Borrell: Digital Dashboards Will Wipe Out Half of AM/FM Stations

Ken Borrell

During webinar Monday hosted by Gordon Borrell of the research firm Borrell Associates, made a bold (and scary) prediction that digital dashboard will wipe out half of today's terrestrial stations.

According to RAIN,  attendees were first treated to a historical review of media technology disruption, followed by predictions in today’s media.

One of those predictions: Half of AM/FM terrestrial stations will disappear by 2024, their demise driven by adoption of alternative in-car listening choices. “That was one of the toughest predictions to make,” Gordon Borrell told RAIN News.

Gordon Borrell explained to RAIN why the prediction was so difficult. “There could be some economics in play that will allow some of these stations to continue to broadcast. there aren’t many variable costs. So a tiny AM station affiliated with a church could stay in business. It doesn’t take much money to run a station like that. So we had to think about that. The key thing is that as the listening audience gets smaller, or faces more competition, it coagulate around the most known and powerful stations. There are 36 stations in my market. Probably, only five of them are generally recognized.”

That doesn’t mean that ‘stations,’ in a broad sense, will necessarily disappear. “There are other means of sending out audio — you won’t need an FCC license,” Borrell said.