For 11 years, country music was America's most widely programmed radio format. In February, religion took its place.
The reversal has been striking. According to Inside Radio's latest tally, religious-format stations have increased by 68 over the past year, while country has lost 58 — a 126-station swing between two formats each represented by more than 2,000 outlets nationwide. Contemporary Christian, counted separately, ranks fourth among all radio formats and also continues to expand its footprint.
Combine those categories with Gospel and Spanish-language Christian programming, and the footprint becomes considerably larger. A 2026 Pew Research Center study identified 4,328 primary religious AM/FM stations — roughly one-quarter of the U.S. total — using data collected in 2025. Including translators and boosters, more than 7,300 facilities carry religious programming, within reception range of 98% of American adults.
Religious television has a substantial but less easily measured footprint, spanning full-power and low-power stations as well as numerous digital subchannels.
None of these figures necessarily demonstrates comparable growth in religious audiences. But they point to a curious development: As much of commercial broadcasting struggles to justify maintaining its physical infrastructure, religious organizations continue to find reasons to acquire or occupy more of it.
The more interesting story may be less about religion than about the changing economics of broadcasting — and what an expanding number of signals actually tells us about local service.
A Different Calculation
For commercial broadcasters, maintaining a station increasingly depends on whether advertising, carriage fees and other revenue justify the expense. Weakening returns encourage consolidation, cost-cutting and divestiture.
Religious broadcasters, particularly donation-supported nonprofits, operate under different incentives. Geographic reach can be valuable in itself, without necessarily generating additional local programming or revenue. Tax-exempt status and potentially deductible contributions can reinforce that model, allowing organizations to pursue distribution objectives without conventional commercial returns.
Educational Media Foundation, operator of K-LOVE and Air1, offers a useful example. Its recent $8 million acquisition of FM stations in Charlotte and Las Vegas from Beasley Media Group illustrates how differently broadcasters can value the same assets.
For Beasley, which had recently restructured its debt and reported a 9.6% decline in second-quarter same-station revenue, the sale generated much-needed cash. For EMF, those same facilities offered additional coverage for its nationally programmed services.
Television offers an even more revealing example.
In November, Entravision Communications agreed to sell WFTT-TV, serving Tampa–St. Petersburg, to an organization affiliated with the Church of Scientology for $30 million. Scientology Network has occupied the station's primary channel under a programming agreement since 2022. Pending regulatory approval, the transaction would convert an existing distribution arrangement into outright ownership.
Full-power television ownership offers another potential advantage: federally protected carriage on cable and satellite systems. Eligible stations can secure distribution of their primary channels through must-carry rules rather than negotiate retransmission fees. For donor-supported religious broadcasters, reaching viewers may matter more than carriage revenue — an advantage generally unavailable to networks leasing digital subchannels.
Multicasting offers a less expensive alternative. Commercial broadcasters can lease unused digital capacity to religious networks, generating incremental revenue while giving those programmers access to additional markets without acquiring stations.
Consider K14JS-D in Cortez, Colorado, a low-power station carrying eight religious programming streams, including Daystar, EWTN and 3ABN, through a single transmitter. One facility can distribute numerous national services without necessarily producing any programming locally.
Together, these arrangements suggest that religious broadcasting's expansion reflects not simply increased demand for faith-based programming, but how differently broadcasters value distribution itself.
Which raises a larger question: What actually makes a broadcaster “local”?
What Makes Broadcasting Local?
A station's signal can be local even when its programming — and the decisions behind it — are not.
There are three distinctions worth considering. Local transmission means a signal reaches a particular community. Local origination means programming is produced there. Local accountability concerns whether those running the station respond to that community's needs. The three can overlap, but they aren't interchangeable.
Pew found that 72% of religious radio stations belong to multi-station ownership groups, with commonly owned outlets often carrying identical programming. National religious networks can therefore reach hundreds of communities without producing distinct programming for each.
That doesn't diminish their value. Nationally distributed religious programming can serve meaningful community needs. But more transmitters don't necessarily mean more independent local voices.
Nor is this uniquely a religious broadcasting phenomenon. Syndicated radio programming, regional television production hubs and consolidated newsrooms have similarly widened the gap between local transmission and local decision-making.
The FCC's public-interest framework still requires broadcasters to serve their licensed communities. Although the agency eliminated its main-studio requirement in 2017, it reaffirmed in May 2026 that local-service obligations remain. Neither nonprofit status nor nationally originated programming changes that responsibility.
Religious broadcasting's expansion can sustain facilities that commercial operators struggle to support and broaden programming choices. But its growing reliance on nationally distributed content raises a legitimate question: How much of that expanding infrastructure actually serves the distinct needs of individual communities, rather than simply extending the reach of national ministries?
The FCC doesn't require broadcasters to produce programming locally. But serving a community involves more than transmitting a signal into it. And the economic incentives increasingly favoring national distribution make that distinction more consequential.
Religious broadcasters have demonstrated the value of local licenses to their national missions. The more important question is what those national missions are giving back to the communities they're licensed to serve.
Local News To Peruse:
- Political Ad Spending Nears $12 Billion As Streaming Chips Away At TV’s Dominance - A.J. Katz [TheWrap]
- Democrats’ Sweep Puts Brendan Carr In The Hot Seat - John Hendel [Politico]
- Trump’s FCC Nominee Avoids Questions From Democrats On Carr’s ‘Censorship Agenda’ - Jeremy Barr [The Guardian]
- Radio Missed Out On The Midterm Spending Wave, iHeartMedia Says - Randy J. Stine [RadioWorld]
- The Costs Of The Newsroom Without The Room - Jackie Spinner [Northwestern Medill Local News Initiative]
- Student Journalists Are Reporting More Local News For Real Audiences. Their Professors Are Exhausted. - Joshua Benton [NiemanLab]
- Changing How America Funds Local News - Dale R. Anglin [Press Forward]
- Broadcasters To Encrypt Emergency Messages With DRM - Lon Seidman [LonTV Blog]
