skew when referring to right leaning or left leaning political ideas.
Why? Because a "Right Skew" would mean the data clusters to the left. And vice versa.
Google it! I swear!
It's a pet peeve of mine. Not when people say it, just that it's wrong even though it sounds right.
Carry on.
I like pedantry as much as the next person, but skew is a regular English word as well as a statistical term. It's clear here which usage they meant.
The context they used it was the statistical term, though.
They aren't describing something's appearance. They're describing the nature of the distribution.
They then are describing the visual aesthetic of the distribution, which is at odds with the description of the distribution. This is exactly my point. It stands.
No it wasn't
Yes it was.
The word "skew" cannot apply to a population in any other sense than a statistical sense. It cant be stretched and malformed as the nonstatistical definition would suggest.
