Radio Broadcasting Stations (U.S.) — NAICS 516110

An investor's primer for public-market and private investors

1. Overview

Radio broadcasting stations own and operate over-the-air AM and FM signals — the local stations that fill cars, kitchens, and workplaces with music, talk, news, and sports, and that increasingly stream the same content online and publish podcasts. It is an old, cash-generative, advertising-funded business now managing a slow secular decline in its core over-the-air product while trying to shift revenue toward digital audio.

Radio still reaches roughly 91% of Americans every month — wider than any other single medium — and it holds the largest share of ad-supported audio listening [1][2]. But over-the-air (OTA) advertising, the industry's engine, is shrinking, and most of the large operators loaded up on debt during two decades of consolidation. The result, for both public-market and private investors, is a field of cash-rich but leveraged local businesses where capital structure often matters as much as station quality.

There are two ways to participate. Public investors buy shares in a handful of small, mostly heavily indebted station owners. Private investors provide acquisition capital, buy station assets or operating companies outright, lend against station cash flow, or partner with private groups. The industry's #2 operator (Audacy) and many of its largest owners by signal count are private, family-held, church-affiliated, or nonprofit. A large noncommercial (public radio) sphere sits outside the investable market entirely.

Note on terms below: "Reported" marks a sourced fact; "View" marks our analysis.

2. What it is and how it's structured

Scope. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 516110 covers establishments primarily engaged in broadcasting aural (audio) programs to the public over the AM (amplitude-modulation) and FM (frequency-modulation) bands, including commercial and noncommercial stations, their studios, and transmission facilities. A station may also stream its signal online. Revenue comes chiefly from selling airtime to advertisers; noncommercial stations run on donations, underwriting, and grants instead [3].

What it excludes (adjacent NAICS 2022 codes):

• 516120 — Television Broadcasting Stations (TV, not radio).
• 516210 — Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers — where internet-only radio, streaming-music services, satellite audio, and standalone podcast/network content providers land. Pure streamers such as Spotify and Pandora and satellite operator SiriusXM are not in 516110, even though they compete for the same ears.
• 512240 / 512250 — Sound Recording Studios / Record Production and Distribution (making the music, not broadcasting it).
• Advertising sales representation and media buying sit in the 5418 advertising codes.

Firms vs. establishments. A single company that owns many stations reports as one firm but many establishments — each licensed station, studio, or office is an establishment — which is why the industry looks more fragmented by establishment than it is by ownership.

Ownership mix. Three layers: (1) large commercial groups that own hundreds of stations across dozens of markets (iHeartMedia, Audacy, Cumulus); (2) mid-size and small commercial owners, many family-run, in one or a few markets; and (3) a large noncommercial/public sphere — university, community, and religious nonprofits — that is licensed and on-air but largely outside the commercial receipts the federal statistics measure. The operating model is local: a typical cluster combines programming, sales, transmission, websites, streaming, events, and sometimes television or publishing.

3. How big it is

Federal statistics for NAICS 516110 (ground-truth U.S. Census Bureau and Small Business Administration figures):

Concentration is moderate-to-high: the largest 4 firms took 42.6% of industry receipts, the top 8 52.0%, the top 20 66.8%, and the top 50 76.3% in 2022 [3]. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, the standard concentration statistic) is suppressed in the federal data, so we state no value.

Undercount caveat. These figures mainly capture commercial employer establishments and understate radio's real footprint two ways. First, the noncommercial/public sphere — roughly a third of all licensed stations, run as university, community, tribal, and religious nonprofits — is largely outside these commercial receipts; County Business Patterns also excludes self-employed activity and most government employees [4]. Second, the physical medium is far larger than 3,944 establishments implies: as of late 2025 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) counted about 4,342 AM, 6,589 commercial FM, and 4,689 noncommercial FM full-power stations, plus 1,994 low-power FM and roughly 8,900 FM translators/boosters — over 15,000 full-power signals in total [6]. Many roll up into a single firm's establishment count or belong to nonprofits, so the business-statistics view and the spectrum view diverge sharply.

Ad-revenue cross-check. Industry trackers size radio advertising differently by methodology, so treat these as estimates, not federal benchmarks. The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) put digital radio advertising at $2.3 billion in 2025, or 24.4% of total radio ad revenue (implying roughly $9–9.5 billion total) [7]; BIA Advisory Services estimated 2024 local radio (OTA plus stations' own digital) at about $13.6 billion, with digital near a quarter [8]. Both agree on the direction of travel: OTA flat-to-down, digital growing.

4. The investable universe

Radio is unusual: the market leaders are either small public companies or private. There is no mega-cap and no dedicated radio exchange-traded fund (ETF). Public-company figures below rely primarily on Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings; none is a pure play — most combine broadcast radio with digital audio, events, networks, podcasts, publishing, or television. Exchange labels are Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and over-the-counter (OTC) Markets.

Public companies (approximate scale):

Major private / other owners:

• Audacy — the #2 U.S. radio operator (~$1.1–1.3B revenue, ~220 stations). Went private in 2024 after a pre-packaged Chapter 11 cut its debt ~80% to ~$350 million; controlled by a lender group (Laurel Tree Opportunities, tied to Soros Fund Management) with management retained. The FCC approved the license transfers that let it exit bankruptcy [16].
• Connoisseur Media — completed its acquisition of Alpha Media in 2025, becoming a top-10 U.S. broadcaster with 216 stations across 47 markets [17].
• Educational Media Foundation (EMF) — nonprofit operator of the K-LOVE and Air1 Christian networks, with more than 1,000 signals across all 50 states; among the largest U.S. owners by signal count. Not investable [18].
• Family and church-affiliated groups — Hubbard Broadcasting (family-owned), Bonneville International (a subsidiary of Deseret Management, the for-profit arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Cox Media Group (radio plus TV, private), Midwest Communications, Cherry Creek, and many single-market operators [19].
• Public radio (NPR/PBS member stations) — 1,000+ noncommercial member stations, all nonprofit and outside the investable universe.

View: for most investors, meaningful public radio exposure means buying one of the small-caps above directly; broad media or communication-services funds carry only trace radio weight.

5. How the money works

Radio is a high-fixed-cost, high-operating-leverage advertising business. Programming, on-air talent, transmission, towers, and rent are largely fixed, so once they are covered, incremental ad dollars fall to profit — and in a downturn, lost ad dollars fall straight out of profit. That leverage cuts both ways and explains the sector's volatile margins.

The core revenue engine — spot advertising. Stations sell airtime in "spots," effectively selling audience priced off ratings. Revenue comes from local spot, national/network sales, digital, streaming, podcasts, sponsorships, events, syndicated content, and local marketing services [9][11]. The operating metrics that matter (Nielsen Audio maintains the audience definitions):

• Average quarter-hour (AQH) audience and share — how many people are listening in a typical 15 minutes, and the station's slice of the market.
• Cumulative audience (cume) and time spent listening (TSL) — total reach and how long each listener stays.
• Spot-inventory sell-through and yield per available minute — radio can't easily add ad minutes without annoying listeners, so pricing and sell-through, not volume, do the work.
• Local vs. national mix — local direct advertisers are the sticky bread-and-butter; national spot is more cyclical and has declined faster.
• Same-station (same-market) revenue growth — the like-for-like measure, radio's analogue to "same-store sales."
• Political revenue — a meaningful even-year swing factor tracked separately; election years (2024, 2026) lift revenue, off-years (2025) give it back.

There is no useful federal capacity-utilization statistic for radio; inventory sell-through and pricing are the closest economic analogues.

The growth engine — digital audio. The strategic story is shifting the mix from OTA to digital: station streams, operators' own apps (e.g., iHeartRadio), podcasting, and digital marketing services sold to local businesses. iHeartMedia's digital revenue reached roughly $1.3 billion in 2025 (podcast revenue up ~26%), narrowing the gap with its shrinking broadcast segment [9]; Townsquare draws more than half its revenue from digital [11]. Digital is where the industry hopes to replace eroding OTA dollars — though digital typically monetizes at lower margins than legacy broadcast.

Profitability and the balance sheet. Because these are leveraged operators, investors watch adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — a cash-margin proxy), free cash flow (FCF), and leverage far more than reported net income, which is muddied by goodwill and broadcast-license write-downs. The decisive variable is debt: two decades of debt-funded consolidation left the majors highly levered, and refinancing/deleveraging (iHeart's 2024 debt exchange, Audacy's and Cumulus's bankruptcies, Salem's debt repayment) has driven the equity stories more than operations have [15][16].

Costs. Major costs are labor, programming and talent, transmission sites, towers, rent, technology, sales commissions, and music rights. Terrestrial radio currently pays for the underlying musical-composition rights but pays no sound-recording performance royalty to artists/labels for OTA airplay; digital transmissions generally do incur statutory sound-recording royalties [24].

Noncommercial economics. Public stations don't sell spots. They run on listener donations/memberships, corporate underwriting, foundation grants, and — until 2025 — federal money routed through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

6. What drives demand

Reported: Nielsen measured daily audio consumption at 3 hours 54 minutes in Q1 2025, with AM/FM radio holding the largest share of ad-supported audio time — about 64–66% depending on the measurement, ahead of podcasts and ad-supported streaming [1][21].

Key demand drivers:

• The advertising cycle. Radio ad spend tracks the broader economy and local retail/auto/services budgets; it is early-cyclical and falls fast in downturns. The 2025 broadcast-ad market softened as political dollars rolled off [20].
• In-car listening. The car is radio's fortress — commuting drives a large share of listening, where free, live, local programming remains valuable. Time spent at home and work has been ceded to streaming and on-demand.
• Local advertiser health. Auto dealers, retailers, healthcare, and services are core categories; their budgets move station revenue.
• Political and event cycles. Even-year elections and major sports/local events are demand spikes.
• Format and audience specialization. News/talk, sports, country, and Spanish-language, Black, and religious formats each anchor distinct, loyal audiences and pricing power.
• Content and talent. Marquee personalities and sports rights drive ratings — and costs.
• Digital and cross-platform. Streaming, podcasts, attribution/measurement, and events extend the audience the industry can sell.

7. Regulation

Radio is a licensed, FCC-regulated industry:

• Licensing. Stations operate under FCC licenses (up to eight-year terms, renewed on a "public interest, convenience, and necessity" standard) and the FCC controls spectrum, technical parameters, and license transfers — every ownership change needs FCC approval (a factor in the timing of the Audacy and Cumulus bankruptcy exits) [22][16][15].
• Ownership caps. There is no national ownership cap for radio (unlike TV). Under 47 CFR §73.3555, local caps limit how many stations one entity may own in a market on a sliding scale — up to 8 in the largest markets (45+ stations), scaling down to 5 in the smallest — with AM/FM subcaps limiting how many can be on the same band [23]. In 2025 the FCC opened a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in its statutorily required quadrennial review, asking whether these limits remain necessary or should account for nonbroadcast audio competitors; large groups are lobbying to loosen or drop the subcaps to enable more consolidation [23]. This primer assumes no final change to the existing rule.
• Foreign ownership. Section 310 of the Communications Act limits foreign ownership of broadcast licensees (a 25% benchmark above which FCC approval is needed).
• Content and public-interest rules. Stations maintain online public files (ownership, political, and community-programming records); comply with sponsorship-identification and payola rules; observe political-advertising rules (reasonable access, equal opportunity, lowest-unit-rate); and participate in the Emergency Alert System (EAS), maintaining equipment to receive and relay emergency messages [22].
• Music royalties. Stations pay performance royalties to songwriters/publishers via ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR. The long-standing exemption of terrestrial radio from a sound-recording performance royalty to artists/labels is contested; the recurring "American Music Fairness Act" would end it, raising costs if it ever passes [24].
• AM in the dashboard. As some automakers drop AM from new (especially electric) vehicles, the proposed "AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act" would require AM in new cars — important because AM stations depend on in-car listening and carry much emergency programming.
• Public-media funding. In 2025 Congress rescinded roughly $1.1 billion in CPB funding, ending federal support for NPR/PBS member stations; CPB began winding down. Analysts warn a meaningful share of rural/small public stations are at risk of closing — a policy shock to the noncommercial half of the industry, though it does not directly affect commercial operators [25].

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The defining event was the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which removed national radio ownership limits and loosened local ones, unleashing a consolidation wave. Roll-ups — Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia), Cumulus, and CBS Radio/Entercom (now Audacy) — assembled hundreds of stations on borrowed money. The debt outlived the growth: iHeart went through Chapter 11 in 2018–19, Audacy in 2024, and Cumulus in 2026 [15][16].

Competition today is less station-vs-station than radio-vs-all-audio: on-demand and ad-supported streaming (Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, Amazon), satellite radio (SiriusXM), podcasts, plus search, social, and connected-TV advertising all compete for listening time and the ad dollars that follow. Radio's structural counters are its unmatched free, local, in-car reach and its push into podcasting and local digital-marketing services — arenas where iHeart (podcasting) and Townsquare (local digital) are furthest along [9][11].

View: consolidation is real but constrained. Connoisseur's acquisition of Alpha created a large private group, while Audacy and Cumulus deleveraged through bankruptcy [15][16][17]. Future mergers are likely to be selective rather than a simple national roll-up, because local ownership limits, debt capacity, license approvals, and market-specific economics all bind — though scale is one of the few levers left to defend margins, so any FCC relaxation of caps would likely trigger a fresh wave [23].

9. Risks

• Secular decline of OTA. Listening and ad dollars are drifting to digital/on-demand audio; the pivot may not fully replace lost broadcast revenue, and digital monetizes at thinner margins.
• Advertising cyclicality. High operating leverage means recessions and soft local-ad markets hit profits hard; election revenue is volatile between even and odd years.
• Debt and refinancing. Legacy leverage leaves several operators exposed to refinancing risk and interest costs; equity can be wiped out (Audacy's and, per its plan, Cumulus's common shares were/are to be canceled) [15][16].
• Connected-car / dashboard competition. As cars become app platforms, AM/FM's default-listening advantage erodes; loss of AM in EVs is a specific threat.
• Cost pressure. Talent, sports rights, and any change to the terrestrial music-royalty exemption could raise costs [24].
• Measurement disadvantage. Radio offers weaker targeting/attribution than digital platforms, pressuring ad rates, and ratings/attribution disputes recur.
• Small-cap/liquidity and governance risk. Several public names are thinly traded, some over-the-counter, with controlling shareholders.
• Intangible impairment. Broadcast-license and goodwill write-downs recur and distort reported earnings.
• Public-media funding loss for the noncommercial segment (does not hit commercial operators directly, but reshapes the local audio landscape) [25].

View: the central risk is that audience durability outlasts the financial durability of overleveraged owners — the industry's bankruptcy history makes capital structure as important as station quality.

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public routes. Direct exposure means owning the small-cap operators in Section 4 — best treated as leveraged, deep-value/turnaround equities, not growth or dividend staples. Most trade cheaply precisely because of the OTA decline and their balance sheets, and two (Cumulus, Salem) now sit over-the-counter. When analyzing them, look at the radio segment rather than consolidated revenue: same-station core revenue, audience share, digital growth, political normalization, capital expenditure, license impairments, debt maturities, and free cash flow. For valuation, compare enterprise value (EV) with adjusted EBITDA and FCF, stripping out non-radio businesses and one-time political revenue. There is no pure radio ETF, so index exposure is minimal. iHeartMedia is the most liquid and the clearest "digital pivot plus deleveraging" thesis; Townsquare is the cleanest "local digital" story; Beasley, Saga, Salem, and Urban One are smaller and more idiosyncratic.

Private routes. Most of the industry is private, so private investors participate through local station M&A (single stations or market clusters, often at low multiples of cash flow), distressed-debt/credit in the leveraged operators, or partnership with existing private groups. Diligence should cover station-level revenue by advertiser category, ratings history, inventory sell-through, local market share, license-renewal status, tower/facility obligations, labor costs, digital monetization, and realistic debt service. Private ownership offers more control and asset selection but less liquidity and less standardized disclosure.

Near-term drivers to watch:

• Digital and podcast growth offsetting OTA erosion — the swing factor for whether total revenue can stabilize.
• The 2026 midterm election cycle, a cyclical tailwind after a soft 2025.
• FCC ownership deregulation — if subcaps/local caps loosen, expect a consolidation and roll-up wave that could re-rate the group.
• Balance-sheet repair — continued deleveraging and refinancing at manageable rates is a prerequisite to any equity re-rating for the leveraged names.
• Connected-car integration and AM-preservation legislation, which bear on radio's most important listening environment.

View: the reported picture is a mature, strategically important industry in managed decline with durable cash flow and unmatched local reach; the forward judgment is that the survivors will be operators with strong local brands, disciplined leverage, measurable cross-platform sales, and enough scale to spread technology and content costs — those who convert reach into digital and podcast revenue, and repair their balance sheets, before in-car listening habits fully migrate.

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Sources

1. Nielsen, "The Record: Q1 U.S. Audio Listening Trends," 2025 (daily audio 3h54m; radio share of ad-supported audio). https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2025/the-record-q1-audio-listening-trends/
2. Inside Audio Marketing, "Nielsen: Radio Maintains Dominance In U.S. Audio Market" (~91% monthly reach), 2025. https://www.insideaudiomarketing.com/post/nielsen-radio-maintains-dominance-in-u-s-audio-market
3. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022, NAICS 516110 — receipts, firm count, and concentration ratios (CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50; HHI suppressed). https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/econ/economic-census/naics-sector-00.html
4. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 516110 — establishments, employment, payroll — and CBP methodology (excludes self-employed and most government employees). https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP
5. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards, 2023 (NAICS 516110, $47 million). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
6. Federal Communications Commission, "Broadcast Station Totals," 2025; Inside Radio, "Radio Station Total Ticks Up In 2025." https://www.fcc.gov/media/broadcast-station-totals
7. Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), "Radio's Digital Revenue Hit $2.3 Billion in 2025" (24.4% of total radio ad revenue), 2026. https://www.rab.com/
8. BIA Advisory Services via Radio World, "BIA: Political Advertising Bolsters 2024 Media Revenue" (2024 local radio ~$13.6B, OTA+digital), 2024. https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/programming-and-sales/bia-political-advertising-bolsters-2024-media-revenue
9. iHeartMedia, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (868 owned-and-operated stations; broadcast-radio segment ~$1.63B; total revenue ~$3.86B; digital ~$1.3B; podcast +26%), filed 2026; and Radio World FY2025 coverage. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1400891/000162828026013221/ihrt-20251231.htm
10. Urban One, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (76 revenue-producing broadcast stations; 58 AM/FM), filed 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1041657/000104165726000016/uone-20251231.htm
11. Townsquare Media, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K and preliminary 2024 results (revenue ~$450M; digital ~52%). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1499832/000149983226000020/tsq-20251231.htm
12. Salem Media Group, Year-End 2025 Annual Report; FY2024 revenue $237.6M; moved off Nasdaq to OTC. https://investor.salemmedia.com/news-events/press-releases
13. Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K; FY2024 net revenue $240.3M. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1099160/000119312526147594/bbgi-20251231.htm
14. Saga Communications, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (82 FM, 30 AM stations; 28 markets); FY2024 net revenue $110.3M. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886136/000110465926043166/sga-20251231x10k.htm
15. Cumulus Media, 2025 Form 10-K (393 stations, 84 markets) and 2026 restructuring disclosures (Chapter 11; plan cancels legacy equity, transfers to creditors). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058623/000105862326000018/cmls-20251231.htm
16. Audacy — Axios, "Audacy Emerges from Bankruptcy as a Private Company," 2024; FCC Order FCC-24-94 (license transfers); Inside Radio (debt cut ~80% to ~$350M; Laurel Tree/Soros ownership). https://www.axios.com/2024/09/30/audacy-emerges-from-bankruptcy-as-a-private-company
17. Connoisseur Media, "Completes Acquisition of Alpha Media" (216 stations, 47 markets; top-10 U.S. broadcaster), 2025. https://connoisseurmedia.com/
18. Educational Media Foundation, "About EMF" (K-LOVE and Air1; 1,000+ signals across 50 states), 2026. https://www.emfmedia.com/
19. Hubbard Broadcasting and Bonneville International (a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corp.), company overviews, 2026. https://bonneville.com/about-us/
20. S&P Global Market Intelligence, "Broadcast outlook 2025: Challenges, opportunities facing US TV, radio stations," 2025. https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2025/10/broadcast-outlook-2025
21. Westwood One / Edison "Share of Ear," Q3 2025 ("AM/FM Radio Dominates Ad-Supported Audio"; AM/FM ~64%), 2025. https://www.westwoodone.com/blog/
22. Federal Communications Commission — broadcast licensing/renewal (47 U.S.C. §307; up-to-8-year terms), public inspection files, political-advertising rules, and Emergency Alert System (EAS). https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/fccs-review-broadcast-ownership-rules
23. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 47 CFR §73.3555 (local radio ownership rule and AM/FM subcaps); FCC 2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review NPRM, 2025. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-73/subpart-H/section-73.3555
24. Congressional Research Service, "On the Radio: Public Performance Rights in Sound Recordings" (terrestrial exemption; American Music Fairness Act), 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R47642/R47642.2.pdf
25. NPR, "Congress rolls back $9 billion in public media funding" and "In wake of defunding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's shutting down" (~$1.1B CPB rescission), 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/nx-s1-5489836/in-wake-of-defunding-the-corporation-for-public-broadcasting-says-its-shutting-down