At least in Seattle, radio promoting on TV doesn't seem to get the desired ROI. Radio advertising radio online I'm saying may have even less effective results, given the recent tightening of radio promotional budgets.
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Audacy Introduces Emma To Seattle (KSWD Flips to Hot AC)
- Thread starter speer360
- Start date
I've tried doing that, and it gets much less engagement than other online content on the same site. The goal online is to create engagement. That's how the effectiveness of the content is measured. It is sometimes more effective by leaving out the radio promotion part.
This is just a rant, unformatted random thoughts questions.
Why is radio competing with online music services? That's like taking a knife to a gunfight.
How many people you know use their computer to listen to a radio station?
Why don't radio promote their HD channels? Does KTHP still have The Mountain on HD2?
Why hasn't the radio industry promoted HD radio to the masses, meaning, Why isn't HD radio on phones or in the new car I bought? My old 1 had it. (german)
I can connect my phone to my car radio my radio has a backup camera it may have Apple carplay not sure how to use lol, but no access to HD sub-channels.
T.V. ads good point made for ROI, but it's getting the word out, if people don't know they don't know!
How thin can the pie be cut to make money?
Formats here are way over saturated.
It seems as though radio stations flip for a couple years you get use to it then they flip again. Why don't they see the obvious or am I not seeing it?
What I'm not seeing is why can't they make up their minds and stick to it? Building a reputation takes time doesn't it?
I know radio is old like the many who still listen, we are more stubborn as we age but we adapt radio needs to do the same.
Radio has adapted throughout history. T.V. radio adapted . Walkman radio adapted. MTV radio adapted. Radio NEEDS to adapt and take its own path, radio can't compete with online music services. Stay away. FULL STOP!
Where am I? KNKX, KUOW, KIRO fm, rarely KEXP all without HD capabilities that I do miss. Damm I'm falling off the commercial radio wagon!
Seattle really needs 3 C/W stations?
Just a rant, thoughts and questions. I apologize for going a bit off topic.
Why is radio competing with online music services? That's like taking a knife to a gunfight.
How many people you know use their computer to listen to a radio station?
Why don't radio promote their HD channels? Does KTHP still have The Mountain on HD2?
Why hasn't the radio industry promoted HD radio to the masses, meaning, Why isn't HD radio on phones or in the new car I bought? My old 1 had it. (german)
I can connect my phone to my car radio my radio has a backup camera it may have Apple carplay not sure how to use lol, but no access to HD sub-channels.
T.V. ads good point made for ROI, but it's getting the word out, if people don't know they don't know!
How thin can the pie be cut to make money?
Formats here are way over saturated.
It seems as though radio stations flip for a couple years you get use to it then they flip again. Why don't they see the obvious or am I not seeing it?
What I'm not seeing is why can't they make up their minds and stick to it? Building a reputation takes time doesn't it?
I know radio is old like the many who still listen, we are more stubborn as we age but we adapt radio needs to do the same.
Radio has adapted throughout history. T.V. radio adapted . Walkman radio adapted. MTV radio adapted. Radio NEEDS to adapt and take its own path, radio can't compete with online music services. Stay away. FULL STOP!
Where am I? KNKX, KUOW, KIRO fm, rarely KEXP all without HD capabilities that I do miss. Damm I'm falling off the commercial radio wagon!
Seattle really needs 3 C/W stations?
Just a rant, thoughts and questions. I apologize for going a bit off topic.
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Because most people use them interchangeably, depending on their availability. The majority of people want free music and don't care where it comes from. Music radio stations are simply filling the demand. But depending on the format, there are stations that offer things unavailable on Spotify, and KISW is one example. KJR-FM is another. You really can't generalize about radio.
Depends on what you mean by a computer. How many people do you know who own a radio? Radio stations are following the people.
Radio is not one thing. Some formats don't play music at all. So they're not competing with online music services. Radio adapted at a time when we still had limited technology, and people bought music in record stores. That changed 30 years ago. Record stores went out of business. People get their music online. So if radio stations want to be in that space, they also need to be online. Also the electronics manufacturing business changed. There used to be electronics stores where people bought radios. There used to be lots of companies that made radio devices. Not anymore. So there's been a complete disruption in music and electronics. Radio is affected by all of that. Everybody is following demand, and the demand isn't where it used to be.
The previous set of questions reminded me of some of my own, particularly when it comes to digital radio. In the UK, DAB has up to 12 available side channels, and many owners are embracing the extra bandwidth to launch niche side versions of their formats. For instance, an AC might have a soft AC, smooth jazz, chill, and soft oldies, and all these channels are fully staffed. Here, HD side channels fall into one of four categories:
1. Completely jockless music stations, sometimes even using a heritage brand no longer available on analog.
2. A simulcast of something already heard on analog, whether that be an AM or used as the primary to feed an FM translator.
3. A national channel that only exists on HD to keep streaming rates affordable.
4. Something that's leased out to another operator, usually for foreign language programming. Why the such drastic differences?
1. Completely jockless music stations, sometimes even using a heritage brand no longer available on analog.
2. A simulcast of something already heard on analog, whether that be an AM or used as the primary to feed an FM translator.
3. A national channel that only exists on HD to keep streaming rates affordable.
4. Something that's leased out to another operator, usually for foreign language programming. Why the such drastic differences?
That's what happens when you reach a certain age. I remember my dad was the same way. He got to an age where current trends and music didn't mean anything anymore. He just wanted the news, sports, and stock market. Nothing else. You fit the profile of men over 55.
Because HD Radio is horrible for most users to interface with.
DAB gives you a list and that is what you can received. Easy.
HD is nowhere near as user friendly.
HD radio is available for those 20% of U.S. consumers already. DAB was mainly a failure in Europe for the same reason as it would be in the U.S: Consumers aren't interested in purchasing new radios to receive something they can get now with the ones they have. There's also this new competition from streaming. Countries trying to force listening to DAB by moving stations just mean those radio listeners are gone.
I’d like to know how well it’s worked in Norway, since that country offers our only real glimpse into what a DAB world looks like. How well has it worked, and what have people done to prepare for the switch? I can’t imagine that everyone is out getting new car radios installed (as that would be a huge waste of money for a lot of consumers).
Based on the limited research I’ve been able to do, the common complaints are bad audio quality, audio dropouts, being forced to purchase a new radio for home use/in the car, and the waste of money to facilitate the switch. Other people commented on how they now receive nothing whereas they used to receive a fair (but reliable) signal before.
It seems like a flop to me. Turning AM off wouldn’t be a shock, but turning off FM seemed like a bad idea.
That's, in essence, what I've seen reported, too. Plus, considering there are few new listeners actively seeking out radio, building another form of radio, especially in the U.S., there would be no motivation for commercial broadcasters to somehow band together to invent such a new form. DAB in Norway was a government initiative. The government doesn't run broadcasting in the U.S.
Honestly, I don't understand this frequent theme that keeps resurfacing in Radio Discussions, that somehow AM or FM OTA radio will be, or should be, shut down by the government. As with my comment about DAB migration being a government initiative in certain countries, such a structure doesn't exist in the United States. Any decision or process to abandon operating a radio station is made by the individual licensees of the station, not the government. Unlike UHF-TV spectrum, since the AM and FM bands are no good for any other use, there's zero interest in having broadcasters vacate those bands.
Then why was everyone forced to switch to DTV 15 years ago? I have heard some of the same reception complaints about DTV that Ford brought up about radio in Norway. The difference with TV is that the majority of consumers have, or had at the time, cable. There are areas though, even in my market, where OTA TV does not work. Even where I am where over the air TV reception is largely reliable, it's practically impossible to watch during a storm as it's in and out every couple of seconds.
Turning the discussion back to radio, am I wrong about what's going on in the UK? Admittedly, I don't follow radio outside of the U.S. and occasionally Canada, but it sure does seem like what digital stations in Europe that do exist are given a similar amount of resources to their analog counterparts.
Turning the discussion back to radio, am I wrong about what's going on in the UK? Admittedly, I don't follow radio outside of the U.S. and occasionally Canada, but it sure does seem like what digital stations in Europe that do exist are given a similar amount of resources to their analog counterparts.
Norway didn't turn off FM. They turned off the several NRK (national network, equivalent to the BBC or CBC) FM stations nationwide (although they may have left one or two on in the capital).
Their DAB system only had so many channels available, which had all the NRK channels, and some major, mostly national commercial FM stations. The other FM stations, many of which were and are still popular, remained on FM because they weren't able to win the national DAB network lotto.
So as far as I know it's a mixed bag in Norway. I'm guessing that the DAB users are older demos, who still think of "Radio" coming from a dedicated Radio device. With the younger people it's all phone, or DAB in the car. I don't know for sure, because I've lost touch with the few Norwegians I used to talk with online in the 2010's.
I have read some of the complaints you mentioned, mainly that the coverage in rural and mountainous areas on DAB wasn't quite as extensive as the hype said it would be.
I think the main reason Norway wanted to switch off the national FM's was that they thought they could save money using DAB to cover the same area. One tower instead of five. One transmitter instead of several. That kind of thing.
HD Radio isn't hard at all. You just tune through the HD channels the same way you tune through the FM channels. Very easy.
At first, though, it was difficult. I remember trying and HD radio in 2009 or 2010, in the store. Trying to get it to even tune in an HD channel was a challenge -- even on FM's with known HD signals. When I got my used Sony XDR in 2017 if was easy. Same with my Sangean HDR-16. Very user friendly. So the user friendliness isnt' the problem.
(I have no idea how HD tunes in a car -- never had one that had HD or the modern dashboard systems).
DAB, from what I understand, is indeed very user friendly. There's a list of stations, you tune up and down, and select. So that may be a bit more intuitive than HD Radio in the US, but not that much. You're still turning a knob and selecting what shows up on the screen, it's just that with HD the selections are linear, as you tune through the band, with DAB I think they're all on the screen in a list. But that's from looking at the descriptions online -- I've never used a DAB radio.
As I already mentioned, the DTV migration was to free up UHF-TV spectrum then auction that spectrum to up and coming Cell/PCS carriers.
I think it was back in 1998, I had dinner with Commissioner Bill Kennard while attending NAB. Commissioner Kennard was looking forward to several rounds of auctions once all the DTV stations were settled in their final channels. Even back then, he said mobile data was going to be the future, so the past (TV) needed to give up the space. And, of course there would be a hopeful landslide of cash influx to the government coffers.
What is the appetite for switching off FM in other parts of Europe (and the rest of the world)? Obviously, a lot of other countries in Europe have been experimenting with DAB, but as you said yourself, it doesn't appear that an actual transition will happen anytime soon. I've heard that the UK strongly considered it, but as of today, AM and FM still are used regularly. Can't say that I see a world where any other country would try what Norway has done since there's no real point in shutting it off anyway.
(I have no idea how HD tunes in a car -- never had one that had HD or the modern dashboard systems).
On my 2018 Subaru the HD stations show up as a button on the lower right corner of the screen. The button will show up anywhere from a 1, 2, or 3 depending on how many HD channels there are. You just tap the button on the screen to advance to the next station. You can even set a present to make it that much easier.
On my 2018 Subaru the HD stations show up as a button on the lower right corner of the screen. The button will show up anywhere from a 1, 2, or 3 depending on how many HD channels there are. You just tap the button on the screen to advance to the next station. You can even set a present to make it that much easier.
As I mentioned, the difference is between the U.S. with broadcasting completely made up of for-profit, non-profit entities, and government-funded, government-controlled in Europe and Asia. Sometimes the motivation for DAB is to open up the spectrum for other uses, sometimes to reduce the number of government-run transmission facilities dotting the country.
With several years under their belt, since DAB didn't solicit much interest from media consumers unless there were financial or other motivating factors, I don't see any hope of DAB use growing in the future, no more than I see governments sunsetting FM broadcast.
I am admittedly not familiar with most of the TV channels in either market I've lived in outside of the main five or six, but are you saying that some of the lower rated channels that were way up high on the band are now subchannels of those? That's the only way I can understand how converting everyone to digital could be of any benefit, cram the stations that are say on 50 and above onto subchannels of lower frequency stations that have available bandwidth.
The channels high up on the UHF band, those whose original analog channel is now in use for something else such as 5G mobile signals, all received equivalent channels of their own (at least in the Seattle market). Some channels elsewhere opted to sell their spectrum back to the FCC and either leave the air while holding a giant burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, or keep their call sign and share spectrum with another broadcaster. Not sure of the arrangements of those but they end up having two ".1" channels coming from one transmitter, each with it's own unique call sign. These channel share arrangements are also allowed to have subchannels however they agree to do it. Two facilities, one transmitter with 6 MHz of bandwidth.
For example, KFFV was originally on RF 45 in the analog days; it's now on RF 16 with its very own transmitter and 9 subchannels. You see the channel number as 44.1 as that was their original RF companion channel as DTV was being launched. This channel had a checkered past with a bankruptcy and a hostile takeover so I think they opted to drop the "Channel 45" branding.
Analog RF channel 51, KUNS, ended up on RF 24 with its own transmitter still using the channel 51 identification. It has now moved to RF 30 as a second .1 of the KOMO transmitter so that the RF 24 transmitter could transmit several ATSC-3 signals.
Analog RF channel 56, originally KWOG, moved to RF 42 in the first round of the repack and now has ended up on RF 34, still using the channel 56 designation and with its own transmitter.
Digital broadcasting allows the channels to be spaced next to each other in many instances in a way that you could never do with analog TV. If you look at a spectrum analyzer here in Seattle nearly all the RF TV channels have a signal on them. This is why the repacked channels get to use their own transmitter as the rules about separation have been greatly eased.
Another reason for going to DTV is the increased resolution. If TV had not moved to 720 or 1080 signals to broadcast content as an industry it surely would be over for it by now. If you could stream a football game in 1080 for a small fee or watch it for free in 480 the choice is obvious if you are a football fan.
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