IBAC is solution to a problem that doesn't exist

[MotoMuzak]

Something I happened to think about, while listening to Peter Frampton's decent cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" via Muzak at a coffee shoppe this afternoon:

IBAC to me seems like an answer to a problem that never even existed in the first place. The problem lies not within the delivery method, the problem lies within the lack of decent quality programming! For example, you could have one of the most narrow-band, crappy-sounding analogue AM stations in the world but if that crappy-sounding station's got a compelling format and a solid presentation I am sure more than a few people will tune in. Many might even take it to heart.

Likewise, if you have a station with the greatest, wide-band, stereo and then some sound quality in the world but you have a crappy programme, no compelling presentation, no personal connection with the listener and a format seemingly centred on how it can make a profit--even Portland has more than its fair share of those--people aren't going to give a rip and will just tune right out.

Basically, you can put it in analogue form, you could put it in digital form, you could print it on a news-ticker display, if your programme sucks who's gonna want to listen?

Yeah, they advertise it as being quoteunquote "CD Quality" and how you just have to hear the "stations in between the stations". Quite honestly, sound quality problems aside, I have heard the stations in between the stations and really haven't been too impressed. With probably the sole exception of KOPB's "Deep Tracks" feed on its secondary channel, most of the secondaries I have heard in PDX really don't sound that much different from the main channel, in terms of content. Yeah, some are still commercial free but in the long run I think it's going to be a tough sell.

This is likely why Industry Heads are wondering why they are losing so many listeners to devices like CD players, Apple I-Pods, music computers etc. Seems if you want to listen to good, compelling, personally-connecting radio it's pretty much DIY. Like I say the problem's not whether it's analogue or digital, the problem's the content!! If this world were perfect they'd be improving the content first, *then* working on some new-fangled digital transmission gizmo for it.

People wonder why IBAC isn't selling?? Give me something worth listening to that analogue FM (or even a free-to-air satellite transponder) *doesn't* deliver then I might consider it!!

 

[Black_Shire]

When jukeboxes were in every restaurant and diner, many people played them to see their nifty mechanisms in action as much as to hear their favorite songs. When Seeberg introduced their first totally enclosed model in 1963 that didn't allow the mechanism to be seen, they noticed that the number of plays declined significantly.

Radio used to be like the old glass-front jukeboxes. Many a disc jockey, announcer, talk host, and station engineer first caught the radio "bug" after watching "radio being made" through the windows of store-front downtown radio studios or meeting the air staff at remote broadcasts. These encounters made radio more to those children than just disembodied voices issuing from boxes.

What would re-vitalize radio (both AM and FM) would be a return to full-service stations that serve the needs of their communities, whose personnel are known and seen often in the communities they serve. This connection between real, flesh-and-blood local people with their listeners both in person as well as over the air makes a station more responsive to those who listen (and who pay its bills and salaries by buying its advertised products & services, of course).

Here in Fairbanks, Alaska we have several AM and FM stations, and while they do carry some syndicated talk programming and voice-tracked music programming (there's nothing wrong with that, in moderation), they also have live, local on-air talent whom I often meet in public and who are active in community affairs. These people make their respective radio stations focal points of community interest, and just as importantly they serve to make radio a companion, and all of this on-air commerce and community service is provided by good old-fashioned analog AM and FM.


-- Black Shire