I don’t know much about the business of radio. Are people listening to ipods/ipads/computers and not radio when they want music these days?
So radio only gets used for talk shows and sports?
Less and less people are probably listening to music on radio thanks to Ipods and such. Though music stations can do well.
If anything, AM radio is dying (even though Rush Limbaugh helped to save it some years ago). Crappy reception—
power line interference, stations that change direction
or go off at sunset—had pretty much limited AM to talk
shows, news, sports, ethnic, children’s (Radio Disney), etc. Now some sports, news, and talk stations are moving to FM
for better coverage.
This leads some people to say, “FM should be for music,
we don’t want talk”. But some people who like music
may well be abandoning music for Ipods—or other
things like satellite radio or HD radio (I have both;
the latter as a $40 portable). Sat. and HD have all kinds
of channels with various formats not found on regular
radio.
Anyway, formats like talk and sports do attract advertisers and yes, maybe music listeners have found other options.
(I’ll add audiobooks too, as an option people have found.)