That is a great article and hits the nail on the head. Most listening is done now on FM or streaming. I too grew up on AM where it just worked everywhere and sounded great. For a time even in stereo. Now there is just so much noise from everything. So to make things “better” receivers are very narrow in bandwidth for AM. For the last 20+ years they made the AM sections cheap and cut the audio to 5khz at best. As noise increased, listenership went down so most music was moved to FM. AM stations now put on ethnic, talk, sports, or go dark. There is not that much left to listen to if you don’t like those choices.
I have a ‘14 Jeep and a while back they did a software upgrade to the radio that actually made AM even worse by reducing the sensitivity on the AM section. They made it so I can only hear close stations. Once the signal becomes to weak the AM tuner almost mutes the audio.
With all that said, unless changes happen soon to help the dial, I would think that once costs exceed return sports stations will be sold or go dark first. Their programming costs the most and get the worst ratings.