Only 88 independent radio stations left in the USA, only 13 in Canada

GON

GON

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Surprised so few independent radio stations left in the USA. When I was a kid in the last century, I imagine the USA had well over a thousand independent radio station. Now down to 88.

Included are any non-profit terrestrial broadcast community radio stations not directly affiliated, owned, or otherwise controlled by any radio network, school, company, or government. All independent radio listed stations are independently operated (not necessarily the radio format indie music), and are considered to be community radio. A counterpart to this list is the list of college radio stations (some of the college radio stations are also community radio stations).

 
Here are the independent Canadian radio stations:
The station out of Russia is confusing to me.......
 
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Lots of businesses these days are being consolidated by the bigger players to take advantage of technology and efficiencies.
 
GON said:
Included are any non-profit terrestrial broadcast community radio stations not directly affiliated, owned, or otherwise controlled by any radio network, school, company, or government. All independent radio listed stations are independently operated
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This must exclude NPR stations, yes ? As I understand it, those stations support (or pay for) the NPR portions that they broadcast, not the other way around, i.e. NPR doesn't sent them $$$. Just wondering is all, by the way.
 
Airwave is not cheap (they are auctioned for billions), so are printing newspapers and delivering them to every household in the morning.

These days the "independents" are all over YouTube, Spotify, iTune, Patreon, GoFundMe, etc. Audience is international, contents can be stored and played 247 instead of "only this hour".
 
SeaJay said:
Lots of businesses these days are being consolidated by the bigger players to take advantage of technology and efficiencies.
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Right like everyone playing the same 100 song classic rock playlist. We're all living it up @ the hotel california.

List can be a bit deceptive as WMNR is owned by the Town of Monroe CT but functionally plays no "town role" and it has repeaters (maybe not the correct word) all over central and SW CT; it functionally is independent
 
One of the indys is in my town....yet I've never listened to it WRIR-LP 97.3 FM is an independent, all volunteer, nonprofit community public radio station licensed to Richmond, Virginia, serving Metro Richmond. It is the largest low power FM station of its kind in the United States.[1] WRIR-LP is owned and operated by the Virginia Center for Public Press.[2] The station's studios are located on West Broad Street and its transmitter is located northeast of downtown Richmond.[3] WRIR-LP started broadcasting on January 1, 2005.
 
Religious organizations are buying up most stations some are being converted into the Avenue stations which is some type of strange easy listening station that gets DJ remixes of obscure songs certain times during the week

Otherwise the number of oldies stations is way down (my area only has one if you don’t count Duke which is country focused with mostly 1980’s-early 2k) still tons of country and ear burning talk 2 NPR stations one of which Barely comes in. Also the oldies stations aren’t like the ones in the 90’s where an occasional 50’s song would pop in 1960’s on up) oddly never hear the eagles Hotel California or otherwise on the local oldies stations only hear that 20x a day when satellite is free.

Newish stations (playing recent hits) now play stuff that is getting up in age but still this century with morning shows with people laughing constantly .
What used to be the single easy listening is now playing anything 1980’s-present
The hard rock and metal stations (one of each) likewise have a wide age range for their songs
The college station is mostly odd stuff and hard rock that also can be from any century.
The Hmong station plays anything from polka to Chicano mariachi music to rythmic chanting in foreign languages

strange times, everybody is a variety station of sorts, even NPR will occasionally play pop and new artists.

I honestly hate making my own mix and Spotify in general so I do listen to the radio when driving a distance, my tolerance to music is limited and too long of anything becomes noise after which I shut off and listen to the car run, I generally surf and run the gamut usually oldies npr or Duke unless I’m in the mood for a dose of the modern nonsense or something heavy and loud.

moderation
 
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Most of the dial has been bought up by i-heart-radio and similar outfits. They're way over leveraged and constantly going bankrupt. But eliminating competition isn't hard if nobody stops them and if they buy the last independent in town they can finally realize their goal of having commercials on every channel simultaneously. The FCC used to have ownership limits but the big guys whined that they couldn't keep the lights on so the FCC caved.

I used to work at an independent TV station. We were owned by one guy and his LLC that shared an address with his condo in Arizona. It sucked! If a piece of equipment broke he'd try to buy a replacement on ebay then call us up for the model numbers *again* because he found something obsolete that was one digit off for 1/10 the price. He sold our building out from underneath us then leased it back then stopped paying on the lease, so a competing station moved in and literally put up a chain link fence down the middle of the engineering rooms.

The efficiencies of scale come in by using centralized offices for traffic/billing, DJ/content creation, production, and master control. Listeners might get lucky to have local on-air talent that might even be live for the morning show.
 
That list is out of date. WWCD Columbus, OH was on 102.5, but is now on 92.9. It is an alt rock station
They have a fraction of the advertisements heard on Clear Channel music radio station.

Play list the last hour.

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I don't remember the call sign but there is a small independent station in Hayward, WI (AM&FM). Small staion with VERY local coverage. I'm sure there are others because as I drive aound the rural areas in the state I occasionally come across small stations like in Hayward.
 
There's a couple of stations missing that I can name off the top of my head.

WKNO 101.7 Ohio
WWGH-LP 107.1 Marion OH
 
Hall said:
This must exclude NPR stations, yes ? As I understand it, those stations support (or pay for) the NPR portions that they broadcast, not the other way around, i.e. NPR doesn't sent them $$$. Just wondering is all, by the way.
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Well - there are NPR affiliates, but for the most part these stations are supported by Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding to pay for certain expenses such as salaries and programming costs. Especially in smaller markets where there's less listener support. But there's a host of different programming providers including Public Radio Exchange, American Public Media, and National Public Radio.
 
Looks like a large percentage of the 88 from the States are college stations.

I had no idea there was so few left.
 
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