Station trafficking in radio: The impact of deregulation

Critics of the revocation of the “anti‐trafficking” rule in 1982 argued that traffickers would seek and obtain supranormal profits from the purchase and resale of stations, while proponents suggested that competition would prohibit such behavior from being successful. Using a census of open‐market radio sales from 1988 to 1990, this study finds somewhat different results for the AM, FM, and AM/FM combination segments of radio broadcasting. Trafficking appears to be most successful in the market for FM stations.