Interesting question. How is it with traditional FM am in the us? In Germany (and I thought more country's) DAB is taking over. While it is still broadcast it has lowered to bar for smaller players. But You still have to pay for a slot you can broadcast on. Although you just send a data stream to the actual broadcaster.

With the Internet being a thing for a while I am asking myself why you would run a broadcast channel (FM am dab) anyway. High cost in equipment, licenses and energy are a high barrier for normal people. And if You have a cooperation behind you then you won't have full control over content.

So why are there still normal stations around and even new ones popping up? Because we have these receivers in our cars?

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 points 22 hours ago

Digital radio in the US almost isn't a different service; it's kind of weird, digital is broadcast alongside the traditional analog, you tune the radio to the analog signal first and then digital subcarriers are available if you have a compatible receiver. Find me an American who isn't a broadcast engineer or ham that has any idea what the fuck I'm talking about; nobody uses that shit.

In my area (and the following paragraph will narrow that down to about 17,000 square miles), there are a lot of iHeartRadio affiliates like WDCG and WRCQ. You've got some locally owned conglomerates, like Capitol Radio that owns several prominent TV and radio stations chief among them is WRAL-TV and WRAL-FM. The biggest independent station, as in "one company, one transmitter" I can think of is WKRR transmitting a classic rock format on 92.3, home of the Two Idiots Named Chris show.

I'm not counting the public/college stations like WUNC, nor 88.1 Jesus FM WGOD.

The entire industry seems propped up by the drive time morning shows. The vast majority of Americans forgot about radio when they bought an mp3 player and now everybody uses Spotify. Or that one weird guy who's still got Pandora. Broadcast radio is mostly ads, so unless you're looking for news, weather or traffic you're better off with streaming services.