Your Car Has a Radio. Now Try to Find It.

The fight to keep AM radio in new cars matters, especially when broadcast radio may be the last source of emergency information. But keeping a receiver in the vehicle isn’t enough if drivers have to dig through two or three screens to find it.

In this edition of Archer’s Line, Rob looks at the electrical interference problem facing AM radio in electric vehicles, Australia’s effort to keep local broadcasters visible on connected devices, and why American broadcasters may need to demand a one-touch radio button on the digital dashboard.

When seconds count and flames are visible in the rearview mirror, finding the radio shouldn’t require a search through the dashboard.

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What happens when the Big One strikes Los Angeles after America has lost its news media?

In this hypothetical scenario, broadcast and cable news are gone. Major news websites have closed. Americans now depend on social media influencers, fringe websites, conspiracy theorists and government accounts they cannot trust.

Minute by minute, a devastating earthquake becomes several different disasters. Some people call it a hoax. Others believe the government caused it. Fake warnings block emergency crews. Political rumors slow federal aid. President Trump remains out of sight while official accounts speak in his name.

The earthquake lasts a little more than two minutes. The fight over what happened lasts for months.

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Content note: This fictional scenario includes descriptions of earthquake destruction, deaths and political disinformation.

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The FCC has voted to eliminate the rule that kept any one company from owning television stations reaching more than 39 percent of U.S. households.

In this breaking edition of Archer’s Line, Rob explains why replacing that firm limit with case-by-case reviews gives the government dangerous power over media ownership.

“If Trump is okay with it, you’re golden. If he doesn’t like you, no deal.”

The change is expected to face court challenges over whether the FCC can erase a limit set by Congress.

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Radio licenses were once considered too valuable to surrender. Now Cumulus has handed the FCC license for 560 KZAC in San Francisco back to the government after the silent station failed to find a buyer.

In this audio edition of Archer’s Line, Rob Archer looks at the growing number of AM stations going dark, the collapse in station values, and why major radio owners are deciding that some signals cost more to operate than they are worth.

If this can happen to a full-market frequency in San Francisco, what does it say about the future of AM radio?

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KCBS traffic reporter Kim Vestal got something increasingly rare in radio: the chance to retire on her own terms after nearly 50 years behind a microphone.

Rob Archer thought he would get that chance at KNX. After more than a decade at the station and 46 years in radio, the finish line seemed close enough to see.

Then came the Monday morning Zoom invitation.

In this first installment, Rob looks back at the early years of his career: getting fired for kicking a hole in a wall, quitting jobs, surviving format changes, being laid off, getting hired back and driving across the country to Los Angeles with no job waiting for him.

It is a story about luck, bad decisions, second chances and a radio business where careers rarely end the way people expect them to.

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What if CBS News simply... disappeared?

Not in one dramatic announcement, but piece by piece. Foreign bureaus close. Investigative teams shrink. The evening newscast moves online. Eventually, the network survives—but its journalism doesn't.

In this week's Archer's Line, Rob Archer explores a hypothetical future in which journalism becomes too expensive, too risky, and too political for large corporations to sustain. It's less about CBS News than what happens to America if major news organizations conclude they're better off without news.

The essay examines corporate pressure, political influence, social media, the decline of shared facts, and what a country looks like when no one agrees on what's real anymore.

It's a thought experiment—but perhaps not as far-fetched as it once seemed.

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More than 145,000 people weighed in, and most had the same message: leave ABC's local stations alone.

In this edition of Archer's Line, Rob Archer looks at the overwhelming public response to the FCC's investigation of eight Disney-owned television stations, why this case matters far beyond ABC, and why critics from across the political spectrum are warning about the precedent it could set.

The issue isn't just whether the FCC has the authority to investigate broadcasters. It's whether the threat of government action can pressure media companies into changing what they air long before any formal punishment is imposed.

Rob also explores why this fight is really about local television, not national networks, and asks whether intimidation can become as effective as censorship.

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Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a monumental cinematic achievement—but its central message is one of humanity’s oldest: Be kind to strangers, because they may be greater than they appear.

In this edition of Archer’s Line, we examine the film’s ideas about empathy, hospitality, conquest and the stories people tell themselves to justify cruelty. At a moment when empathy is being denounced as weakness, The Odyssey offers an uncomfortable reminder: Civilization depends on how we treat those we consider lesser than ourselves.

Spoiler warning: This episode discusses major themes and plot developments from The Odyssey.

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Come In, Patmos

A revelation from the wrong end of the radio dial. A short story.

A broke, flu-ridden radio DJ is abducted after a routine blood test suggests he may be the Antichrist. What follows is an orientation program of prophetic branding, demonic bureaucracy, cosmic nightmares—and one potentially catastrophic clerical error.

A darkly comic story about dying media, manufactured messiahs, artificial intelligence, and the peculiar people chosen to speak for the end of the world.

Written by Rob Archer

Content note: Adult themes, sexual imagery, body horror, religious satire, and medical distress.

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Why are some radio companies asking the FCC to let them own more stations while others are giving stations back?

In this episode, I look at the contradiction at the heart of today's broadcasting industry. As Beasley Media Group and Connoisseur Media push for relaxed ownership rules, companies like Saga, Cumulus, and Townsquare are surrendering licenses because some stations simply aren't worth selling.

I trace the roots of today's consolidation back to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, explore why decades of mergers have led to fewer local voices and fewer jobs, and ask whether radio's struggles are really part of a much larger problem across American business.

I also share part of a recent conversation with KFI's Bill Handel from the latest Archer & Feldman podcast about whether radio can ever become truly local again—and why I still hope it can.

Is radio dying? Or is it simply the first warning sign of an economic model that's begun to consume itself?

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