In the United States (and potentially elswhere), each radio station or TV station is assigned a city of license by the Federal Communications Commission that they must "serve". While this has become far less meaningful over the decades, stations are still required to post their public file somewhere within the city, and to cover the entire city with their signal. There is no longer any requirement to carry any programs relevant to the particular community.

The "city" has also become more relaxed to mean community, often including the unincorporated areas around it which share the city as a mailing address. This sometimes leads to inconsistencies, such as the licensing of one metro Atlanta station to unincorporated Mableton, but the refusal to license another to Sandy Springs, which is one of the largest cities in the state, and is unincorporated only due to political reasons in the Georgia General Assembly. The FCC's reason, in part, was that Sandy Springs was "not a city", though Mableton is not either.