David Eduardo wrote:

The former Art Bell show is a nice, and free, way to fill up the overnght
hours.

And since nearly nobody listens to that show on skywave, the need for many
hundreds of affiliates is real. If those stations did not have Coast to
Coast, they would be automated playing music.

I was one of those 'nearly nobodys' that occasionally listened to Bell
on a distant station via skywave because their wasn't a local one for
me. He was on a 50-Kw regional clear channel station about 50-miles from
me but I can no longer rely on that station for good nighttime reception
because of the co-channel (skywave) interference which started a few
years ago. We both know why that happened.