No, we don't want a dead AM band, but it's kinda like a tree... you prune out the dead wood and the tree is healthier.
You gotta wonder how financially viable are stations that run 44 or 26 watts or 6 watts of power in the evening.
All it does is add to the QRM and render the frequency useless.
True, but they generally don't have listeners in the evening... Radio in general usually doesn't, comparatively. Numbers apparently drop off after 7 p.m. or so, according to radio experts I've interacted with on a different forum.
My concern is that everywhere in the world -- Europe especially -- that the MW band has been 'pruned', it disappears. The Americas are basically the last holdout for a fully used MW band, and even at that, countries like Mexico are giving up on MW -- only certain stations are allowed to continue on indefinitely -- until they decide to leave the band, or simply leave the air altogether.
As for the 44 or 6 watts, such low powers are obviously (in many recent cases, anyway) placeholder, for licensing reasons... A station in my state just dropped night power (and day power, also) after getting an FM translator which covers the same area at a couple hundred watts. They're just holding place legally.
The band is aging out, and it will gradually 'prune' itself, regardless of what we radio enthusiasts think. I just find suggestions that we need a thinner band to be counterproductive in the long run -- to me it sounds like wishing for the die-off to happen prematurely.
It will happen, just the same, though... On that I think we can all agree.