AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

[davideduardo]

But with WGN and WLS now sounding clearly superior to WBBM with iboc, they may have decided to get out while the getting's good.

It does not seem to have hurt WBBM to have HD on... in 25-54 they have been averageing around 7th (three month rolling average) while WLS averages around 23rd and WGN is about 26th.

 

[Savage]

David: color me astonished (your recommendations to management two posts ago.) As much as you and I joust here, I do give credit where credit is due. Congratulations on a rational and savvy conclusion.

 

[Tom Wells]

If WBBM is going to get their hash back on, they ought to do it today, it's been a few days without hash for breakfast......
They're still neat and clean, clean, clean at 9:00 AM today.
If they don't, the HD listeners will starve to death on analog.

 

[davideduardo]

David: color me astonished (your recommendations to management two posts ago.) As much as you and I joust here, I do give credit where credit is due. Congratulations on a rational and savvy conclusion.

Thank you.

At the end of the day, any station that is beholden to a board of directors and shareholders must evaluate everything based on retun on investment, present and future. HD was developed prior to the recession, prior to much of the new media revolution, and when radio billings were in excess of $20 billion a year. Today, we can find either better use for money we spent differently in the past or we can save the money altogether.

Were retailers behind HD at all levels, supported by manufacturers, it would be a different issue. In stores I have visited, there are no HD radios. There are bid MagicJack displays, though...

 

[hubcity]

Were retailers behind HD at all levels, supported by manufacturers, it would be a different issue. In stores I have visited, there are no HD radios. There are bid MagicJack displays, though...

Customer: What can I hear on an HD Radio?

Sales Guy: Oh, the same stuff you hear now, only better!

Customer: (thinking, "Well, it sounds pretty good already.") Is there anything else?

...

Customer leaves with a Magic Jack.

 

[Chuck]

Heck, today I recommended to higher management that we turn all of them off, AM and FM, and use the resources for something that matters (except the several HD channels that are profitable). While I think FM HD is a usable solution, the consumer market is not going to move fast enough and I suggested other areas where the ROI was better.

David,

Thank you for that admission. I know we've jousted on and off about this (and sometimes that can be a fun hobby all by itself), but I appreciate your candor. I must admit I'm a bit surprised, but I admire the guts it takes to change directions when situations require it.

 

[pocket-radio]

But with WGN and WLS now sounding clearly superior to WBBM with iboc, they may have decided to get out while the getting's good.

It does not seem to have hurt WBBM to have HD on... in 25-54 they have been averageing around 7th (three month rolling average) while WLS averages around 23rd and WGN is about 26th.

And what percent of share does HD add to WBBD? Nothing.
And what percent of revenues does HD add to WBBD? Nothing.

If HD adds nothing, but cost's revenues to operate then it hurts profits. Thats not cool..
Ouch!

 

[oldiesfan6479]

As long as current upper management remains in place at CBS Radio, it's my understanding that AM HD will not be "switched off"...

Even though CBS shoots itself in the foot every night (and maybe critical
hours too?) with the hiss 'n' hash from KDKA 1020 and WBZ 1030 slopping
all over each other in the northeastern U.S.?

Maybe someone should write a song about it...

"I couldn't sleep at all last night
Thinkin' of BZ and KD
Baby things weren't right
Cause they were hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin' all night.

"I kicked the radio on the floor
Turned my pillow upside down
Couldn't listen anymore
Cause they were hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin' all night.

"The clock downstairs was strikin' four
Couldn't get a clean AM sound
I heard the milkman at the door
Cause they were hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin'
Hissin' and hashin' all night."

Apologies to songwriters Richie Adams and Malou Rene, and singer Bobby Lewis.
(Heck, Booble Struble is the one who should apologize. ;D)

Attention oldies classic hits PDs, including the Old Gringo--sorry for sending the
demos through the roof by using this song, as it's not exactly 25-54 friendly.


Disclaimer: the SCOTUS has ruled that song parodies are a protected form of speech.

 

[Tom Wells]

Still no change on WBBM 780...analog only on the drive in to work tonight.
They almost sound like FM now that the hiss is gone. Beautiful crispness on consonants.
It's amazing how much intelligibility improves without the hiss.

 

[TVradioguru]

I was having a beer with a friend of mine the other evening who works on the corporate financial front for another large group which deployed HD radio on most of their radio stations. Amongst the other broadcast business-related chatter, I asked him what impact if any, positive or negative, HD implementation had on their operations. He thought about it for a second and replied.. "Ya know, I completely forgot about the HD radio thing!" He went on to explain what has been discussed here by most industry insiders; that being HD radio hasn't really had much impact, good or bad. My friend went on to say that the gamble was probably worth it because capital was spent at a time when cashflow was good. By the time the recession took hold, there was a ton of open inventory which was a good time to plug in HD radio promos rather than PSA's. In the end, whatever the final results, my friend felt that his company will just end up amortizing the original capital costs to each property with little or no financial impact. Next he said something to me that was rather interesting; that is they've restructured their financials to write off the current value for all their AM stations as assets because they can no longer write off just losses from expense. I thought that was an interesting concept in which to research. If more groups go this route, I suspect that's why in the upcoming months or years you'll see more AM's going silent as the licensee writes them down to zero.

 

[badjef]

Five of the six CBS stations in Tampa (Bay) are without their HD's as of this week.

And 970's retransmitted 97.9 HD-2 RDS is wrong more and more.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[Tom Wells]

WBBM returned to hissing at 2PM on the 25th of Feb and it almost sounds like the hissing is worse than before, as if they've gone back to the setup as used prior to August of 2007, before the phase modulation method for the sidebands.

Yuck.

 

[BRNout]

WBBM returned to hissing at 2PM on the 25th of Feb and it almost sounds like the hissing is worse than before, as if they've gone back to the setup as used prior to August of 2007, before the phase modulation method for the sidebands.

Yuck.

Yep, it's awful. Splattering sidebands all over the dial, flat listless audio on WBBM - the whole works. For CBS, it's mind over matter when it comes to HD equipment on AM.

 

[ddsparxx]

The hissing from Boston's WBZ is also bad; it's quite loud; kind of like a jet plane flying very low.

 

[bossbill]

Often interesting, sometimes amusing dialogue. I am not surprised that AM stations are turning off HD, but I am astonished that so many broadcasters wasted so much money on AM HD conversions in the first place.

It also puzzles me why otherwise intelligent human beings would buy into the notion that "digital" means better, and that somehow, the human ear wouldn't hear the difference between uncompressed audio and low bit-rate audio.

And the next time I read a post from someone comparing compressed audio to "CD quality", or AM HD to "FM quality", I think I will make a large donation to some organization for the hearing-impaired

 

[KB1OKL]

The hissing from Boston's WBZ is also bad; it's quite loud; kind of like a jet plane flying very low.

The hissing from WBZ is bad, reception is not as good and it sounds terrible.

 

[BRNout]

The hissing from Boston's WBZ is also bad; it's quite loud; kind of like a jet plane flying very low.

The hissing from WBZ is bad, reception is not as good and it sounds terrible.

I've said this before and been roundly hissed by HD advocates: if you can flip back and forth between WBZ (in "HD") and WRKO (in analog), you'll find that the fidelity on WRKO is so much richer that it almost sounds like FM by comparison. WBZ's IBOC digital encoding takes up so much bandwidth that it's analog audio is squeezed down into a narrow slice of the larger mask.

In other words, 99.7% of WBZ's listeners are suffering inferior audio on behalf of the 0.3% that actually have HD radios. And my estimate is generous because, at this point, a substantial percentage of HD radios (the affordable portables) are now being sold without AM on them.

Pretty stupid of CBS Radio to continue tilting at hiss-filled windmills, don't you think?

 

[JohnnyElectron]

If I wouldn't get sued by iBiquity, I would write a software routine for their box that would phase modulate the L-R stereo audio using compatible quadrature modulation in the analog realm only on the main channel's 20KHz of bandwidth and throw in a 25KHz pilot tone on L-R; oh yeah, that's already been done, and it's called "C-QUAM" and it works hundreds of miles at night without disrupting the neighbor's bandwidth! Yep, full 10.2KHz analog audio in stereo.

I'd love to see (hear) how well C-Quam would sound using the iBiquity box - it might actually be useful for something - and the bonus is that you would eliminate platform motion (from the old 1st generation tuners) by the fact tha the transmitters' frequency are now locked-in by GPS - problem solved!

Turn all the HD on AM into C-QUAM's on AM and restore your audio bandwidth, and reduce your neighbor's interference!

 

[ddsparxx]

If CBS would have listened to WBBM and (maybe WSCR earlier) carefully when WBBM had its hiss machine off, they probably would get a clue. But I don't think they would.

 

[badjef]

If I wouldn't get sued by iBiquity, I would write a software routine for their box that would phase modulate the L-R stereo audio using compatible quadrature modulation in the analog realm only on the main channel's 20KHz of bandwidth and throw in a 25KHz pilot tone on L-R; oh yeah, that's already been done, and it's called "C-QUAM" and it works hundreds of miles at night without disrupting the neighbor's bandwidth! Yep, full 10.2KHz analog audio in stereo.

I'd love to see (hear) how well C-Quam would sound using the iBiquity box - it might actually be useful for something - and the bonus is that you would eliminate platform motion (from the old 1st generation tuners) by the fact tha the transmitters' frequency are now locked-in by GPS - problem solved!

Turn all the HD on AM into C-QUAM's on AM and restore your audio bandwidth, and reduce your neighbor's interference!

Or, even more simple, write a "software" that would modulate the sidebands independently and give you the same coverage as you have with your mono signal without interfering with adjacents or your mono signal, and if you took two analogue radios and off-tuned each of them slightly left and the other slightly right, in addition to having political equality, you would also get a sampling of what your station may sound like in stereo. Wait one... Oops, it exists in transmitter racks all over the country. That's called the Hazeltine/Kahn ISB system - can't have that!

Jeff in sa-ra-so-ta!