You are indirectly making my point. The number of signals with a Miami Beach COL may be disproportionate, but so is the number of signals in some cross-roads that only has 100 people -- it is disproportionate even if it is one powerful station. Look at WKLG, Rock Harbor -- it is really a Homestead area station, but Homestead has a couple of stations already, but what is "Rock Harbor"?
The COL as a means of allocating signals makes no sense and hasn't in a while. My house is in Davie, but is that my identity? Would I even care if some station constantly talked about Davie, its town council, mayor, and schools? If anything I would find it annoying and small-minded -- I consider myself to be in the South Florida (Miami-FLL-WPB) region more than anything else. This is probably true of most people in metro areas. The station that tells me what is going on throughout my world is of interest, not the one that happens to mention my town more often. That is why stations with anything other than very low power should be licensed to regions. Some form of commercial low-power radio would be a good add-on for town-level granularity, but don't waste Class B and C FM'ers on that!
The COL as a means of allocating signals makes no sense and hasn't in a while. My house is in Davie, but is that my identity? Would I even care if some station constantly talked about Davie, its town council, mayor, and schools? If anything I would find it annoying and small-minded -- I consider myself to be in the South Florida (Miami-FLL-WPB) region more than anything else. This is probably true of most people in metro areas. The station that tells me what is going on throughout my world is of interest, not the one that happens to mention my town more often. That is why stations with anything other than very low power should be licensed to regions. Some form of commercial low-power radio would be a good add-on for town-level granularity, but don't waste Class B and C FM'ers on that!