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HD radio a waste?
- Thread starter bigdonho
- Start date
It is my opinion that many HD's are put on just to get audio out for a Translator. It skirts the limit, by letting you rebroadcast a 'new' sub channel on a 250 translator at a very high height.
Chris nailed it...take away that loophole and HD FM will fold like a cheap card table.
The current state of HD today is that there is a pretty small potential audience due to limited receiver availability. This is slowely changing as HD radios become more common. In this aspect, HD is somewhat comparable to the path that FM had.
For 20 years, FM languished until receivers became cheap and plentiful combined with stations starting to program more popular formats on FM. At that time, it began grow rapidly. In this case, HD does not offer any qualitative advantage to FM, but it does offer more format choices. It's difficult to predict the growth curve based on this factor.
For 20 years, FM languished until receivers became cheap and plentiful combined with stations starting to program more popular formats on FM. At that time, it began grow rapidly. In this case, HD does not offer any qualitative advantage to FM, but it does offer more format choices. It's difficult to predict the growth curve based on this factor.
I don't think we can say that utilizing an FM translator "skirts the limit". Given that there are not many HD receivers in use, using FM translators is a great transition. If HD ever takes off, the need for the analog FM translators will go away. If HD doesn't take off, at least the broadcasters won't have totally wasted their investments in another government crap shoot. If the Commission had not opened this loophole, the chances of HD ever working would have diminished significantly.
Whether we have enough FM signals to satisfy every whim is another subject.
Whether we have enough FM signals to satisfy every whim is another subject.
Very good point however it can't survive with an adoption cycle that's moving at a snails pace. Not in the technology rich world we have today.
If I'm a youngster (under 30) and I've got $100 to spend, I'm buying an iPhone, iPod or something to stream music. I'm not going to buy a head unit or desktop HD radio.
We've got a translator in town (95.5) running programming from 103.1 HD-2. No where (except at the top of hour) does it mention HD, 103.1 HD-2 or anything. In fact it's totally branded as Sunny 95.5.
And that's not any different from what many FM stations do. All the commission requires is the top of hour ID, and even that is often "hidden".
I respectfully disagree. I am privy to a number of broadcasters that put up an uber cheap HD system for the sole purpose of having a station to put on a 250 Watt Translator at 1500 Feet. Now, that is giving you pretty much a Class A additional FM that doesn't count towards your ownership limit.
What we seem to be having here is a discussion that highlights the differences between small-market, rural-territory broadcasting vs. the realities of metro-market urbanized-area broadcasting.
The FCC writes rules that for the most part tend to be, or PREtend to be market transparent.
If you are operating an AM station broadcasting in the county-seat of a rural county in Colorado, Texas, south Georgia or upstate Wisconsin, a 250 translator may well be the difference between life-and-death for your little company that that orbits totally around that one little business enterprise. You have no diversity of business interest.
If you are maxed out on available licenses in Atlanta or Dallas or Cleveland or Los Angeles, You're just shuffling dozens of assets around in your investment portfolio. It looks like HD radio has become a hostage in a Fantasy Sports League.
The FCC writes rules that for the most part tend to be, or PREtend to be market transparent.
If you are operating an AM station broadcasting in the county-seat of a rural county in Colorado, Texas, south Georgia or upstate Wisconsin, a 250 translator may well be the difference between life-and-death for your little company that that orbits totally around that one little business enterprise. You have no diversity of business interest.
If you are maxed out on available licenses in Atlanta or Dallas or Cleveland or Los Angeles, You're just shuffling dozens of assets around in your investment portfolio. It looks like HD radio has become a hostage in a Fantasy Sports League.
the ID requirements for translators are totally different than a full power station.. They are only required to ID a few times a week and the FCC gives you the time period on which days they are required,, it seems like its about 10 times a week, but I might be off on that
And that's if they do audio announcements at all; there's also a provision that you can run those legal IDs in morse code on the subcarrier.
However, the station being translated has to be legally identified, so the HD subchannel has to be regularly mentioned.. just not that ugly channel-number callsign for the translator itself.
And I think that pointing out people are using this as a "loophole" to add an "additional station" misses the point that doing so isn't exploiting anything, it's using it as intended.. Making that possible was a way to ensure that this new technology doesn't continue to languish in a "chicken or egg" standoff. Now, an investment in HD can be a viable option even if the technology does fall flat as so many prognosticate. If it *doesn't* fall flat, then even those who "put up an uber cheap HD system for the sole purpose of having a station to put on a 250 Watt Translator at 1500 Feet" to get "pretty much a Class A additional FM that doesn't count towards [their] ownership limit" will wind up scaling back that "pretty much class A station" as the HD signal becomes more important, rather than just a "loophole," because the market for it will mature around its availability.. without those owners having to take a gamble, and run for years broadcasting it to a dozen early adopters.
Early Adopters? Can we still use that term with a straight face? If it was 2005 I would agree, but the technology has been on the air for several years now and the number of radios have decreased.
I am not sure that is exactly correct. Given the number of automobiles with HD radio as a standard feature, I suspect that the number of radio product lines may have decreased slightly, but the raw number of new HD capable radios is probably quite a bit higher than in each previous year. As more factory installed car radios come standard with HD, the number of aftermarket receiver lines may tend to be suppressed since the demand is reduced by the same number.
And 10-20 years would still qualify as early adoption. FM was around for 25 years before it finally took off. UHF TV similarly languished for years. It might still be a non-starter if the FCC hadn't mandated UHF tuners on TV sets. Would digital TV be everywhere if the FCC hadn't sunsetted analog TV?
I don't quite understand that "uber cheap" comment either. Find me one of those and I'll buy a couple of them. By the way, 250 watts at 1,500 feet works okay, but Class A stations normally want more ERP so as to penetrate buildings, so they don't normally run low power at high HAAT. Additionally, FM translators are not protected from full-power broadcasters, so the station utilizing FM translators takes a lot of risk. And you're right, it doesn't count against the ownership limit. Nor does the station operating HD channels without FM translators. The commission made the decision to allow these HD channels.
Only the notion that there are fewer HD radios today than in, say, 2005. While it could be true that in 2005, there were more assembly lines making HD radios, in 2005 very few (possibly none) cars came standard with them. Today, there are still quite a few aftermarket HD radios out there. Additionally, there are a lot of car lines that have the tuners as standard equipment. So, I suspect that there are a lot more HD radios going into service this year than there were in 2005. Additionally, most of the radios from 2005 are, presumably, still servicable, so each year, the total volume of HD receivers in circulation should be steadily growing.
Provided that enough stations continue to program HD channels, growth should continue. How fast that occurs is more of a matter for speculation, however.
I understand and respect your point but we're overlooking the obvious. With mobile Smartphone technologies changing every 6 months and being adopted so quickly, HD radio is moving at a snails pace. As for radios, desktop and portable radio production has been anemic since the launch of HD radio and the content is mediocre to say the least.
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