It has been 30 years, but there are FCC technical rules for consumer radio's. There are specific rules for channel requirements. Includes the ability to receive

It has been 30 years, but there are FCC technical rules for consumer radio's. There are specific rules for channel requirements. Includes the ability to receive on all defined channels in the alloted band. The comment about banning single channel radio's was from an old ham radio book. If you think about it an old school AM radio that works on a single channel can be made really cheaply. I think you only need one tube and a couple of components. If you look online you don't see anything about technical requirements. But you do notice that historically the FCC has had a serious bug up it's butt about making sure no one could buy up all the stations in an area. So you can imagine what the old FCC thought about radio stations selling radio's that can't pick up their competitors stations.