I was quite interested in hearing about the “all-digital” FM tests in Vegas this year. It appears things were mostly a success—but it got me thinking...
Suppose I was a “mom n pop” standalone FM station with some sort of fringe coverage of a metro area. I don’t normally show up in that metro’s ratings and currently do not sell ads in the metro (just locally). The ad revenue is decreasing, but I enjoy my format, the area I serve, and don’t want to sell out to EMF or another company that’ll routinely buy fringe FMs. I want to make revenue off of my station in the metro while maintaining some sort of analog presence locally. My question would be twofold:
1) Would current technology support (and would the FCC be supportive either with current rules or an experimental license) of running a lower-bandwidth mono analog signal (let’s say FM 87.7 ‘Franken-FM’ bandwidth) at the exchange of more HD sub channels and/or data?
2) Do the current rules dictate that analog and HD must run from the same location? Could I run the analog signal from its current ‘fringe’ location but move the HD closer to the metro so long as it still covers the COL and meets spacing requirements?
I should point out that I am not involved currently in station ownership, but I bet there are a few less technically-savvy licensees who have probably thought these exact same questions
Suppose I was a “mom n pop” standalone FM station with some sort of fringe coverage of a metro area. I don’t normally show up in that metro’s ratings and currently do not sell ads in the metro (just locally). The ad revenue is decreasing, but I enjoy my format, the area I serve, and don’t want to sell out to EMF or another company that’ll routinely buy fringe FMs. I want to make revenue off of my station in the metro while maintaining some sort of analog presence locally. My question would be twofold:
1) Would current technology support (and would the FCC be supportive either with current rules or an experimental license) of running a lower-bandwidth mono analog signal (let’s say FM 87.7 ‘Franken-FM’ bandwidth) at the exchange of more HD sub channels and/or data?
2) Do the current rules dictate that analog and HD must run from the same location? Could I run the analog signal from its current ‘fringe’ location but move the HD closer to the metro so long as it still covers the COL and meets spacing requirements?
I should point out that I am not involved currently in station ownership, but I bet there are a few less technically-savvy licensees who have probably thought these exact same questions
