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HD Radio is dying..yep you guessed it, another NYC radio station goes HD

R

R.F. Burns

WBLS, Owned by Inner City Broadcasting has just turned on their IBOC encoder. They run two channels, R&B on their HD 1 and a simulcast of their AM, WLIB on the HD2 channel. I guess ownership didn't get the word that HD was a dead technology. Too bad they didn't read this board before they made the deccssion to go digital. ::)


By the way, for the anti IBOC crowd, this is not an April Fools joke
 
Personally, I think it's AM HD is the dead duck and it's being turned off by all but the truest, most brainwashed, IBOC Kool-Aid drinkers. FM is a different story. I can't predict if it will ever be financially viable, but it will certainly be around for a while longer. Because, if for no other reason, it provides additional platforms and options for a station owner to horn in another signal on a translator. We'll see if it sells, but it will take a while. So far, there's been little interest - but lots of incentive to continue with HD on the FM side.

Conversely, the writing is already on the wall for IBOC on the AM side as the "mass marketed" HD receivers ("mass marketed" consisting of sales in the 5 figures) are FM only. Frankly, i don't see any of the HD platforms ever being particularly popular - but the potential is there for them to do well enough to stay around for a while. At least in the larger markets.

So, Senor Burns, it's AM IBOC that's dying. The FM side could go either way - in my view.
 
BRNout said:
Personally, I think it's AM HD is the dead duck and it's being turned off by all but the truest, most brainwashed, IBOC Kool-Aid drinkers. FM is a different story. I can't predict if it will ever be financially viable, but it will certainly be around for a while longer. Because, if for no other reason, it provides additional platforms and options for a station owner to horn in another signal on a translator. We'll see if it sells, but it will take a while. So far, there's been little interest - but lots of incentive to continue with HD on the FM side.

Conversely, the writing is already on the wall for IBOC on the AM side as the "mass marketed" HD receivers ("mass marketed" consisting of sales in the 5 figures) are FM only. Frankly, i don't see any of the HD platforms ever being particularly popular - but the potential is there for them to do well enough to stay around for a while. At least in the larger markets.

So, Senor Burns, it's AM IBOC that's dying. The FM side could go either way - in my view.
Click to expand...

In NYC the only AM station to turn off its IBOC is WABC. We have AM IBOC's on WFAN, WOR, WNYC, WCBS, WINS, WADO, & WQEW. AM radio is going to go the way of C-Quam. The band attracts the elderly which agencies who buy spots in major city stations aren't interested in. Now WFAN, CBS & WINS are highly profitable but thry are also extremely expensive operations to run. The typical AM facility in this country is nearing the end of the road as its audience slowly dies off. That's one of the resons that in major markets FM facilities are now simulcsting their AM stablemates.
 
R.F. Burns said:
WBLS, Owned by Inner City Broadcasting has just turned on their IBOC encoder. They run two channels, R&B on their HD 1 and a simulcast of their AM, WLIB on the HD2 channel. I guess ownership didn't get the word that HD was a dead technology. Too bad they didn't read this board before they made the deccssion to go digital. ::)


By the way, for the anti IBOC crowd, this is not an April Fools joke
Click to expand...

Why the bitter attitude?
 
schmave said:
R.F. Burns said:
WBLS, Owned by Inner City Broadcasting has just turned on their IBOC encoder. They run two channels, R&B on their HD 1 and a simulcast of their AM, WLIB on the HD2 channel. I guess ownership didn't get the word that HD was a dead technology. Too bad they didn't read this board before they made the deccssion to go digital. ::)


By the way, for the anti IBOC crowd, this is not an April Fools joke
Click to expand...

Why the bitter attitude?
Click to expand...

Who's bitter?
 
RF, my friend, go ahead and taunt all you want. Any reasonably arms-length analysis of HD Radio on an industrywide basis reveals pretty much what BRNout has described.

So seven NYC AMs are using IBOC (WNYC daytime-only, BTW) and ONE additional FM has recently turned on HD? Excuse me: BFD. There are over a hundred radio stations in the market! That's the big HD success story after seven years of relentless hype? One 50kw AM has turned it off and one FM just turned it on??

Give me a large economy-size break. If IBOC was anything remotely resembling what its few proponents claim, stations would be stampeding to install it. It would be like Color arriving to broadcast TV in the mid-1960s. (Ummm....and it's NOT.)

If you want to get a good reading on the HD landscape, get outside of the Big Apple. IBOC is invisible in the marketplace. Almost literally nobody cares about it. And as far as the AM flavor goes, the pop-count of AM-IBOC stations is declining. (FM is essentially static. As I predicted about 35 stations have plans to increase digital power.)

Keep em' laughing, RF.... ::)
 
Savage said:
RF, my friend, go ahead and taunt all you want. Any reasonably arms-length analysis of HD Radio on an industrywide basis reveals pretty much what BRNout has described.

So seven NYC AMs are using IBOC (WNYC daytime-only, BTW) and ONE additional FM has recently turned on HD? Excuse me: BFD. There are over a hundred radio stations in the market! That's the big HD success story after seven years of relentless hype? One 50kw AM has turned it off and one FM just turned it on??

Give me a large economy-size break. If IBOC was anything remotely resembling what its few proponents claim, stations would be stampeding to install it. It would be like Color arriving to broadcast TV in the mid-1960s. (Ummm....and it's NOT.)

If you want to get a good reading on the HD landscape, get outside of the Big Apple. IBOC is invisible in the marketplace. Almost literally nobody cares about it. And as far as the AM flavor goes, the pop-count of AM-IBOC stations is declining. (FM is essentially static. As I predicted about 35 stations have plans to increase digital power.)

Keep em' laughing, RF.... ::)
Click to expand...

I'm not laughing, I'm simply reporting.
 
If it wasn't for the ibitquity hype-machine, this board and a few radio fans, nobody would really care.

Once upon a time you'd walk into a store or car dealer and hear a radio station playing in the background. Now, you're more likely to experience XM radio. And the sound quality isn't that great! I thought everybody was totally unhappy and wanted CD quality from radio. I guess they want something else.
 
pocket-radio said:
If it wasn't for the ibitquity hype-machine, this board and a few radio fans, nobody would really care.

Once upon a time you'd walk into a store or car dealer and hear a radio station playing in the background. Now, you're more likely to experience XM radio. And the sound quality isn't that great! I thought everybody was totally unhappy and wanted CD quality from radio. I guess they want something else.
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right - digital audio seems to lack a certain warmth that fine analog has in spades. And, with digital broadcasting, the temptation is always there to cut back on the bitrate in order to squeeze something else in there (another subchannel, video elements, etc.) allowing for a few digital remnants here and there. In other words, it just doesn't sound as good. A mile wide but an inch deep.
 
pocket-radio said:
I thought everybody was totally unhappy and wanted CD quality from radio. I guess they want something else.
Click to expand...

There are people who think XM and Sirius are CD quality. People, in general, aren't very perceptive about the audio content they hear. Otherwise I wouldn't be assaulted with low bitrate audio coming from my local TV station, my satellite radio, Sonic Tap on DirecTV and still on some analog radio stations.

If people really cared enough to complain, AT&T wouldn't be running AMR-HR (half rate) audio on their GSM network and the Real Audio streams of the 90's would have been laughed off the internet. Computer speakers would be bookshelf speakers and Apple's iTunes store would be selling 100% DRM free lossless audio files. ;)
 
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