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Any Newspaper Ads for HD radio?

BruceS8852

BruceS8852

I live in New York City and have never seen a newspaper ad for HD radios. An idea would be to advertise for HD radios in general and list the HD2 stations that provide formats not heard on analog radio. An ad can say "Do you want free country music on the radio? Check out WKTU-HD2" Another ad may say "You may have lost your smooth jazz, but you can get it for free on 101.9-HD2."

Bruce
 
Guess what percentage of Americans under the age of 35 get their news on a daily basis, from newspapers?

(pause)

Try ZERO.

I think the conventional wisdom says something like, first-adopters of new technology like HD-2 FM channels are typically quite young, like 20s & teens. So the newspaper ads would be unlikely to have much impact in the target demo.

Alternative media, the internet, etc. would be more appropriate "first step" options to launch a truly innovative new radio product. The programming would have to be pretty compelling to pry them away from mp3 players and music videos downloaded from the web.
 
Wouldn't they have to actually pay for that in real dollars or trade time on the air for newspaper space?
 
One of the local car-stereo stores used to be really high on HD-Radio....ads in the weekly (music/nightclub-oriented) papers, an "HD Radio Demo Van", etc.

Haven't seen any mention of HD Radio in their ads in months!
 
Bob Savage is correct here. Newspaper readership appeals to an older audience and HD radio is looking for the younger audience. That said, check out the Sunday NY Times or NY Daily News (I'm sure the same is true for every larger newspaper in the country) and you'll see lots of full color ads for everything. I've seen HD radio in the weekly Circuit City or Bestbuy suppliment and others as well. Bob, what about the Cam D system, would you consider investing in it in an effort to convert to digital operation. I'm not being a wiseguy here. I don't know if you've investigated it as an alternative. I realize there are no receivers available for CAM D so I'm not suggesting that you dive into it this moment, I'm juts surprised that the Anti IBOC group hasn't talked about a viable compatible alternative system.
 
A viable compatible alternative would be NRSC-5 "full digital" in the 76-88 MHz range. AM stations need to put their digital signals there, rather than polluting the medium-wave spectrum. There are so many advantages to this approach that it's ridiculous to continue to try and make in-band AM hybrid digital work.

As I've stressed before, the way to get this past Congress (and the FCC) is to designate a portion of additional bandwidth provided by the digital signal to an enhanced public safety alert system.

The NAB really needs to support this; otherwise we may see vacant low-band TV spectrum sold off to other services.
 
I'm not an advocate of CAM-D. I'm a realist. As much as I respect Leonard Kahn - I understand many posters here would dissent - I think the chances of CAM-D's success are (a) slim or (b) nonexistent, so I don't waste time considering it. An amusing story: a couple of months ago, noting my public disparagement of IBOC, Leonard started calling the station leaving supportive messages on voicemail. For some reason he would only call around 6 or 7pm, after business hours. I tried calling him back several times but we continually missed each other. Finally, after several messages were left back-and-forth, the fax machine one morning spat out an invoice for a CAM-D system for $65K. Without even a phone conversation! With all due respect, this is not a business practice which would inspire confidence in investment in an unproven system. Leonard, if you're on the channel, this AIN'T the way to sell your system.

Personally I do not believe that an in-band on-channel hybrid system is possible given the current state of the technology. The bandwidth is simply insufficient, and critically so in AM, as experience in the field is decidedly proving. IBOC's developers concluded this in the 1990s but the NAB along with the Project Acorn advocates stubbornly demanded that USADR stick with development making the twin assumptions that digital technology would advance steadily and/or that digital encroachment onto adjacent channels wouldn't be as bad as the engineers feared. Neither assumption has been borne out by experience.

The interference problem is cascading with consumer disinterest and only vaguely quantifiable benefits to doom IBOC. If we're going to have digital radio, I predict it will have to embody migration to new frequencies just as has happened with HDTV.
 
Personally I do not believe that an in-band on-channel hybrid system is possible given the current state of the technology. The bandwidth is simply insufficient, and critically so in AM, as experience in the field is decidedly proving. IBOC's developers concluded this in the 1990s but the NAB along with the Project Acorn advocates stubbornly demanded that USADR stick with development making the twin assumptions that digital technology would advance steadily and/or that digital encroachment onto adjacent channels wouldn't be as bad as the engineers feared. Neither assumption has been borne out by experience.

That argument was in the very early 1990's and at that time the extant aural compression tech were truly awful, I went to a demonstration of this at the NY Sheraton in 1992 and the sound was glassy, strident -all the things you associate with bad digital. The over-bright JBL PA didn't help.

At that time most people didn't even have sound on their computers and for those that did it was often 8-bit depth.

The reason AM inclusion was "stubbornly demanded" was simply that AM operator, those with a long view towards actually serving an audience, saw the demo's trajectory since the late 1970's and realized that by the time this thing was ready to fly, most of their audience would be aging out of advertiser interest.

This wasn't selfishness or greed, it was survival instinct.

The interference problem is cascading with consumer disinterest and only vaguely quantifiable benefits to doom IBOC. If we're going to have digital radio, I predict it will have to embody migration to new frequencies just as has happened with HDTV.

You might want to talk to our neighbors up north or the Europeans about how sucessful an out-of-band solution has been these past 12 years. The Europeans are now exploring in-band options, and the Canadians will eventually adopt our system for FM atleast, once there are sufficient number of incorporating products available (personal prediction based on having close Canadian relatives and knowing their mindset).
 
"Canadians will eventually adopt (HD) for FM at least?" Really? Guess ol' Lee-know has some kind of direct line to insiders in Ottawa. Seems to me that Industry Canada announced precisely the opposite in October, citing the well-known potential for interference superimposed on Canada's lack of third-adjacent protections. IIRC Canada was going to wait it out and see how the IBOC rollout was going to go in the US and elsewhere. And they have flatly rejected AM IBOC because....(well, the system just sucks.)

Yes, there were concerns about analog incompatibility dating back to the 1990s and the first days of Project Acorn and USADR. There was a hope that a system which "interleaves" digital data with analog modulation would emerge with advancing digital technology. For whatever reason, this never happened, so "IBOC" morphed into "IBOC/IBAC" from practical necessity for digital data to spill into adjacent channels, linked to the fond hope that the interference wouldn't be "too bad." Since iBiquity's efforts to unilaterally revise the Laws of Physics ultimately proved unsuccessful, the arguments against IBOC are as valid today as they were in 1992. Sic transit "IBOC".. a moniker as intellectually dishonest as the term "HD" when applied to radio.

Comparisons with European broadcasting are not very valid. Commercial broadcasting on the Continent is vastly different in every aspect than US radio. There are far fewer stations, there is no satradio, the programming is immensely different, and on and on. Canada's experiment with Eureka147 has flopped because the country's population is too sparse and far-flung to function practically with the limited coverage from each site.

So "survival instinct" is the best rationalization you can come up with for IBOC-AM? Driving away what analog audience remains with obnoxious noise and diminished coverage, in the hopes that someday listeners will come back to AM to listen to the same ol' programming "in digital" isn't "survival instinct." It's "kamikaze."

Many an animal, while running to safety while in peril, has instead obeyed its "survival instinct" and run to its destruction. If only the critter had common sense and the ability to reason, it would have lived. The example of the panicked horse which makes its fatal dash back inside the burning barn is tragically familiar to anyone familiar with equines. Mankind - in this case, radio broadcasters - are presumably smarter than animals which have no choice but to rely on "instinct."
 
Seems to me that Industry Canada announced precisely the opposite in October, citing the well-known potential for interference superimposed on Canada's lack of third-adjacent protections. IIRC Canada was going to wait it out and see how the IBOC rollout was going to go in the US and elsewhere.

Do you see a conflict here with is statementof mine:

the Canadians will eventually adopt our system for FM atleast, once there are sufficient number of incorporating products available (personal prediction based on having close Canadian relatives and knowing their mindset).

BTW: I was the one who posted a link last fall to the report's PDf and offered the same assessment, we've had this argument before.


Comparisons with European broadcasting are not very valid. Commercial broadcasting on the Continent is vastly different in every aspect than US radio. There are far fewer stations, there is no satradio, the programming is immensely different, and on and on.

How does this bolster your argument? It seems you have walked right into my camp with you hands already up.

Fewer choices should have meant fertile ground, instead after 12 years we see an approx. 4% adoption rate, and the Europeans now exploring in-band aproach.

So "survival instinct" is the best rationalization you can come up with for IBOC-AM? Driving away what analog audience remains

Got any hard numbers on that? Such as those from mean ol' Arbitron?

If anything drives the remaining AM audience away it's infomercials, preachers etc.

The stations that do this sort of thing may be making a buck, but nobody is listening.

Once again; the reason we are at this point is that due to poor audio, AM now has an aging and dwindling audience.

Mankind - in this case, radio broadcasters - are presumably smarter than animals which have no choice but to rely on "instinct."

Again, failing AM facilities unable to get an audience may "survive" but it's hardly a public service and eventually those time buyers will find another venue.

Lino
 
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