Was chatting up with a few friends. Both do not know each other and it was a separate discussion. "Can AM or FM radio survive being "Commercial Free"". The other question I suggest is, "Can AM or FM radio be profitable being "Commercial Free"".

Major markets, for FM signals, IF they could cut engineering costs, IF they could utilize AI close to 100%, IF they could run this with a few people out of a closet, to eliminate high cost rent and upkeep, they could go commercial free and do hourly sponsorships. (The FCC rule that someone has to be "there" 24 hours a day or to produce the license if needed, is a yesteryear thing). Yes, you squeeze out the small local business advertising, but, where are they today on the large major sticks? Almost totally non existent as they cant afford the rates.

For FM, considering that live air jocks are being whittled away, AI use increased, iHeart reportedly is considering to jettison their OTA AM & FM signals, this could be a more approachable solution to eliminate 20 - 25 minutes per hour stopsets. You eliminate majority of sales people, saving overhead. But you will have less revenue pouring in, on the other end. If your parent company is debt ridden and the shareholders own your ass, this probably will not work either. If you buy a station for a good deal, walking in pretty much fresh you have a better chance at this. Leasing an HDx instead of owing an AM to run a translator? This scenario would work great.

The last scenario is not being commercial free. But instead of having 10+ minute stopsets, you can have live or VT jocks talking up the ads during song intros.

Both scenarios would increase TSL and decimate the TSL and CUME for competing stations not following that model.

The upkeep for AM sticks/towers is much more due to towers, more complex setups etc. It is not a feasible venture.

For talk/spoken word, this gets a lot more dicey as what is talk and what is in place advertising?

So, can it survive? Most likely Yes, but "profitable"? The latter is much more the wild card. If Terrestrial radio wants to compete with online/IP, podcasts and the other 1 million consumption tracks out there, they need to start considering this is a palatable path for them to compete wisely. Or die. Prematurely.

Z