Bill would force satellite radio units to go digital

[KB1OKL]

The Federal Communications Commission is asking for public comment on whether to require satellite radio receivers to pick up digital radio signals. But Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said the answer should be yes, and he's not waiting for the FCC to make the call. Markey's "Radio All Digital Channel Receiver Act" (H.R. 7157) would mandate that devices designed to receive both the new merged Sirius XM Radio service and terrestrial AM/FM radio be able to receive digital radio too.

Markey's bill is co-sponsored by an interesting and bipartisan bunch of House members, including three staunch Clear Channel supporters, Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), Greg Walden (R-OR), and Lee Terry (R-NE). In 2006 the trio signed a letter urging the FCC to further relax its limits on ownership of radio stations in big markets, as the Texas-based company has been requesting for years.

Express your views to the FCC and read more at:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...orce-satellite-radio-units-to-go-digital.html

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Be careful boys and girlsl, as it is now, XM/Sirius is NOT including AM or FM tuners in their aftermarket units, and this would give them more reasons NOT to add it to their plug-n-plays. It would only apply to car stereos.

Also, I will petition the FCC to mandate XM/Sirius satellite radios be added to all HD radios - hows that sound?

 

[Savage]

I think HD Radio should be mandated to be installed in all trash compactors.

 

[pocket-radio]

H.R. 7157) would mandate that devices designed to receive both the new merged Sirius XM Radio service

-----------and terrestrial AM/FM radio be able to receive digital radio too------------

Aren't these the same fools who've brought us The Great 2008 American Meltdown?
You can bring your horse to water, but can you make it drink?

If HD radio gets any traction, I guarantee audience shares that broadcasters depend on to sell ads will continue to shrink and facture further, as listeners are scattered everyplace. Radio shares will look more like cable. Broadcasters are struggling now to provide compelling content on their main channels and selling ads to just remain profitable isn’t any easier. I did that for 18 years. Ask Savage about selling radio ads. Think of these new HD signals this way. The city regulators of your community gave their approval to speculators to build 90 new malls. How many malls can anyone shop at and how can all those stores survive selling goods in a market with --- government-sponsored over competition ----- and not enough customers?

 

[vsa]

Be careful boys and girlsl, as it is now, XM/Sirius is NOT including AM or FM tuners in their aftermarket units, and this would give them more reasons NOT to add it to their plug-n-plays. It would only apply to car stereos.

Also, I will petition the FCC to mandate XM/Sirius satellite radios be added to all HD radios - hows that sound?

And I'll petition the FCC to mandate Wi-Fi Internet radios also be added to all HD radios - hows that sound?

If anything, all of this will merely put the final nail in Sirius/XM's coffin.

HD Radio? It was buried quite awhile back!

 

[pocket-radio]

All analog radios won't be far behind? You can bet on it!

 

[FreddyE1977]

Typical inside-the-beltway wonk reaction. Consumers in the marketplace are rejecting this
technology, so Big Brother is going to force it upon them. (I wonder how much cash Rep. MAAAAkey
has been taking from the NAB and Ibiquity over the years?)

 

[Play Freebird]

Here's the text of the bill:

http://markey.house.gov/docs/telecomm/hr7157_final_text.pdf

Note that it isn't specific to any one system; it would only require that apparatus "designed to receive signals broadcast in both the satellite digital audio radio service and the terrestrial AM or FM radio broadcast service be equipped with technology that is capable of receiving and playing digital radio signals as transmitted by terrestrial AM or FM stations."

So the FM eXtra proponents should stand up and demand that all satellite receivers also decode the signals of their system, which offers FM broadcasters a digital alternative that doesn't increase first-adjacent interference.

Leonard Kahn, who offers a non-interfering digital AM system called CAM-D, must do the same. Let's also hear from the DRM people. Fair is fair.

 

[TheBigA]

Typical inside-the-beltway wonk reaction. Consumers in the marketplace are rejecting this
technology, so Big Brother is going to force it upon them. (I wonder how much cash Rep. MAAAAkey
has been taking from the NAB and Ibiquity over the years?)

You disagree, so you assume corruption? Pretty closed-minded POV. There are people in this world who blow themselves up for free.

The gov't isn't forcing this on any consumers. They're forcing it on manufacturers. The consumers can continue to buy AM & FM radios. However, they've been rejecting that technology too.

 

[TheBigA]

Note that it isn't specific to any one system

I noticed that too. So one shouldn't assume this is simply a pro-iBiquity bill.

Couldn't this also work for the alternate proposal of moving AM to the VHF band?

 

[Savage]

As much as I like the move-AM-to-FM concept, it will never happen. You need real political clout to get something like this done at the Commission, and by "political clout," I mean more than just the lobbying horsepower to shove it through. I also mean "absence of organized opposition."

Let's not forget how we wound up with HD Radio in the first place. Virtually no person with any degree of engineering expertise thought that hybrid analog-digital was a workable solution unless it was strictly limited to VHF (FM, not AM) and was a very transitional, temporary scheme. Nobody ever seriously proposed that IBOC would be a workable long-term solution, for all the engineering reasons we know too well. I believe the USADR researchers were thinking in terms of a one-to-three year transitional period to all-digital.

Of course this brief a transition during which all existing radios would become obsolete wasn't practical, so the only other solution was migration to new spectrum for digital. But that would put smaller operators in parity with the Big Group Guys. We can't have that! That's why the NAB and the Alliance conspired to give us IBOC - naked greed and an attempted land-grab, to extend Big Radio hegemony.

The AM to VHF concept is beguiling, but as of now, it's just a bunch of engineers playing war games. Count on the NAB to kill it. If implemented it would erode Big Radio's stake and render HD irrelevant.

 

[pocket-radio]

TV made the digital transition only because the government forced it by turning off their analog signals. However, digital converters, satellite and cable providers will keep analog sets working for a long time.

Radio never did their research asking listeners if they wanted a digital alternative.
HD, is answering the question that no body was asking.

This generation, consumers have shown no interest in HD radio, because their radio's still work and they have no real reasons to upgrade. After millions spent by broadcasters, HD radio will prove to be big mistake. Technology will far surpass it.

Comparing HD to when FM radio was first developed in 1933, and then stereo in the early 60’s is a big stretch, because unlike then, technology is giving listener’s unlimited content choices. And wireless G4 networks will be as common and affordable as cell phones are today. Auto manufactures will welcome G4 making it standard equipment.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio never did their research asking listeners if they wanted a digital alternative.
HD, is answering the question that no body was asking.

Nobody asked if consumers wanted the internet either. No one asked if people wanted pictures with their radio. That's not the way things work.

You create a product, put it out, let people sample it, and decide if they want it. Sometimes you get an answer quickly, sometimes it takes years.

The fact is that there is an obvious quality issue with AM. You can argue about it all day, or say that it sounded better 40 years ago, but that doesn't change anything. That's part of why FM replaced AM so quickly as the medium for music broadcasting. FM is simply superior for sound, and everyone could hear it.

So truthfully people were asking, and have been asking for over 25 years, how to improve the audio quality of AM. First we had AM stereo, which was killed by confusion, competing technologies, and the inability of the industry to get its act together.

There are numerous digital options on the table. Online distribution is digital, and has already seen great public acceptance, even though there are lots of limitations to it. Broadcasting is easier than the internet if we can get past all these personal biases. We can go through the exact same thing with digital radio that we did with AM stereo and kill it off among ourselves. Or be open to the idea that AM isn't perfect and needs help in order to compete with other distribution systems, all of which have wider frequency capabilities.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

I just can't ever see the entire AM band going ALL digital. I can see half of it, but never all of it - because in a huge national emergency, our 1A 50KW clear channel stations can blanket the nation with information on the 3/4 billion AM analog receivers - heck, even catswhisker crystal radios, plus you get the added bonus of skywave at night. If AM was all digital, you wouldn't have the universal coverage you need.
I could only imagine a bandplan such as 650-850 AM analog, 1000-1200 AM analog, 1500-1600 AM analog - everthing else digital only, with the analog having hybrid digital only??
Whaddayathink?

 

[Play Freebird]

The fact is that there is an obvious quality issue with AM. You can argue about it all day, or say that it sounded better 40 years ago, but that doesn't change anything. That's part of why FM replaced AM so quickly as the medium for music broadcasting. FM is simply superior for sound, and everyone could hear it.

So truthfully people were asking, and have been asking for over 25 years, how to improve the audio quality of AM. First we had AM stereo, which was killed by confusion, competing technologies, and the inability of the industry to get its act together.

But the real obstacle is that AM is transmitted in the medium-wave band, which is subject to the following problems:

• High levels of natural noise from lightning
• Increasing man-made noise from electrical devices such as microprocessors, video monitors, and LED traffic signals
• Skywave interference at night
• A lack of RF channel bandwidth necessary for acceptable digital performance and avoidance of adjacent-channel interference
• The need for large transmit antenna arrays which require substantial real estate
• Ground conductivity issues in some areas, e.g. northern New England
  

The digital transition plan for the US should have addressed these problems and transitioned local AM broadcasters to VHF spectrum, where small antennas and on-channel boosters could be employed to transmit true high-fidelity audio. Instead, we were offered snake oil.

 

[TheBigA]

The AM to VHF concept is beguiling, but as of now, it's just a bunch of engineers playing war games. Count on the NAB to kill it. If implemented it would erode Big Radio's stake and render HD irrelevant.

I think you're assuming that "Big Radio," as it is today, will stay that way for the forseeable future. I have no reason to believe that's true. Just as Disney has already begun to sell off its broadcast holdings, just as NBC first sold it's radio holdings and is in the process of selling off TV properties, soon we'll see other large companies selling off their broadcast properties. There simply is no benefit to ownership to these kinds of companies. Companies like NBC and Disney can license their content for a price. They don't need to own stations to get that content out. Neither Fox nor Time Warner own any radio, yet they find a way to get their content to radio stations, and make money with it.

The big media consolidation and concentration game is over. It ended a few years ago. By the time all this is worked out, "big radio," as you call it, won't care, because they will no longer own any of those AM stations. AM radio will become foreclosed homes, with overgrown grass and vandalized fixtures. There are already a few hundred stations that look like this right now.

 

[TheBigA]

The digital transition plan for the US should have addressed these problems and transitioned local AM broadcasters to VHF spectrum, where small antennas and on-channel boosters could be employed to transmit true high-fidelity audio. Instead, we were offered snake oil.

Woulda coulda shoulda. Meanwhile, Rome is burning. Nero is fiddling. Nothing is getting done.

 

[Savage]

So what's your point? My observations about how we got where we are with IBOC trace the system's origins dating to Project Acorn in the early 1990s. Back then Big Radio was acquiring and consolidating. Today, according to you - and some others - they're divesting. Many, including this poster, think that's a good thing. Consolidated corporate radio has certainly represented only a mixed blessing, and possibly a decided curse, in terms of quality programming and the professional people who populate (or used to populate) the industry.

If your comments contain the germ of any argument, it would be for the abandonment of HD-AM. If nobody cares about terrestrial radio broadcasting, including HD's "innovators," and since we're allegedly in fire-sale mode, why have facilities crap all over each other with unnecessary interference from a digital service to which nobody is listening? It's just making the gloomy landscape you paint even darker.

 

[TheBigA]

If your comments contain the germ of any argument, it would be for the abandonment of HD-AM. If nobody cares about terrestrial radio broadcasting, including HD's "innovators," and since we're allegedly in fire-sale mode, why have facilities crap all over each other with unnecessary interference from a digital service to which nobody is listening? It's just making the gloomy landscape you paint even darker.

No...it moves the responsibility of the future of the industry from a handful of major players to a less centralized and more diverse group. Therefore, the problem (ie, technical quality of AM, diminishing audience and interest, etc) becomes more diffused among hundreds of interests. Which probably will make it more difficult to get anything done. And we've already seen how well the government handles leadership and responsibility. So yes, I'm not optimistic. The choice is continue the downward spiral, or come up with some better (ie, easier) technical solution.

 

[Savage]

Great! So we can end the debate over HD-AM, because we agree. What technical solution do you propose?