Buggy Whips

[metroneck]

Put a date on it. What year do you believe RF broadcast radio will go way of the buggy whip? The combustion engine ruined the carriage business, and the WWW will do exactly the same to the AM/FM receiver based broadcast business. Corps are already donating their AM facilities to non profits across the nation. The wifi broadband is here in 4G and the next levels of wifi are in testing phases. new cars are being mass produced with tough screens and broadband capacity. So I ask you, pick a year to which you guesstimate the FM transmitters will literally be turned off, and disassembled. I'm interested in your feedback.

Metro

 

[TheBigA]

The phone company wants to own wifi, so it won't be as free as OTA. There are big parts of this country that still have no cell service, so it'll be dozens of years before wifi becomes as omni-present as radio waves. The cities that have attempted to offer free wifi, like Philly, have failed, due mainly to the efforts of telecom.

It's nice that car companies are installing wifi receivers, but it's mainly for email and text, not audio. Simply put, OTA FM is a far more efficient system than internet. Sure, for the 10% of the public that loves esoteric music, or hates commercials, OTA is a waste. But for the 90% that loves free Justin Bieber 24/7, FM is just fine.

 

[JRZFM100]

Here's the magic threshold... when broadband becomes widely available enough and customers adopt there behavior to adjust to listening to broadcast streaming, this will further devalue broadcast stations by offering real consumer competition and fragmenting the market and thus the audience.

Broadband broadcast has significantly less overhead (no transmitter, tower or broadcast license), so there are little or no barriers to entry; everyone that wants to can play.

Hit the magic threshold of customer adoption of streaming and force OTA back to individual ownership due to lack of attractiveness resulting from a decline in sales revenues due to fraging the market.

Then OTA FM's will be forced to compete for audience, putting an end to these 8 minute+ stop sets.

And if I'm a broadband broadcaster, I'm going to "borrow" from OTA all the local information (traffic and weather) I want so broadband broadcasters won't need that infrastructure either.

I think that Live 365 or similar should launch professionally produced formats, one group of national formats to compete directly with the satcaster, and then individual groups of local formats for each Top-20 market and separately a group of formats for each radio state for markets smaller than Top 20.

They could use a dual free (commercial based) and low cost (commercial free) subscription model with modest fees (~2.00 per month) and become direct competitors to OTA.

Or if Live 365 remains ignorant, they can just continue the consumer programmed, non competitive offerings they have on now. Somebody else will come along and do it.

I believe the correct name for such obsolesce of OTA is called "wagon wheel"

 

[JRZFM100]

Streaming broadcasters can offer direct competitors for formats that are unduplicated (like KLUV), restoring consumer choice.

And it wouldn't take much to program the steaming stations, just offer a close copy of the original.

Think of it, a second choice for NOW, KISS, LIGHT, LITE, and KZPS; "one for one" alternative stations local to Dallas with similar copies of other locals in Houston, San Antonio, etc...

 

[bturner]

I'll chime in here. OTA and internet are both not cheap. With the fees charged to stream the issue has always been monetizing the listener enough to just break even. OTA is now restricted to major investors thanks to the Congress mandated auctions only amplified by the years and years between filing windows. Streaming is still costlier per listener although that figure seems to be growing closer over the years to the over the air counterpart.

I too have wondered how long until radio listening habits are lost and that is what must happen before OTA radio is truly threatened. Perhaps radio is figuring by streaming now, they can catch some of those who don't tuune in on the AM and FM band. If a station is on both, would that not beat the entity that just streams or the OTA with no internet presence?

I have wondered why hold a TV station license when cable has you in the lineup and hardly anyone watches OTA television. You might say it is the requirements for cable systems to carry the OTA stations but I question if the programming is strong enough to hold its own if the OTA license was handed in. If the local CBS affiliate turned in their license would CBS programming be good enough to stay on cable? Sure another OTA station might come on but if the former OTA station kept their CBS affiliation, the entity that scooped up the license couldn't be a CBS affiliate.

My opinion is we see the writing on the wall because posters here are not the typical radio consumer. I think we tend to write the obituary at the first sign of symptoms. A friend said conservative talk radio was now dead but the numbers prove otherwise right now. I'm not saying it doesn't need to evolve in the near future but dead, nope, just a sniffle at most now.

 

[Robert Bass]

Or if Live 365 remains ignorant, they can just continue the consumer programmed, non competitive offerings they have on now. Somebody else will come along and do it.

As a Live365 broadcaster, I take issue with your comments. Clearly you don't have a true understanding of what Live365 is. Live365 offers the ability for both amateurs and professsionals to run their own stations. Many of us operate our stations in a presentation style that is similar to OTA. If you feel like you can operate a station that is better than OTA radio, then by all means come on over and start your own station.

R

 

[TheBigA]

I have wondered why hold a TV station license when cable has you in the lineup and hardly anyone watches OTA television.

Why do we consider OTA broadcast radio obsolete, yet think of wired TV as modern? Wasn't Marconi's goal to do away with wires? If so, then wired TV is more obsolete than OTA radio. And having just seen my latest cable bill, the one with the additional fees for the AO service (we pay extra now for double remotes), I can expect there will come a time when people will rebel against the cost of cable. We rail about the 8 minute spot breaks on radio, but the spots aren't any shorter on cable TV, and we pay a fee on top of being forced to sit through commercials. Yes my radio friends, the real buggy whip is the cable box. If wifi will be universal and free, then we will have no need for cable. We should be getting our moving pictures through the air, not through some fiber or cable.

 

[TheBigA]

Broadband broadcast has significantly less overhead (no transmitter, tower or broadcast license), so there are little or no barriers to entry; everyone that wants to can play.

The biggest issue is driving listeners to your station. How can people listen when they don't know you exist. And the more online stations that exist, the harder it will be to attract an audience and build up enough listeners to cover your lesser costs. Sure you can advertise, but that costs money. And what do you advertise on?

 

[JRZFM100]

Robert-

I used to be a power listener to Live 365 back when it was $3 per month. I loved the "The 80's Hit Machine" out of Easton, PA, not to mention Dan the Man's 70's product from NJ. I have not heard your station (unless it's "That 70's Station"). For sure, many stations have very good technical and programming quality and execution with many more being so very poorly executed.

I made a choice about 2 years ago to spend my money on Rhapsody instead of 365 as to create and run my own formats internally. (We have no jingles or programming elements, and I miss that). I'm sure others have done this as well.

The problem I see with 365 is that it is not "locally programmed" with a specific 'geographic' target (city / MSA / state) sufficient enough to have real synergy (similarities) with say KVIL or Jack or KLUV as to draw audience and pull folks away from the Dallas OTA's.

If I had the funds, I would upstart (starting in Dallas and then Houston, separately), market by market programming of near identical competitive formats directed at fragmenting the OTA's to speedily hasten their decline and devaluation.

What I am trying to convey is the concept that in order to be truly competitive as a real alternative to conventional OTA's, web casting needs to duplicate the OTA's in any given market "one to one" as to draw audience. At this stage of evolution.

At present, I feel like 365 offers a substitute for OTA's, but that substitute is not a close enough (from a user perspective) to be a "close substitute" wherein the end user / listener who has always been a custom to OTA's says, "Hey, I like that station, because it's "just like" KZPS"

And this thought process about web casters using locally programmed direct competitor formats, less the spots, is only valid until the audience that grew up with and loves OTA's is gone.
Then the model of radio personalities and conventional programming elements becomes fully obsolescent.

 

[JRZFM100]

The biggest issue is driving listeners to your station. How can people listen when they don't know you exist. And the more online stations that exist, the harder it will be to attract an audience and build up enough listeners to cover your lesser costs.

AND this is the same issue that HD-2 and HD-3 has in some sense. It is an issue that is technically called "consumer adoption" which concerns itself with how to get end users to adopt to new technology as discussed in books like "Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers." All of the Geoff Moore books revolve around this dilemma.

see:http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chas...qid=1359556182&sr=1-1&keywords=geoffrey+moore

HD-2 and HD-3 have the same problem in the sense they can not attract audience because people are very slow to change their user habits and behaviors.

So a problem separate and apart from advertising and promotion, customers must also blreak their old habits in favor of emerging technology. This change is easy with cell phone and elecronic media because these are new and emerging technologies wherein OTA radio is very very old with ingrained users.

 

[Robert Bass]

JRZFM100, my station at L365 is Legendary 80s. There's a link to it in my signature. But in case you have signature views disabled, it's www.live365.com/stations/robertbass. I have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/legendary80s. In the next couple of days, I will be moving to Live365's X5000 plan. No login will be required to listen at that point. 80s Hit Machine is still there as well. I have no involvement with 8HM or That 70s Channel.

R

 

[metroneck]

No one has yet to answer the question. What year will FM die? 2020, 30 2050?? When would you guess a.l this new technology will turn Traditional FM's into buggy whips?

 

[TheBigA]

So a problem separate and apart from advertising and promotion, customers must also blreak their old habits in favor of emerging technology. This change is easy with cell phone and elecronic media because these are new and emerging technologies wherein OTA radio is very very old with ingrained users.

But new technology is only valuable when it provides something better than old technology. Cell phones are better than wired phones. But internet radio isn't better than OTA. It certainly isn't easier, nor is it more omnipresent.

No one has yet to answer the question. What year will FM die? 2020, 30 2050?? When would you guess a.l this new technology will turn Traditional FM's into buggy whips?

I think you're setting up a straw man. In my view, what we now consider "new technology" will be replaced in 20 or 30 years, and make the internet seem like DOS or even older technology. Meanwhile, OTA radio will still exist. OTA radio isn't a buggy whip. It's a wheel. We've been using wheels in different ways for thousands of years.

 

[JRZFM100]

But new technology is only valuable when it provides something better than old technology. Cell phones are better than wired phones. But internet radio isn't better than OTA. It certainly isn't easier, nor is it more omnipresent.

Cell phones are better than wired phones because they provide portability and convenience as a feature of their wireless-ness. And as the technology has evolved, costs have come down and use has grown, and customers have grown used to the technology as opposed to say 1992.

Conceptually, internet radio is better than OTA because in future maturation it will be as portable and available as cell phones AND has it has low barriers for new broadcasters to entry.

At present time internet radio is cumbersome, there is limited availability in vehicles, limited mobile broadband, it is still evolving and emerging.

There needs to be standardization for "tuning in" internet radio in vehicles, like an app for that, as to differentiate and make it easier then having to select a web site.

And I worry that only big players will ultimately have such an app or the relationships with car mfgrs to get their app as standard in vehicles, and that folks like Live 365 will be shut out of the loop and be at a big disadvantage.

Live 365 has such a viable platform but their needs to be a better way than using a blue tooth and a smart phone to get it to work in the car. They need the same access as the big companies seem to get from vehicle OEM entertainment systems.

 

[JRZFM100]

Serving the Universe... and from Mesquite, Texas - -

JRZFM100, my station at L365 is Legendary 80s. There's a link to it in my signature. But in case you have signature views disabled, it's www.live365.com/stations/robertbass. I have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/legendary80s. In the next couple of days, I will be moving to Live365's X5000 plan.

Dear Robert-

Gave your Legendary 80's a listen, a long listen! Very, very nice. Music selection/rotation is perfect, and the segue-ways are just amazing, those segues are unbelievably GREAT for an automation system!! (KLUV should take a hint from you).

Sent you an email thru RD. Please look for it and reply or send me an email, I'd love to talk about 365 customer support.

 

[TheBigA]

Conceptually, internet radio is better than OTA because in future maturation it will be as portable and available as cell phones AND has it has low barriers for new broadcasters to entry.

Consumers don't care about low barriers to enter. They just want to hear their favorite songs. That's why the top mobile radio stations are OTA streams. Nothing can compete with that.

 

[Robert Bass]

Serving the Universe... and from Mesquite, Texas - -

JRZFM100, my station at L365 is Legendary 80s. There's a link to it in my signature. But in case you have signature views disabled, it's www.live365.com/stations/robertbass. I have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/legendary80s. In the next couple of days, I will be moving to Live365's X5000 plan.

Dear Robert-

Gave your Legendary 80's a listen, a long listen! Very, very nice. Music selection/rotation is perfect, and the segue-ways are just amazing, those segues are unbelievably GREAT for an automation system!! (KLUV should take a hint from you).

Sent you an email thru RD. Please look for it and reply or send me an email, I'd love to talk about 365 customer support.

LOL!!! Serving the universe from Mesquite, TX! I like that!

Thanks for listening and for the feedback! I sent you an e-mail. I'm using OtsAV automation, which is the exact same system that was used for the original JACK format on the Internet. It sets the segue points based on where the audio level drops below a certain threshold. It has goofed on a few songs, but I'm able to correct it where needed.

R

 

[JRZFM100]

Consumers don't care about low barriers to enter. They just want to hear their favorite songs. That's why the top mobile radio stations are OTA streams. Nothing can compete with that.

I agree, consumers don't care about barriers to entry.

So from a consumer point of view, one of the reasons, perhaps the most significant reason that the top mobile radio stations are steams of regular OTA stations is that internet radio has failed to produce a truly competitive product that competes directly with OTA's.

In other words, harkening back to a previous comment, there is too much dissimilarity between internet broadcasters and the main stream OTA's. And, consumers don't (or can not) appreciate the "differentiation" between the independent internet broadcasters and OTA's.

Until OTA is not viable anymore as a model, internet folks must create clear 'close substitute' choices for the consume to be able to attract and retain (and compete for) the OTA audience.

 

[bturner]

Great point on the difference between OTA and most internet streams. I agree. Most internet streams are simply a jukebox mostly with very sparse imaging. Lots of the streaming options are poorly researched music libraries. It's usually the OTA streams that grab your attention because there is 'more' to the station.

Part of this problem might come from the hosting sites that typically include a clause that discourages localizing and pretty much trying to sound like an OTA station (granted that was a few years back when I read such clauses).

It seems that over time the line between the internet and OTA stations is getting closer. PPM has added to this.

 

[johnsummers]

I agree with the above statement. Many/most internet broadcasters feel that they can do a better job with music selection than their OTA counterparts. How many times have you heard someone say or post..."on my station, I play everything that charted from 1955 to 2010, not just the same old burned out songs (the hits)". Now, me.... I'd love hearing "Wolverton Mountain" into "Stronger"...but, that's just me.....(lol)...and 2 or three others...maybe...