FCC Station Totals September 30, 2023

[Ben Zonia]

Are there too many radio stations in the US, especially the total of all facilities occupying the FM Band?

I remember when broadcasters were talking about changes causing "AMization" from too many facilities on the FM band, and that was close to 40 years ago. AM is moderating now, due to attrition. But what broadcasters feared is here, a way overcrowded FM Band.

FM Commercial 6670

FM Noncommercial 4263

FM Translators and Boosters 8928

Low Power FMs 1978

Total FM Facilites 21839


https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-921A1.pdf

[Mega Hertz]

Way, way, way too many. Of the 21,839 facilities, they still have 4 formats and 150 songs between them.

[Deleted User 16173]

The AM stations are not dropping off like I thought they would. The number of AM stations on September 30th was at 4452, the number for December 30th was at 4444, that is a tiny drop of 8 stations in 3 months. I personally thought many more AM’s would have gone dark.

[Ben Zonia]

The AM stations are not dropping off like I thought they would.

They are probably waiting for some type of replacement facility rules on an FM frequency, like Canada did years ago. It would be like Canada and Mexico did, changing and bending rules to accommodate this, and using contour overlap, directional antennas, and accepting interference and interference ratios, rather than strict distance separation requirements. Many of these are already used in the 88-92 MHz NCE-FM Band.

[Deleted User 16173]

What actually would be a solution? Because, I honestly think expanding the FM band is not going to happen.