Fewer AM stations are on the air in the United States this year than last. Though the change is small, it continues a trend over recent years. Meanwhile the number of FM stations — both commercial and educational — has consistently grown in that time, with particular growth in the educational sector.
Those are among the trends we can spot in analyzing the latest tallies of U.S. station licenses from the FCC. Below are the numbers as of June 30. Radio World has placed historical FCC data in the additional columns to show recent trends in each category, plus a comparison with 1999. (In some years the commission did not release data at mid-year, so we used the nearest available totals.)
Low-power FM launched in 2000. We see the number of LPFMs shrinking a bit lately, presumably as stations that didn’t make it go silent; but their number will increase markedly soon as a result of the recent second LPFM window. Meantime, note the growth in translators since 1999, as availability increased and licensees explored new ways of using that service; but we also see the relative stabilization in recent years as the industry and regulators grappled with various LPFM and translator regulatory issues.
Jun-14Mar-13Jun-12Jun-11Mar-10Jun-99 AM Stations 4721 4736 4754 4770 4790 4781 FM Commercial 6622 6603 6568 6527 6483 5730 FM Educational 4082 3917 3760 3513 3180 2049 TOTAL 15425 15256 15082 14810 14453 12560
Low-Power FM 814 802 824 852 865 NA
FM Translators/Boosters 6141 6053 6105 6124 6169 3196 UHF Translators 2865 2924 2993 3035 3048 2751 VHF Translators 973 1153 1183 1229 1403 2162 TOTAL 9979 10,130 10,281 10388 10620 8109
UHF Commercial 1029 1027 1029 1025 1020 662 VHF Commercial 358 358 358 359 373 561 UHF Educational TV 288 289 289 286 283 246 VHF Educational TV 107 107 107 107 107 125 TOTAL 1782 1781 1783 1777 1783 1594
Class A UHF 384 395 406 422 449 NA Class A VHF 48 59 65 73 85 NA TOTAL 432 454 471 495 534 NA
UHF Low-Power TV 1647 1564 1588 1671 1889 1607 VHF Low-Power TV 381 403 407 413 522 565 TOTAL 2028 1967 1995 2084 2411 2172
TOTAL BROADCAST STATIONS 30,460 30,390 30,436 30,406 30,666 24,435
Do your own analysis with the FCC data available here.
