And This Is How Small Radio Stations Are Dying in Brazil

From this arises a question that becomes paralyzing in many small towns: places with two radio stations and no minimally reliable research institutes capable of identifying which broadcaster holds any audience advantage, if such an advantage truly exists. In most cases, the music formats, programs, and promotions seem like mere variations of one another.

In many regions, this clash even occurs between stations from very nearby cities. In even more chaotic situations, we see neighboring towns where each has its own community radio station. As is known, community stations are generally authorized to operate on 87.9 MHz, although there are cases on 104.9 MHz, 87.5 MHz, and 87.7 MHz. Almost deliberately, community broadcasters in neighboring municipalities often end up operating on the same frequency. When these towns are less than 7 km apart, this becomes worse than unhealthy competition: what emerges are extensive spurious overlap zones where neither station delivers pleasant audio reception. This is where mutual interference becomes most evident.

Returning to the first issue, where stations essentially mirror one another, it is not difficult to see how this points to stagnation and even listener fatigue. While this mirroring is frustrating for the broadcasters themselves, it also prevents clear differentiation between them, at least from the advertiser’s perspective.

In practice, this absolute equality does not exist. There are countless nuances of differentiation, whether stations acknowledge them or not. Even off air communication, such as social media presence, local initiatives, and community engagement, creates distinct bonds with audiences. Critically, it is not uncommon to find situations where one station delivers commendable audio quality while the other is a compilation of distortion and sonic degradation.

And surprisingly, despite what might seem obvious, it is not a rule that the station with better audio quality achieves greater commercial success. This can only be explained by understanding the multiple factors that shape advertiser perception. An efficient sales team and strong promotional support can be decisive, and in many cases this combination exists precisely at the station with poorer sound quality. All of this enriches the remarkable story of small town radio.

Yes, community radio stations are certainly an inexhaustible source of stories. They were largely responsible for the hyper popularization of locally owned stations in small towns beginning in the 2000s. For better or worse, these spaces were wide open both to incredible talent discoveries and to less fortunate experiments. Jealousy, rivalries, and disputes have always been part of radio culture. The FM overpopulation of the 2000s merely reaffirmed that landscape.

Returning to the nuances: the willingness to produce radio professionally, without diminishing standards simply because the station is located in a small town, is a key factor. Otherwise, the station survives on favors that resemble charity, a clear indication that the formula is not working. Historically, many community stations have aired programming far removed from what audiences actually want to hear. There is no shortage of examples of hosts who turn on a computer and play their own exotic musical preferences for a public that has no interest in consuming that content. This makes it even less likely that another station would replicate such a model.

There are also intriguing situations. In neighboring towns, it is common for stations to almost form an informal network to broadcast daily the same nationally popular priest whose program commands strong ratings. The result is no choice on the dial. The first station airs the priest’s program, the second does as well, and the neighboring town’s station follows suit. The station that began airing it first may even complain to Curitiba, but it makes no difference: the more stations that rebroadcast the signal at that time slot, the better it is for the content distributor.

However, in the internet era, the factor of limited choice disappears. Listeners who want something different simply migrate to YouTube and often forget to return to FM. In small towns, it is extremely common for people to prefer listening to music on YouTube when local stations are not playing what they want, more so than turning to Spotify. YouTube is intuitive across age groups. Spotify, although simple for digitally native audiences, is not as obvious for more traditional listeners. For many, nothing is easier than opening YouTube, letting a video play, even without watching it, and using the phone as a radio.

When programming becomes a mirror image, the listener is left without options and inevitably exits the FM band.