So then you agree that it's about technology.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Should the US do like Brazil?
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
So then you agree that it's about technology.
What? The 10,000 B-sides channel didn't even place in that list? The "Everything that Was Ever Recorded Since The Beginning of Time" channel? People on this board and others tell me over and over again that "everybody" is leaving radio because they want giant playlists of obscure music. This would seem to not indicate that.
No, it's about the union of presentation and technology.
But there's nothing unique or compelling about Pandora's presentation, as evidenced by the number of companies who're able to do the exact same presentation.
And when you consider that the name of the game isn't presentation, but profit, Pandora isn't a workable model.
The question has to be, what content could be at the new FM 77.3 that's so compelling to a cross-section of people, but not available anywhere on AM, FM, or the internet, that will compel a large number of people in any given market to rush out to Best Buy to get a converter for their car, or a new radio to leave whatever they're listening to otherwise and listen to it instead? Examples please.
Profit is the name of the game in all industries but it isn't the mutually exclusive proposition you suggest. In the auto industry, for example, you have to actually manufacture a car in order to get profits -- and quality matters. Radio (or alternate audio distribution technology) is no different. You need a product.
I think this is where you, I and others who've posted in this thread differ sharply with TheBigA. His philosophy seems to be that anything goes so long as the station stays on the air and generates a profit. That the profit is generated by selling time to hucksters whose programming is mere noise to 95 percent (conservatively) of the potential audience is irrelevant; the corporation turns a profit, the transmitter keeps running, and 95+ percent of the potential audience is neither entertained, informed or served in any way. If someone were to pay enough for a station to run nothing but white noise 24/7, pausing only for ID, that would be fine because, again, profit is all.
Far be it from me to suggest that anyone abandon his or her business. Station owners have invested in their stations and have the right to air whatever they want to -- within legal limits -- on them. Pulling the plug on an AM that's airing get-rich-quick or salvation schemes to an audience of a few thousand pathetic suckers whose right to reproduce ought to be in question might be attractive to outsiders, but these stations are their owners' (and employees') bread and butter. Still, one can't ignore the history of radio as an information and entertainment medium, although our friend TheBigA considers much of it irrelevant in the face of the factors killing AM (technical limitations, high manmade noise levels thanks to a lax FCC, and advertisers who consider older listeners poison), those of us who still own AM radios are still saddened when stations turn into nearly total wastes of electric power and our listening options are reduced more and more.
Actually, Business 101 is: Goods and services. So you either need a product or provide a service. Radio, by definition, is a service.
Internet radio, which we're discussing here, is no different. It provides a distribution service for someone else's product, which is music.
Not sure where you come up with the 95% figure. Radio NEEDS to attract a mass audience in order to be of any use to advertisers. You can't have one without the other. And we know that over 90% of the public uses OTA radio today.
I've never said "anything goes so long as you generate a profit." My problem with internet radio is that it's main attraction is providing free music, for which it pays a 70% royalty. That seems like a bad idea to me. My problem with AM radio is exactly what you list: technical limitations, manmade noise, and a lack of advertisers. There is no programming I can think of that can overcome those problems. I think everyone knew that in the 70s when music formats deserted AM in droves. Getting back to the OP, the US should do like Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and many other countries, and come up with a spectrum solution to AM. The problem is that the government is not in the service business any more.
I still question "unique" and that there are scores of people who will buy new radios or otherwise seek out "unique" programming. There's been a "left side of the dial" forever. We have a high school station where I live. There's even a publicly funded Americana format which does live concerts twice a day. It does OK, and has a loyal audience, but comes nowhere near beating the major contemporary and country stations.
I have some friends who work at Sirius, and they tell me that it's their most commercial programming that attracts the subscribers. The channels that duplicate the offerings available on OTA radio, but do so without commercials, and without local personalities. So this goes back to the "presentation" point of view. If you can show me a way for local stations to pay for what they do without commercials, I'm all ears. But as you point out, non-commercial, educational OTA radio is suffering right now because the mass audience really doesn't want "unique or compelling programming," and only a small percentage (less than 7%) of the fringe audience that listens is willing to pay for it. NPR has more listeners than Sirius, but far fewer subscribers.
New car radios would just need a firmware adjustment. It's not like they'd have to design new radios. The chips used in many (if not most) new car radios today already have the capability, they've just been programmed to stop at 87 or 88 Mhz.
RE: obsolete radios: there always is a transition time when these things happen.
RE: obsolete radios: there always is a transition time when these things happen.
I own an AM radio. I'm not saddened by hearing many of the changes on the band. For example, there has been an increase in ethnic and other cultural minority programming. I think that's a good thing.
Here in the Seattle metro we recently had a new South Asian format on the AM band. I don't see that as a waste of power. It serves a growing audience. A local Hispanic religious organization just bought several stations in the region. I'm not saddened by that, either. They're keeping the stations on the air, and serving a growing audience.
No functioning radio in any car in the US is "obsolete" as long as it gets 88 to 108 and 540 to 1600 or 630 to 1700.
Since the average car on the road today is just a month or two under 11 years old, it will take a long time before software driven radios with band modification capabilities are in even half of all cars.
Of course, with 2/3 of terrestrial radio listening taking place outside the car, we know that it will take even longer to get any kind of expanded band penetration there. Very few home and work type radios are software re-configurable.
D
Darth_vader
Guest
Well, almost 3/3 of the little terrestrial radio listening I do any more happens in the car. But then, since when have I ever fallen into statistic averages?
There's an even better open system intended more for this application than proprietary AT$C. It's called DAB.
Heh, right. Open, non-proprietary standards in the US?
Fixed.
There's an even better open system intended more for this application than proprietary AT$C. It's called DAB.
Heh, right. Open, non-proprietary standards in the US?
Fixed.
Last edited:
- Status