[HeyLaughingBoy]

That "most markets" does a lot of heavy lifting.

In the MSP area my two main radio stations are both public radio. The state's MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) station and The Current, which is basically what the GP described for the Twin Cities region.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that I'd miss them if they were gone. OK, I really like listening to Terry Gross and Kai Ryssdal but besides that it's just nice background audio.

[inferiorhuman]

A real quick check of "top radio station owners" showed that the top ten all picked up more stations going from 2020 to 2021. Yes there are still a ton of small stations doing god knows what (on the order of 10,000 AM+FM commercial), but there's been a ton of consolidation. Your examples of Terry Gross and Kai Ryssdal kinda highlight that. Neither MPR nor WHYY are local for most of their audience (and arguably neither are focused on local content).