Name a country where DAB is a success.
-
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
AM Coming to the FM band - GREAT PROPOSAL BY FCC COMMISSIONER!
- Thread starter joshzz
- Start date
Name a country where DAB is a success.
Of course broadcasters did not want it. The playing field would be leveled by DAB, with every station getting an identical technical facility. The big broadcasters with better facilities sat and asked themselves, "and what does that do to my asset value?" When they realized the impairment charges might be immense, they thought about dozens of new competitors for the ad dollars in the market.
And then they decided not to support DAB.
K
kenglish
Guest
I'm figuring that the living room is a place to start.... I'd give the first shot at it to the stations that program Classical or Jazz, and the ones that do innovative live programming. For instance, a station like KUER (University of Utah) broadcasts NPR talk during the day...it only needs a sliver of bandwidth for that. In the evening, they play Jazz. How about the ability to switch to DD5.1 surround for a live concert? Similar thing can be done for someone like KBYU, with their live symphony broadcasts.
Let's not forget the opportunity to pass additional streams of minority-language and special-interest programming. A "station" (a "local programmer", in other words) could pull down several additional feds that cater to ethnic groups in their area, and plug in local spots, with little effort. Heck,... with the same sort of arrangements that are currently used to do closed-captions, you could have some local talent translate your newscasts and send them back to the station's automation system. There's always World Radio Network and others, for news and features.
Once the portable and car radios are available, then expand to other stations and formats. As far as offices go, don't many office workers listen to the internet stream? And, if FM can be received indoors at a particular location, shouldn't the new MP/H ATSC work on the low-band channels (next to the existing FM band)?
The idea is great, and I think everyone would apply, but, as Chuck stated, there is simply no room on the band in many markets, even the medium size markets. The other problem is timing,,first the FCC needs to take care of the LPFM applications, that would take a LONG time (remember, they are still issuing CP's from the 2003 filing window,,,,the FCC would probable study this for 5 years knowing how they work,,then after everyone applies, they have to figure out who is "lucky" and who isn't.
The quickest way to help AM's today is to loosen up the rules regarding moving translators if they are going to be for an AM,,,the Tell City Waiver, or something close to it, would do more to help AM's in the next year, instead of the next 10 years
The quickest way to help AM's today is to loosen up the rules regarding moving translators if they are going to be for an AM,,,the Tell City Waiver, or something close to it, would do more to help AM's in the next year, instead of the next 10 years
If the NAB and the major broadcasters with voices on the Hill had wanted it, they would have pushed for it. And, most likely, achieved the goal. The fact that the military no longer claims much of this spectrum space shows that the change was doable with the right lobbying activity.
There are loads of examples where the NAB and major broadcasters wanted something and didn't get it. Or objected to something, and their objections were ignored. The telecom industry is far more powerful, and the fact that they're able to BUY spectrum, while broadcasters just rent, is one example.
I like the way you spelled out the difference in thinking between 'common carrier' and 'broadcasting'.
In our lifetimes, we have observed a change in the apparent thinking about broadcasting in this country.
When I entered the business, we could say the FCC was granting licenses to "transmit CONTENT". Early on when stations didn't bounce from format to format to format with regularity, applications to change frequency were granted when possible but the "license to rent a slot for CONTENT" tended to stay in place... and typically the call letters tended to stay in place.
Phone companies used to be granted geographical 'franchises' to provide a common carrier service... not a franchise for content production. The arrival of cable franchises for a geography in the early days became a hybrid: a common carrier component for relaying existing stations and then relaying non broadcast networks created just for cable combined with studios for programming CONTENT at the local level.
Today, radio broadcast investors lobby for OWNERSHIP of spectrum and want zero-nada-zilch oversite of program content.
John Q. Citizen (a.k.a. Billy Sixpack) tends to have little or no interest in all this hair splitting. But I suspect JQC really expects the regulators to exert some kind of influence to make sure broadcast CONTENT remains varied, robust and is delivered with integrity. That concept quickly gets crossways with certain elements of the political scene.
If that's what they expect, they will be disappointed. Because the regulators have a long tradition of staying out of content except in terms of indecency. You can use indecent language on the phone. You can use it on cable. But not in broadcast. However, the FCC hasn't based license applications or renewal on the kind of content a licensee provides. The only thing I see mentioned often by the FCC is diversity of ownership. But that doesn't necessarily lead to diversity of content.
By the way, I haven't read about any broadcaster lobbying for ownership of spectrum.
Haven't quite figured out your age-range, but some of your posts tell me that you were not involved in license applications (new and renewals) in the 1950s. Some of the people I worked for in that era "sweated blood" over how to word their content presentations and promises. Maybe the FCC didn't care at the time and wasn't grading people on content back then, but the industry was led to believe that they were.
True, but I studied them, like the Red Lion case. My sense is that licensees were a bit overly cautious in those days, while the government was a bit more threatening. The real regulator activism happened in the 40s. All of that seemed to come to an end for both sides in the 70s. One by one, the government dropped station requirements, from 3rd class licenses to news obligations, and that in turn led to a relaxation on the part of licensees. Bill Paley was a lot more scared of LBJ than Larry Tisch was of Ronald Reagan.
I watched all four hours of Ken Burn's documentary on The Dust Bowl last night. My father and mother were products of that era, living just barely outside the designated area of the dust bowl. In the program, Burns documented how the Soil Conservation Service came into being, and other 'nanny government' mechanisms. When my father bought his own farm for the first time in 1940, he became a disciple of the SCS and my mother was a mover and shaker in the Home Demonstration Clubs movement. I have vague memories of sitting in the Farmers Home Administration office as they presented their accounting books for annual approval to protect the status of their government loan. Ken Burns went to great lengths to point out how the government pushed and shoved to get water conserving contours or "terraces" built and I remember when we were the ONLY farm for miles and miles that had terraced, irrigated, cotton land. Yes, government of there era was a bit more pushy! And looking back on it, thank goodness they were!
Fast forward to the era circa 1950. A guy from Arkansas ventured to northern Missouri to build the very first station in a reasonably substantial small market. He was fighting with "pushy government" that wasn't moving his C.P. application along. He went to Washington, went to the FCC and announced (probably with a little more diplomacy than he liked to indicate when he would tell the story years later) "I'm here to find the bureaucrat who is taking pleasure in making life difficult for someone the bureaucrat thinks is a rich person by losing my application in a desk drawer somewhere." Amazing. The application was indeed found and was soon granted.
When I worked there, when the dreaded license renewals came up where everybody in radio stations was fearful of under-promising on programming content delivery, this man took great delight in filling in that small square where you put down the quantity of free P.S.A.s you planned to run. He put a clearly defined ZERO and waiting to see if the fur would fly. In later years, where ever I went, when people found out I had worked for him, they tended to ask: "Did he really do that? He actually had the guts to do that... and lived to tell about it? He kept his license?"
Many of us in the business knew that license renewal time was a "quake in your boots" time in that era. Granted, it is impossible or next to impossible to find records of someone who ever lost his license over such an issue, but that was because the broadcasters typically read the handwriting on the wall and cleaned up their act. And the bureaucrats used techniques that did not leave bruises and scars in the files.
A licensee I worked for in Arkansas discovered broadcasting and within three or four years had something like 5 licenses and C.P.s. He had it figured out by then that there was more money to be made in reselling licenses than operating them in small piney-woods communities. He got yanked in, he got the message he could keep his first station in the town where he lived, but he WOULD dispose of all his other properties, pronto-pronto. If you go to Washington and dig through the files and microfilm, you will not find any record of that head-butting session, but in the 60s when I visited the FCC office, I asked to see the file for the station in my home-town that was one of the disposed stations. There I found the "butt-ugly" letter of begging he wrote to the FCC to avoid losing the license, and attached to it was the letter of intervention by a very, very prominent Senator from Arkansas. License was renewed. Sale was consummated. It was a shot-gun wedding!!!
Here is the dilemma. We cannot nail down very well how heavy the hand of regulation was back then. We cannot nail down exactly when "effective, active" changes in regulation occurred. Most of today's broadcasters probably are not intimately familiar with the change, and the listening public and the community leaders who wish radio would put more energy today into publicizing community affairs have no concept what changed and when it changed. All we have is folklore.
Interesting. I think the "me" generation has had its effect on regulation, government, and industry. Bob Dole was asked if he would ever bring the government to the brink the way the current Congress works, and he says no. It's a very different generation. This is not to say there wasn't corruption, greed, and selfishness back then. There was. But it wasn't as widespread, and there were a handful of adults who knew how to take responsibility. Not sure about that now.
Red Lion was not a programming and renewal issue; it was a pure fairness doctrine issue based on the Rev. Norris' refusal to present opposing viewpoints to his conservative and fundamentalist Christian doctrine.
Technical regulations were changed and generally adjusted over many decades. Radio transmitter sites in the 40's and even into the 50's generally required human presence. The gear was less stable, and remote control operations were less reliable due to the type of equipment available. As reliability increased, remote control was allowed for lower powered and non-directional stations. Eventually, directionals with good stability were allowed to run remotely as the control gear became more reliable. This was not deregulation, but re-regulation in accordance with better equipment.
Operator requirements were also relaxed as the need for skilled personnel to operate less stable equipment was reduced or eliminated.
I did quite a few license applications and renewals during the 70's and into the 80's. While things changed a bit during that decade and a half, one thing was true: we all knew the FCC had a performance "bar" and that stations that jumped over it by meeting or exceeding minimum "requirements" had an expectation of renewal.
There was no written rule in 47 Pt. 73, but we all realized that AMs needed to have 8% non-entertainment programming, and FMs got by with 6%. Non-entertainment was made up of Public Affairs, News and Other (Educational, Religious, etc).
If a station was under the percentages, they were assured of getting a letter of inquiry. Egregious shortcomings resulted in hearings. In either event, the renewal was held up and the legal costs could be enormous, while the cost of providing additional paperwork at the station level was considerable.
I was named manager of a dreadful major market combo in the mid-70's. The FM could not stay on the air more than a couple of days in a row, so when we did the renewal app, we found that the composite week* had several days where we had been off the air. We asked for replacement days under "technical difficulties" reasoning. But the new days included more off-air days. At that point, we were really concerned that we would not be renewed and this took some expensive trips to DC and some even more expensive legal fees... with the fear of a cross-filing hanging over us.
Stations at the time had real fear of hearings, inquiries and even non-renewal. And stations that went into hearing or were obviously in non-compliance ran the risk of being filed against based on a poor service record.
* For those not in radio at the time, the FCC assigned all renewal apps within the same renewal period a set of 7 dates covering the last 3 years and which, collectively, were a Monday to Sunday week. The logs were submitted as part of the renewal and analysis had to be done to show the news, PA, Other and PSA programming as well as commercial loads.
I think one of the biggest changes in changes in renewal procedure was the elimination of the Community Ascertainment requirement. Perhaps that was in 1979? Certainly something had to give as the number of stations exploded from 4,000 to 10,000 and ultimately to over 12,000. It's hard to give personal attention to an industry when your agency doesn't have enough staff to do it. That may be another difference between the 1950s and now.
Another reason why the community leader ascertainment was removed was the growing wave of complaints about the burden ascertainment placed on public officials and leaders. In markets with 30 or more stations, everyone wanted a meeting with the mayor, the police chief, the church leaders and the community group leaders. Many stopped accepting requests saying the whole thing was a waste of time.
Some of us organized group processes, where many if not all the stations in a community would rent a meeting room and invite, over a period of days, 40 to 50 leaders to give one interview with representatives of all the stations. Still, the process was not very useful as all we ever got was issues of relevance to the particular leader and the same general list of crime, education and infrastructure.
- Status