clouseau said:
There are people who don't like what's on the radio now. Frankly, there have ALWAYS been people who didn't like what was on the radio. But there are significantly more choices NOW then there have been in the past. The fallout of "More formats" is Less competion between direct competitors. And as anyone who has been in a classic radio war knows, nothing makes you work harder than a direct competitor. In many markets, you don't have two of most formats. Lots of competition for listeners, but limited head to head competition. Gone are the days of Wibbage and WFIL, WNBC and WABC, WLS and WCFL etc... It's probably hard to justify the Double Decker bus or even a live midnight to 6 Jock when your competition isn't doing the same format as you. More choice is what people want. But economics seems to be dictatingless listeners "PER STATION" equals lower quality per station.
Just a thought.
Clouseau
As I see it, one of the business problems with HD is the fact that it has the potential to further fractionalize audiences. More choices sounds like a great idea, until you discover that the listeners for those new channels had to come from somewhere. The truth is, they might come from your existing bread and butter operation.
I can see where multicasting makes sense for your typical non-commercial broadcaster. NPR stations see it as a way to satisfy their classical and jazz audiences while keeping their main channel in line with the current NPR News-Talk format. Religious broadcasters see it as an opportunity to simultaneously offer programming aimed at different groups, who may not share a common language or interests. Fair enough.
Commercial broadcasters are caught between a rock and a hard place on this one. Since deregulation brought a lot of new stations to the scene, their audience has been constantly fragmenting. In the good old days there were a handful of stations in a given market, and everyone listened to at least a few of them. Five pushbuttons on your car radio was enough. Those days are long gone. Add other audio and video distractions that didn't even exist ten years ago, and there is a potential for a very big economic problem. Some of the damage appears to be self inflicted. I have problems understanding why serious broadcasters should be excited about becoming their own competition by adding additional HD channels.
The only way I can see this working is if the new programming brings listeners back to radio. I have some experience with that. My own station plays what the Inspector referred to as an "obscure format." It's true. Nobody does Standards with the idea of getting rich quick. For us, that was never the plan. I can tell you that I have had lots of our listeners tell me that before we came along, they very seldom listened to radio. They had given up on it. In some small way, we have actually brought some listeners back to radio. HD will need to do that if it is to survive.
The problem is, like any niche market, getting advertising (or in our case, underwriting support) is difficult. Most potential sponsors are much more interested in addressing a target audience that is just entering its peak earning years, rather than looking for an audience who's next big purchase may be for a casket. It's just an economic reality. So far, I have seen very little in HD 2 or HD 3 channels that looks like it could stand on its own. Perhaps that will change.
In the mean time, the lure of additional channels seems to me to be similar to the lure of low interest rate, zero down-payment mortgages. I think we have all seen where that leads. Choice is good, but there needs to be a happy balance between the number of choices and the ability to support those choices.
