So is night radio in America dead? What killed it?
November 7, 2025
Fell down a youtube rabbit hole which reminded me of night shifts listening to night radio. I looked up some of the old channels I listened to and most of them are no longer on the air. It seems like theres only a handful left
29 comments
Internet. Why be subjected to others choices when you can make your own playlists.
Music streaming
Radio in general is dying. The ability to stream music on your phone/car killed radio. Even daytime radio is 50% ads and then the same 15 songs on repeat. There’s still night time radio but it’s the same story.
You can load up any podcast at any time and aren’t forced to tune in to a specific station at a specific time to listen to a specific program.
Video killed the radio star
I think your question is specific to terrestrial radio. Internet radio is surviving. Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc… all have radio functions. Listening to music, radio style is fine… The physical stations that we grew up with, not so much.
A lot of my listening in the car is still on Pandora radio stations, just not terrestrial stations.
Without the gatekeeper of radio station content directors, the internet has better conspiracy theorists.
I used to have nightmares falling to sleep listening to Art Bell.
The fact that you found this on YouTube says a lot. Radio has been declining for a long, long time.
There’s loads of radio stations running 24×7 but in my experience most now run automated computer-controlled programming “outside business hours” instead of a DJ or host being on all the time.
Yeah. Long gone are the days of Dr Ruth, Dr Demento, and those other evening talk and/or music/variety shows on the air.
I don’t listen to the radio at all now. I’d rather listen to nothing. It’s all the same bullshit and ads.
Those came out in a time when there was barely any late night TV. No video games. Not much for lonely soul to do. Getting to hear a familiar voice was nice. It was like they were talking to YOU.
Now we have other ways to make ourselves not feel lonely. This subreddit is likely one.
NPR
Kinda everything killed it. For your example, I’d think podcasting and mp3 (and then streaming) killed that. Podcasts, at first, were just radio shows that you could listen to on-demand, before they branched into more niche content.
And then you have the option of watching YouTube or any streaming service on your phone.
Video killed it.
This has been known since the eighties.
Podcasts killed talk radio
Radio really started dying off about 20 years ago. The amount of ads were ridiculous and haven’t gotten better. satellite and then youtube and other streaming platforms just decimated radio. The ability to download what you want when you want is hard to compete against.
Delilah will be on the air till the heat death of the universe
There’s still a lot of college radio stations. Overnight they may be automated or repeat programming, but overall they offer a lot more of the live DJ feel, and my local state in North Carolina, WKNC, often has interesting radio shows playing a variety of different music. Another great one is KEXP which you can stream both online.
I guess I’m going against the rest of the answers, but all of the radio stations I listened to as a teenager in the early 2000s are still around. Several new stations appeared in the 2010s and those are still around, too. I usually stick to radio in my car, and I’m nocturnal, so most of my driving is between about 1 pm and 2 am. There is always music on the radio, and while I admit I surf the stations during commercials, I haven’t noticed an uptick in having to do that.
We’ve still got it in Philly, one station at least
My dad would listen to his childhood reruns of radio shows when I was a kid (he was silent generation)
I remember
” The shadow knows….”
Lone ranger
I have a radio for power outages during hurricanes for updates. Beats burning the phone battery.
Still going strong on AM. Local station has the most deranged people calling in each and every night to comment on the topic of the day
When I was a kid I used to geek out with an AM radio at night. Listened to KMOX out of St Louis all the way in Knoxville TN.
Well, with the death of Pierre Robert, radio is all the sadder.
Being able to listen to any song or a podcast on any subject you want, by download, basically.
(Part of my issue with ‘the algorithm’- it can only react to what you already liked. It can’t, say produce one feed everyone has to deal with the way a single radio station everyone listens to does, nor can it effectively just throw you something outside your tastes enough that you might expand what you like, but also not just be random.)
TUNE IN with radio stations around the world via internet
29 comments
Internet. Why be subjected to others choices when you can make your own playlists.
Music streaming
Radio in general is dying. The ability to stream music on your phone/car killed radio. Even daytime radio is 50% ads and then the same 15 songs on repeat. There’s still night time radio but it’s the same story.
You can load up any podcast at any time and aren’t forced to tune in to a specific station at a specific time to listen to a specific program.
Video killed the radio star
I think your question is specific to terrestrial radio. Internet radio is surviving. Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc… all have radio functions. Listening to music, radio style is fine… The physical stations that we grew up with, not so much.
A lot of my listening in the car is still on Pandora radio stations, just not terrestrial stations.
Without the gatekeeper of radio station content directors, the internet has better conspiracy theorists.
I used to have nightmares falling to sleep listening to Art Bell.
The fact that you found this on YouTube says a lot. Radio has been declining for a long, long time.
There’s loads of radio stations running 24×7 but in my experience most now run automated computer-controlled programming “outside business hours” instead of a DJ or host being on all the time.
Yeah. Long gone are the days of Dr Ruth, Dr Demento, and those other evening talk and/or music/variety shows on the air.
I don’t listen to the radio at all now. I’d rather listen to nothing. It’s all the same bullshit and ads.
Those came out in a time when there was barely any late night TV. No video games. Not much for lonely soul to do. Getting to hear a familiar voice was nice. It was like they were talking to YOU.
Now we have other ways to make ourselves not feel lonely. This subreddit is likely one.
NPR
Kinda everything killed it. For your example, I’d think podcasting and mp3 (and then streaming) killed that. Podcasts, at first, were just radio shows that you could listen to on-demand, before they branched into more niche content.
And then you have the option of watching YouTube or any streaming service on your phone.
Video killed it.
This has been known since the eighties.
Podcasts killed talk radio
Radio really started dying off about 20 years ago. The amount of ads were ridiculous and haven’t gotten better. satellite and then youtube and other streaming platforms just decimated radio. The ability to download what you want when you want is hard to compete against.
Delilah will be on the air till the heat death of the universe
There’s still a lot of college radio stations. Overnight they may be automated or repeat programming, but overall they offer a lot more of the live DJ feel, and my local state in North Carolina, WKNC, often has interesting radio shows playing a variety of different music. Another great one is KEXP which you can stream both online.
I guess I’m going against the rest of the answers, but all of the radio stations I listened to as a teenager in the early 2000s are still around. Several new stations appeared in the 2010s and those are still around, too. I usually stick to radio in my car, and I’m nocturnal, so most of my driving is between about 1 pm and 2 am. There is always music on the radio, and while I admit I surf the stations during commercials, I haven’t noticed an uptick in having to do that.
We’ve still got it in Philly, one station at least
My dad would listen to his childhood reruns of radio shows when I was a kid (he was silent generation)
I remember
” The shadow knows….”
Lone ranger
I have a radio for power outages during hurricanes for updates. Beats burning the phone battery.
Still going strong on AM. Local station has the most deranged people calling in each and every night to comment on the topic of the day
When I was a kid I used to geek out with an AM radio at night. Listened to KMOX out of St Louis all the way in Knoxville TN.
Well, with the death of Pierre Robert, radio is all the sadder.
Being able to listen to any song or a podcast on any subject you want, by download, basically.
(Part of my issue with ‘the algorithm’- it can only react to what you already liked. It can’t, say produce one feed everyone has to deal with the way a single radio station everyone listens to does, nor can it effectively just throw you something outside your tastes enough that you might expand what you like, but also not just be random.)
TUNE IN with radio stations around the world via internet
Someone told me that video killed the radio star.