Digital Broadcasts/Death of vintage Radio & TV

[electroking]

Just a technical note: amateur transmissions are NOT broadcasting, they are
intended for other radio amateurs only, although the content is indeed public
and anyone is free to listen. Also, free broadcasts will be available as long
as not enough people are willing to pay to get what they want to listen to.
If 95 % of the public do 95 % of their listening on subscription digital radio, the
commercial incentive to do free broadcasting will be gone, and no government
policy will do anything about that.

The fact that TV is going digital before radio (if radio ever does it) is due to
most U.S. homes being already hooked to some form of cable or satellite
distribution.

As a final comment, I hope that you realize the FM or AM station you are listening to
is probably feeding its transmitter via a fully digital link...