Gainesville / Ocala Market HD Radio

[Kmagrill]

Today, according to radio-locator.com, we have more than 25 local signals available... plus another 100+ on my Sirius/XM receiver... plus another few thousand (?) via the web. Our FM stations all stream and offer smartphone apps, too.

Night and day.

Like I said, don't invest too much in HD Radio...

Like Mark, I think that's a good reason to develop HD radio. First, other than the cost of the receiver, which is rapidly becoming the same price as a non-hd receiver, it's the only expanded service that's truly free. Streaming and satellite both have costs associated with them. Further, HD can be localized where the others cannot. It will take years for enough HD receivers to enter the market to make a difference, but just like basic FM, as the cost of adding HD becomes near zero, more and more receivers will have it and sometime it'll reach critical mass. That's a while away, but I'd bet it's going to eventually happen.

I would also differentiate this from C-QUAM AM stereo in several major respects. First, I respectfully disagree that the FCC's marketplace decision was the problem with AM stereo. Those that disagree with the FCC's decision need only recall that the FCC originally select an AM stereo system by Magnavox which was universally hated by just about everyone, so they reversed themselves and said, "okay, you don't like our decision? Then you decide for yourselves". Within a couple of years, C-QUAM emerged as the defacto system and despite its problems, it worked okay. I personally installed two AM stereo stations and oversaw a second conversion from Harris to C-QUAM. There were multiple problems with AM stereo, but by far the biggest was receiver quality. I had a 1986 Z28 with a factory Delco AM stereo radio. Now, the AM stereo sounded fine on a $4,000 mod monitor in the studio, but paled considerably on my Delco radio. As far as I can tell, it sounded similar on
the vast majority of the AM Stereo receivers I tried. I have a few of them in storage somewhere. I am aware that there were some high-dollar system out there with spectacular performance, but they were rare and expensive. I still have a Sangean SR-66 walkman that I bought at an NAB show and it has pretty good AM stereo fidelity, but the FM still sounds better. In the end, it was the frequency response of AM that killed it, not the choice of which stereo system was selected. Be it Kahn or Motorola or the original Magnavox system, two channels of 4kHz audio is just 2x as bad as one.

Second, argument that AM stereo sounds as good or better than FM is moot, even if it were true. In the end, AM stereo came about 15 years too late to save AM. The die was cast when FM had superior performance at a low cost starting in the 1970s. By 1980, AM was already in a deep hole as a music medium. For AM hi-fi or stereo to have had an effect, it would have needed to be rolled out in the early 1970s to blunt the rise of FM stereo. The technology of the day made it expensive to build a hi-fi AM system, but even the cheapest of FM radios could sound good, so AM's undoing was partly a combination of lack of available, low cost, technology and starting much too late in the game. Perhaps if the FCC had been a little more farsighted and approved Kahn AM stereo in the early '60s, things would be better for AM now, but who can know for sure? Probably the technological cost of bringing Hi-Fi to AM in those days was already enough to doom the medium. Today, it could easily be a different story because new software defined radios can do things only dreamed about even 10 years ago.


For HD, the gain isn't in quality because analog FM and HD are pretty close. The HD gain is that it allows the broadcaster to offer more FM-quality local channels, for free, which benefits everyone.

 

[amfmxm]

Lemme try this again.

1. When FM emerged as a force 35-40 years ago, it was entering a situation where there were very few radio stations of any kind (again, my little town had 6). HD Radio is entering a situation where even out here in the woods us hillbillies can pick up 4 times that many (25+) stations and thousands of "station equivalents" (Sirius/XM + web stream stations).

For FM it was like entering an empty room. For HD, it is like trying to squeeze into a jammed arena.

2. When FM emerged it was because the FCC gave it a huge technical advantage. Nobody hears the technical advantage of HD. If there is one, explain it so we can all rush out and buy an HD receiver.

3. Nearly every market is full of stations running hour upon hour with no commercials. Even good radio companies have oodles of inventory. Why? Because there are too many radio stations and not enough radio advertisers. And/or because there are now so many radio stations on-air that audiences have become so splintered that advertisers don't see the value.

And you want us to add more "commercial free" radio stations to our clusters?

How do you propose paying for this? Or is this reallly just a hobby for rich folks seeking ways to piss away their money?

Sorry, but for those of us doing it to feed the kids and pay the mortgage, it really doesn't make sense.

 

[jmtillery]

amfmxm - You make very valid points and I see you point of view. Let me pose this question for you. Since you believe HD radio is not a good option as a means to improve overall terrestrial radio, what do you recommend as an alternative to HD radio that will enhance and improve terrestrial radio in a way that it becomes much more competitive among the previously mentioned media sources that make up the metaphoric "crowded room"? In other words, what do you recommend implementing to make terrestrial radio stand-out and become a dominant medium once again?

 

[Kmagrill]

Lemme try this again.

1. When FM emerged as a force 35-40 years ago, it was entering a situation where there were very few radio stations of any kind (again, my little town had 6). HD Radio is entering a situation where even out here in the woods us hillbillies can pick up 4 times that many (25+) stations and thousands of "station equivalents" (Sirius/XM + web stream stations).

For FM it was like entering an empty room. For HD, it is like trying to squeeze into a jammed arena.

2. When FM emerged it was because the FCC gave it a huge technical advantage. Nobody hears the technical advantage of HD. If there is one, explain it so we can all rush out and buy an HD receiver.

3. Nearly every market is full of stations running hour upon hour with no commercials. Even good radio companies have oodles of inventory. Why? Because there are too many radio stations and not enough radio advertisers. And/or because there are now so many radio stations on-air that audiences have become so splintered that advertisers don't see the value.

And you want us to add more "commercial free" radio stations to our clusters?

How do you propose paying for this? Or is this reallly just a hobby for rich folks seeking ways to piss away their money?

Sorry, but for those of us doing it to feed the kids and pay the mortgage, it really doesn't make sense.

I recognize your points as valid, but I see the situation differently. I'm not suggesting more commercial free services at all. I think that these services will start out like FM of the 1960s, in closets, but eventually will become viable. Remember that it took FM nearly 30 years to overtake AM, despite its obviously superior performance. During that time, many also predicted that FM would never amount to anything. I am told that Entercom notably picked up their Houston property for $20,000 in the late 1960s and did a terrible job of running all of the FMs for years, but starting in the 1980s, found that they really had something valuable. I don't see the multicasts as a hobby service but as away for the commercial broadcaster to offer more local content to compete against satellite and streaming radio. It also gives the astute broadcaster the ability to add formats that compliment their analog signal, serving a broader range of the local market. Of course, it gives other broadcasters the same opportunity, but the point really is that it gives local broadcasters the chance to blunt inroads from other media. Eventually, I also think the medium will become profitable as well.

 

[amfmxm]

amfmxm - You make very valid points and I see you point of view. Let me pose this question for you. Since you believe HD radio is not a good option as a means to improve overall terrestrial radio, what do you recommend as an alternative to HD radio that will enhance and improve terrestrial radio in a way that it becomes much more competitive among the previously mentioned media sources that make up the metaphoric "crowded room"? In other words, what do you recommend implementing to make terrestrial radio stand-out and become a dominant medium once again?

Radio is pretty healthy. I certainly can't complain--I make a hell of a good living. But radio has not been a "dominant" medium since the 1940s. It has generated about 7 percent of the advertising revenue pie for 30 years-or-so.

Yet 93 percent of all Americans listen to radio every week. 78 percent listen every day. That's huge. And "new media" have had little or no effect on radio's place in America's daily life.

I'm not suggesting that new techologies to enhance terrestrial radio may not emerge. What I am saying, though, is that after 10+ years into the "HD Radio Era" no evidence has surfaced to confirm that HD Radio is that technology.

It's a "dead horse."