John Quincy said:
Why would you make a FM talk station mono? Sure, most of the syndicated shows are from single channel satellite feeds, but you'd still want to play your commercials and imaging in stereo. Besides, most FM listeners think something's wrong with your station if the "stereo" indicator isn't lit up, whether or not the programming is in actual two-channel sound.
On a music station, there's usually non-stop audio, which covers up a lot of signal imperfections. Operating in mono tends to minimize imperfections. I believe WWTN/Nashville is mono, WFDM near Indianapolis is as well (so is 100,000 watt WSGS/Hazard,KY, but that's because they are in a mountainous region where multipath is a huge issue). When you have dead air between words (which exposes signal imperfections almost as well as a quiet passage on a Classical piece) & 95% of your aired material is mono, there's really not much reason to waste 9% of your modulation lighting a stereo light.
Regarding people thinking something's wrong if the stereo light isn't lit...in 1978, the stereo generator failed at a station where I was the Chief Engineer. Before we could get it fixed, "half a dozen" people had removed their car radios & brought them into the local repair shop to "get the stereo light replaced"....a call from the shop to find out when stereo service would return gave me that insight. That was 31 years ago...who knows what would happen today.
Oh the times they are a changin!