Wave of FM Station Sales in 2025 Exposes the Urgency of Radio Digitalization in Brazil

The intense wave of buying and selling FM radio stations observed throughout 2025 cannot be interpreted merely as a cyclical market phenomenon. Above all, it represents a structural signal of the exhaustion of the traditional analog model and a defensive, yet clear, anticipation of an inevitable technological transformation of Brazilian radio.

In many cases, these transactions do not reflect optimism or expansion, but strategic repositioning. Better-capitalized media groups are absorbing weakened assets, while smaller operators are choosing to exit the market in the face of growing difficulty in sustaining operations based exclusively on analog FM. The value of the broadcast license alone no longer guarantees competitiveness or predictable revenue.

FM as a Transitional Asset, Not a Safe Haven

For decades, the FM band was synonymous with stability: mass audiences, low reception costs for listeners, and a well-understood commercial ecosystem. That landscape has changed. Audiences have fragmented, advertising has migrated to measurable digital environments, and audio consumption has become inherently multiplatform. FM, by itself, has ceased to be a competitive advantage and has become just one more distribution channel.

The intensification of station sales in 2025 indicates that many broadcasters and investors have already internalized this shift. Buying an FM station today is no longer the acquisition of a mature and predictable business, but rather of a transitional asset, one that requires additional investment in technology, digital distribution, and new content formats in order to remain relevant.

Digitalization as a Structural Response, Not an Add-On

In this context, radio digitalization ceases to be a distant theoretical or regulatory debate and becomes an operational necessity. Digital transmission systems offer clear gains in spectral efficiency, audio quality, signal robustness, associated data transmission, and, most importantly, genuine integration with the digital ecosystem where audiences already are.

Market activity in 2025 suggests that many investors are positioning themselves for this turning point: consolidating FM assets today in order to transform them tomorrow into hybrid or fully digital platforms capable of competing not only with other radio stations, but also with global on-demand audio services.

Who Is Selling, Who Is Buying...and Why

A recurring pattern has emerged in recent transactions. On one side are local operators, heavily dependent on traditional advertising and with limited investment capacity, opting to sell before their assets lose even more relative value. On the other are groups that view scale, technology, and data as core strategic factors, betting on consolidation and preparing the ground for a redesigned radio industry.

This type of movement is typical of sectors approaching a technological inflection point: assets change hands before the new model becomes fully dominant. The history of telecommunications, television, and print media offers clear parallels.

The Message of 2025 for Brazilian Radio

The intense circulation of FM licenses in 2025 is therefore less a sign of vitality and more a warning. The market is reorganizing itself because it understands that the current model is unsustainable in the medium term without a clear technological transition. Digitalization of radio in Brazil is no longer merely desirable, it has become urgent.

Ignoring this movement would mean repeating mistakes already made by other media sectors that reacted too late to changes in consumption patterns. Correctly reading the signals of 2025 may allow radio to do something rare in the media industry: anticipate the future rather than simply react to it.

Some Scenes from the 2025 Film

If one were to observe Brazilian radio in 2025 with even minimal attention, it would be clear that something had changed in the tone of the conversation. It was not a year of triumphant announcements or grand slogans about “the future of radio.” It was quieter. More pragmatic. And precisely for that reason, more revealing.

In São Paulo, the country’s main media laboratory, events unfolded rapidly. Definitive AM shutdowns, launches on the extended FM band, historic brands changing frequencies, names, and even identities. Seven medium-wave stations shut down their transmitters in Greater São Paulo. Some quietly closed cycles spanning decades, almost as if accepting that persistence no longer made sense. Others simply moved addresses on the dial and carried on, now on FM, trying to relearn how to speak to their audiences.

The arrival of Rádio Record on extended FM, the launch of Canção Nova on 85.9 MHz, the activation of Estilo FM on 79.1 MHz, the migration of Rádio Da Cidade in Guarulhos, taken together, these developments looked less like a celebration and more like rearranging furniture in an old house. Nothing was demolished outright, but it became clear that the space needed reconfiguration.

And while São Paulo was in motion, the Northeast also offered unmistakable signs that this was neither a local nor an isolated phenomenon.

In Natal, 2025 was particularly symbolic. The sale of 104 FM, a relevant frequency in the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, did not occur by chance or in isolation. It was accompanied by the sale of CBN Natal and by a series of transactions involving stations in the interior of the state, many of which had long been family-owned, regional businesses that were stable within their limitations.

When multiple stations change hands at the same time, it is rarely just about price. It is about reading the landscape. Sellers, in general, sense that the model is becoming too heavy to carry alone. Buyers, in turn, are not merely purchasing the present, but attempting to construct a logic for what comes next.

And this leads to the question that cuts across the entire process: why so much movement now?

Because FM, which for decades was synonymous with security, has become a transitional asset. It remains relevant, powerful, and broadly penetrated, but it no longer sustains itself as a standalone solution. Radio became multiplatform without asking permission. Listeners migrated to streaming, to mobile devices, to connected cars. Advertising followed the same path. FM remained solid, but increasingly pressured from all sides.

In São Paulo, this became explicit through repositioning efforts: Transamérica changing its profile, the arrival of the future Forbes Radio, grid reorganizations, and the end of religious leasing agreements on certain frequencies. All signs point to an almost anxious search for new editorial meaning and new revenue models.

In Rio Grande do Norte, the picture is even starker. Many of the stations sold in the interior were not bankrupt, but had reached the limits of growth possible under the traditional analog model. Margins for investment were thin, competition with digital platforms was becoming increasingly difficult, and there was a clear perception that without scale or technology, the game would only get tougher.

This is precisely where digitalization ceases to be an academic discussion or distant promise.

When one looks at this entire set of movements, AM shutdowns, migration to extended FM, FM sales and acquisitions, group consolidation, and the exit of smaller operators, what emerges is not enthusiasm, but urgency. Urgency for efficiency, for data integration, for technical quality, and for new content delivery formats.

Extended FM, incidentally, has become almost a symbol of this intermediate phase. It solves part of the problem, but not all of it. In 2026, many of these stations will still face clear limitations: incompatible receivers, difficulties in audience measurement, advertiser resistance, and a constant need to justify their commercial relevance. It is not a final solution. It is a bridge.

Perhaps the greatest lesson of 2025 is this: Brazilian radio is not dying, but it is no longer comfortable. It is moving because it has realized that standing still is more costly than changing.

The sales of 104 FM, CBN Natal, and so many stations in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte, combined with the major movements in São Paulo, are not regional exceptions.

They are different chapters of the same story. A story in which FM alone is no longer enough, and in which digitalization has ceased to be a choice and has become a condition for survival.

Radio has finally begun to have a serious conversation with itself. And those who are not listening to that conversation in 2026 may find themselves speaking alone.