Radio Licenses Used to Be Worth Millions. Cumulus Just Gave One Back.
A San Francisco station is part of a growing wave of radio signals that owners can’t—or won’t—keep alive.
Cumulus has surrendered the FCC license for 560 KZAC in San Francisco, part of a growing trend affecting radio stations across the country.
We’re not talking about some small-market station here.
The station originally signed on as 1390 KTAB Oakland in 1925. After several frequency changes, it landed at 560 in 1929. For decades, that frequency was the home of KSFO.
KZAC had been silent since March 2025. During that time, Cumulus told the FCC it was negotiating to sell it. A sale never happened. I presume that means nobody offered enough money to make it worthwhile.
A full-market San Francisco signal couldn’t attract a buyer willing to take on the transmitter, land or lease, engineering, insurance, utilities and regulatory costs. The license was no longer valuable enough for Cumulus to keep carrying it.
In September, Cumulus surrendered four other AM licenses after taking the stations silent and considering possible sales.
Now the company is going through another round of layoffs. Cuts have hit New York, central Illinois, Detroit, Columbia, Mobile and Shreveport, with more expected.
Cumulus is also reorganizing under Chapter 11 for the second time in less than a decade. A bankruptcy court approved its restructuring plan in April, but the company is still waiting for FCC approval before it can complete the process.
If that’s not a sign of a spiral in the radio business, I don’t know what is. And it’s picking up speed.
Last year, Cumulus let nearly 20 stations go dark in markets including Birmingham, Beaumont and Melbourne. Most were AM stations or weaker FM signals that the company concluded were no longer worth operating.
Townsquare took the same route, blaming “economic conditions.” It managed to sell a few stations, but at fire-sale prices. The WDLA AM-FM combination in Walton, New York, went for just $50,000.
iHeart and other owners have also shut down or surrendered AM facilities. In some cases, a tower lease ended. In others, the land was sold or the programming was moved to an FM translator or HD channel.
How many of you have HD radios? That’s not even available in my 2025 Ford.
Once the programming survives somewhere else, keeping an expensive AM transmitter running becomes harder to justify.
The FCC’s own numbers confirm the direction. The country had 4,551 licensed AM stations at the end of 2020. By March 31 of this year, the number had fallen to 4,310.
That’s a loss of 241 stations, or about 5.3 percent, in a little more than five years.
Radio’s not in wholesale collapse. At least, not yet. Many stations still make money, and good FM signals continue to attract buyers, although, for a bit less money than they used to.
But distressed stations are even worse off. Some aren’t attracting any buyers at all. Owners show a lot more willingness to shut off the transmitter, sell the land and walk away from a license that once would have been considered too valuable to lose.
San Francisco’s 560, in one of America’s biggest markets, has disappeared without a buyer. That’s another mile-marker on a road that’s not leading to the Emerald City.
The real tipping point will come when owners start surrendering standalone AM and FM licenses that still have meaningful audiences.
I think that’s still a ways off. But we’re headed in that direction. What do you think?
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Rob, I have to assume that Cumulus extracted all value from its 560 kHz signal in the Bay Area long ago. That is to say, I’ll bet they have already sold off the towers and the land they are on. Probably while searching the sofa cushions for spare change to make a debt payment. That’s also a big iHeart play. All that’s left if a station is sold is the license itself and maybe some studio equipment. Which means any new owner will be forced to lease the towers and studio space. And any new owner will also be at the mercy of whatever entity owns the towers and land. If that entity decides they can make more money by selling it all for development, the station could have an existential problem. Those are major factors that are probably making any sale a non-starter.