The AFN broadcasts are overseas, where there isn’t any competition in English. Unless you live in Britain. I remember when there was only 1 AFN channel in Germany and if you lived more than a couple of miles from the transmitter, you couldn’t receive it.
AFN is a dinosaur. It has always sucked, but, back in the day, sucking beat nothing.
Today, you can get almost anything online and there is really no need for it. As a comm troop, I can tell you AFN ain’t what’s on soldier’s personal computers.
I suppose that is the point:
With AFN providing rotten service, there is no incentive for a private company to provide better service.
Certanly overseas companies are capable of running a radio station in English.