In a time-series plot, let’s take a look at the latest station total report from the FCC, which reflects recent trends: Commercial AM and FM radio facilities are seeing gradual declines, while noncommercial FM totals continue to climb.
NCE FMs continue to set new highs. As of the commission’s March 31 report, there are 4,783 of these stations, which is up 28 stations from December. But as you can see from our 26-year chart, at turn of the century, there were only around 2,000 noncommercial FM stations.
Not all religious stations are noncommercial, of course, but many of them are, and the continued increase in noncom totals also reflects the prominence in the U.S. of such networks.
The NCE FM total once again outpaces the total number of AM stations in the U.S., which dropped by 32 since December to 4,310. That is the lowest the total yet for the senior band in the commission’s dataset, which tracks numbers dating back to September 1990. AM’s decline, as we can see, is gradual, but also continuous, since about 2010.
The drop in the number of AM stations is perhaps more publicized, but the number of commercial band FM stations has been in a decline, too. The total number of such stations fell by 12 from December to 6,574, which is down from an overall peak of 6,772 commercial FM stations reached in December 2019. Still, that’s quite a bit higher than the commercial FM total of 5,892 in 2000.
FM translators and boosters dipped slightly in March, falling from 8,867 to 8,854. These totals peaked at 8,951 in June 2022.
LPFMs, meanwhile, increased by 13 to 2,007. Our chart shows low-power FM totals peaking just before COVID-19 hit.
[Related: “Here’s How FCC Station Totals Have Changed in 10 Years”]
