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Bob Struble Out as HD Radio Chief
- Thread starter RBR-TVBR Buzz Stream
- Start date
Jeff Jury has taken over as COO of iBiquity. According to Struble:
“It became clear that the role and leadership requirements of the HD Radio business going forward were not the best match with my skill set and aspirations…"
So it's the old Humpty Dumpty quandary; Did Struble fall or was he pushed? Personally, I never thought he was a competent CEO for iBiquity. Here we are 18 years later and adoption rate of HD Radio among consumers and broadcasters is, at best, mediocre. Struble staying on as an adviser is just one step away from being sent packing.
http://www.radioworld.com/article/jury-tapped-to-lead-hd-radio-under-new-ownership/277728
“It became clear that the role and leadership requirements of the HD Radio business going forward were not the best match with my skill set and aspirations…"
So it's the old Humpty Dumpty quandary; Did Struble fall or was he pushed? Personally, I never thought he was a competent CEO for iBiquity. Here we are 18 years later and adoption rate of HD Radio among consumers and broadcasters is, at best, mediocre. Struble staying on as an adviser is just one step away from being sent packing.
http://www.radioworld.com/article/jury-tapped-to-lead-hd-radio-under-new-ownership/277728
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It will be interesting to see whether the new owners-leadership will steer HD Radio toward a redo of better, more appropriate promotion to consumer product manufacturers and consumers, or whether it will be steered toward increasing the intellectual property/licensing value to attract a bigger fish?
Agree. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
I have a feeling things will remain the same. In a perfect world, all radios moving forward would just have HD built in. IMHO, that's the only way it's really going to catch on and not fade away into the noise. So many choices are available to Gen X, Y's, Z's... Why would they pay extra or seek out a HD radio?
For the same reason as everyone else.....because the content they want isn't available on AM or analog FM.
Ibiquity has treated its technology like its the crown jewels or something instead of the toilet paper it is. By that I mean HDR should be easy to get, low cost and available everywhere--just like analog radio.
Look at what is happening to DRM and DAB. Ofcom is now testing DAB on low power FM stations using just software and a computer. The DRM Consortium released software into the wild that will allow a computer (with the right kind of reception hardware) to decode DRM broadcasts. This is the kind of thing DTS should be doing with HD Radio. They're also missing a major opportunity by not providing all these new LPFM stations with an easy, low-cost upgrade path to HDR.
But the huge up front and continued licensing payments has been the biggest turn-off for a lot of stations to adopt HD Radio. For DTV, as an example, the licensing is one time, relatively inexpensive and built into the cost of the exciter. After that, a TV station can add as many channels as possible in the allotted bandwidth without paying anything to the ATSC. HD Radio should be the same. For iBqiuity to charge extra and on-going for side channels is laughable.
DTS needs to follow the ATSC (or the MPEG) in this regard. They need to make their money by licensing their technology to transmitter manufacturers and consumer electronics companies--not on the backs of broadcasters.
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/news/small-scale-DAB/
http://www.drm.org/?page_id=159
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I think that's why car buyers wind up with an HD radio but I don't know of anyone who buys a particular model because it has HD. More buyers are interested in whether the entertainment system has an iPod or USB connection. Perhaps my cousin is somewhat typical.
He bought a new Genesis several years ago which had the upscale entertainment system by Lexicon. AM, FM, HD, XM/Sirius, full blown DVD (including DVD-A) player - the whole ball of wax. The car, when delivered, came with XM/Sirius enabled on what was supposed to be a 3-month trial subscription. It lasted almost three years. It wasn't until the trial subscription ended he explored what was on HD and now, like me, he has become a proponent of HD - both as to signal quality and also the formats available. The only analog FM he listens to now is NPR, the rest being on HD.
But you're forgetting, we're talking about millennials. If it's gonna cost extra, they're not buying and they certainly aren't looking towards AM and FM for content. Radio is just something in the car they use if they don't have Bluetooth and/or an aux jack.
HD-capable radio and an HD Radio are two different things.
Why/how did FM become popular? Honest question.
Music stations moved over to FM from AM for "better sound", right? Music stations aren't moving to HD for better sound, they're adding content. Content of which millennials already have access to without having to drop extra money on an "HD add-on".
BINGO, exactly my point.
FM, after nearly 30 years of trying, was not successful. Then, starting in January of 1967, the FCC mandated that nearly all larger market FMs could no longer duplicate their AM sister stations.
Those AM stations did not want competition for the money-making AM operations, so they picked formats far removed from the AM offering. Free form rock, beautiful music and the like flooded the FM dial, replacing simulcasts. Some of those formats actually worked and drew listeners who found things they liked better than AM.
Oh, and it did sound better. But the main reason FM began to grow was the variety of "new" or differentiated formats... and it took an FCC decree to make it happen.
I will agree Millennials, as a group, tend to go the least costly route which has meant a greater tendency to lease rather than buy. I don't think that means they forego luxury items like cars if the lease terms will fit their monthly budget. In most cases of which I am aware the buyer/lessor does not get to choose which attributes of their entertainment system they want. It is an all or nothing choice. There are many items of my car I did not want but because it is sold on an as-built basis only I had to take what I wanted with other things I didn't want. HD is largely that same choice. I do notice the availability is being slowly fitted to some of the lower priced vehicles in addition to the traditional luxury models. Whether that means the youngsters will gradually discover and demand HD I don't know. For my generation it is proving the only saving grace of radio in general and without it there would be no radio in my house or car at all.
There was also a hi-fi boom going on. And entire generation, raised on music, was now buying more sophisticated equipment to listen to that music. Quite often, that equipment included an FM radio. By1970, the most important item a college student had was a personal stereo. And AM was not stereo. If you could hear the music you liked on a station that sounded great on your brand new stereo, that's what you went with.
The hi-fi boom of the 70s was not unlike the digital boom of the late 90s. When HD was introduced, radio stations quickly offered alternative formats on HD, such as classic country or 50s oldies, but it didn't get the same response as the FM boom of the 70s. My view is because telephones had replaced stereos as the device of choice.
Some of the reasons back then seem to be duplicated by similar reasoning now (with regard to FM vs HD).
When left the Bay Area in 1962 for my military service my peers were listening to KYA and KEWB (the South Bay had very marginal signals and almost nothing came through from Sacramento then) - both AM stations. When I returned four years later there were a smattering of FM's operating but there was no advertising that I remember similar to CBS' "stations between the stations". Unless you already owned a radio with FM capability there was no reason to go get one. Over the next two years KEWB flipped to all news and KYA's nighttime signal was difficult to receive in Marin County so the few FM's, like KGO, began to make inroads.
There were some other obvious parallels as well. Much less commercial load. Less interruption for DJ chatter, TOH news, traffic and weather. In short, what would appeal to a younger radio listener as opposed to an older one.
Like Yogi Berra once said "it seems like deja vu all over again".
That was definitely a factor... the birth of component stereos with separate amps, speakers, tuners, tape decks and turntables, each selected for the best sound in one's budget right down to the pick-up cartridge and the speakers.
Today, a 128 kbs MP3 is acceptable since the speakers are earbuds and the medium is digital.
But we still had to have the right format or formats in each market for the hi-fi thing to bleed over to radio.
I remember a top 15 market where, in 1978... 11 years after the FCC simulcast ban... FM share was still under a 15. There were over a dozen full signal FMs, averaging around a 1 share each. The highest had a 4, while the leading AMs had double digit shares.
Then, at the end of 1978, the right format went on FM. By early '79, that station had a 33.5 share and by the end of the year the whole band had 55% of the audience.
This certainly makes one aware of the importance of timing... When FM multiplex stereo began to roll out in '61, there was very little impact on ratings, although it did put to a stop the decline in the total number of FM stations that had been going on for a decade.
FM in '66 was essentially FM in '62.
KEWB changed to news because it was trounced by Tom Round's Drake-Consulted KFRC, which even got huge numbers in Sacramento and Monterrey and Santa Rosa. But the market was very AM-centric long after FM became dominant in other markets. The market terrain had much to do with that.
Although the big change in FM occurred in January of 1967, the speed at which local markets adapted to FM and listeners adopted new stations was very different in some markets.
San Francisco's early FMs, such as the several-hundred-kilowatt one on San Bruno, died when FM did not take off. Many FMs were not optimally located for coverage and were stepchildren of the big AMs. It took a while for owners to see what happened in the rest of the nation and upgrade their facilities, but still the terrain was a challenge.
Even now, San Francisco has a higher percentage of AM listening than any other major US market.
Eventually, what made stations like KSAN successful was the fact that of the late 60's Top 40 stations, TR's KFRC delved more into progressive / hard rock than the others. This made for a ready-to-cook FM rock audience.
Thus the change in leadership.
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