IBOC stations shutting off the IBOC to save electricity?

[RadeoEngineer]

My guess is that if the increase goes through, there will be at least 2/3 less FM HD's on the air due to the expense of once again having to upgrade the transmitter plant to handle it.

I can't see the 10dBc thing causing any existing FM HDs to drop the digital. Nothing is going to force existing 20dBc operations to increase.

I do think adoption of the power increase will be far from universal.

Oh I dunno. Say I just spent $300k installing this pig, send in my monthly licensing fees and now I'm told to make it work right I have to do it all again while my revenues are falling from decreased advertising and nothing has happened in the time I've run this erector set system that it's ever going to do anything for me anyway. I'd cut bait personally.

 

[KB1OKL]

I have heard that KFI and WHAS have turned off the 50 KHz wide noisemakers, at least at night, don't know if it's temporary or permanent.

 

[Seattleradiodude]

My guess is that if the increase goes through, there will be at least 2/3 less FM HD's on the air due to the expense of once again having to upgrade the transmitter plant to handle it.

I can't see the 10dBc thing causing any existing FM HDs to drop the digital. Nothing is going to force existing 20dBc operations to increase.

I do think adoption of the power increase will be far from universal.

Oh I dunno. Say I just spent $300k installing this pig, send in my monthly licensing fees and now I'm told to make it work right I have to do it all again while my revenues are falling from decreased advertising and nothing has happened in the time I've run this erector set system that it's ever going to do anything for me anyway. I'd cut bait personally.

The licensing fees are a onetime only fee for AM/ FM HD-1. HD-2's and 3's is an annual fee, and there are ways around it.
Current stations won’t be forced to "upgrade". So I don’t anticipate any FM's turning off over this matter.

 

[RadeoEngineer]

My guess is that if the increase goes through, there will be at least 2/3 less FM HD's on the air due to the expense of once again having to upgrade the transmitter plant to handle it.

I can't see the 10dBc thing causing any existing FM HDs to drop the digital. Nothing is going to force existing 20dBc operations to increase.

I do think adoption of the power increase will be far from universal.

Oh I dunno. Say I just spent $300k installing this pig, send in my monthly licensing fees and now I'm told to make it work right I have to do it all again while my revenues are falling from decreased advertising and nothing has happened in the time I've run this erector set system that it's ever going to do anything for me anyway. I'd cut bait personally.

The licensing fees are a onetime only fee for AM/ FM HD-1. HD-2's and 3's is an annual fee, and there are ways around it.
Current stations won’t be forced to "upgrade". So I don’t anticipate any FM's turning off over this matter.

Interesting. Ways around it. So, we have a system that in its present form doesn't work to the point that there may be a substantial increase in output power to make it work, and those that have invested in the original concept won't have any desire to abandon same because their competitors may upgrade to a power ten times theirs so that the seventeen listeners to this system will find it easier to track whichever station can afford this change an additional eight or ten miles. Was that confusing? So is the concept of running iShiquity for any reason. Really? Ways around the fees? Does that money stream lead back to Mr. Hogan or LOWerey by any chance? Couldn't be.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Hmmm. So there are ways around the fees and iBiquity dies. Where does that leave the HD radio system?

Up the creek where it belongs.

 

[Seattleradiodude]

It never ceases to amaze me the attitudes on this board.
Jumping to conclusions before putting an ounce of effort into researching the topic at hand.
By “ways around it” (because apparently everything is ridiculed here) iBiquity wave’s multicasting fee’s to non-com and special permit stations.
“Special permit” is easy to obtain if you negotiate and propose it properly.

As far as HD simply going away if iBiquity tanks? Very doubtful. I’m willing to bet Harris or Broadcast Electric (some equipment manufacture already assembling IBOC transmission) in association with Microsoft, IBM (or some other software manufacture) would pick it up in a heartbeat. Make it more of an open application "generic" format.
Like it or not, regardless of your personal opinion of the technology, The major broadcast groups (IE, Clear Channel, CBS, Entercom, Bonneville, ect.) have invested MILLIONS into it, And won’t let it sink easily (on the FM side at least).

Delivering content to listeners on a variety of distribution levels is key, CBS has partnered with AOL, and Clear Channel created "iHeart Radio", both of which are mobile applications as well! Jeff Littlejohn, executive VP for distribution development at Clear Channel Radio, has repeatedly said that they offer content in as many forms of delivery as possible. HD being one of those forms!
People said “Television will kill the radio”, yet here we are! People said (and continue to say) “Internet will kill the radio”… yet no broadcaster is turning off their OTA signal in favor of an internet only stream!

You can take a look at it from the same stand point as HD being confusing. The learning curve for internet radio streaming is steep as well! “Do I need a cord?”, “Does it need to be by a computer?”, “Why am I hearing news for New York when I live in LA?” All of these are very real FAQ consumers will be asking.

I’m just looking at things from a logical standpoint!

 

[The Insultant]

The logical standpoint will be that no new capital will be pumped into this doggie when bodies are being cut right and left. Considering the technology doesn't produce a dime for corporate radio, it will take a back seat to trying to survive. The lost money is a write-off back when they were still making some profit. Today, it's just a white elephant that will be kept on the air until failure of equipment takes it off in a lot of cases. When things get even tighter soon I'd be very supprised if many will pay for getting any of the HD junk fixed if they can just put something in it's place to keep an analog signal going. Attrition of semi-flawed equipment and low to no engineering budgets now and in the future may help us rid ourselves of the self-jamming over time.

 

[Savage]

Clear Channel, CBS et al have "invested millions in it?" Oh, I see: "HD is too big to fail," right?

(Where have we heard THAT sentiment before?)

As far as whether HD's promoters "won't let it sink easily," that comment instantly evokes the brute-force stubborn attitude that has gotten this misbegotten system into the box canyon it's flown into.

It doesn't work properly, interferes unacceptably with its home stations and others, radios are mostly unavailable, the ones you actually CAN buy come back to the store as "returns" in a huge proportion of cases, and nobody cares about HD outside of iBiquity, the Alliance and investor station groups. Yet nobody has the courage or common sense to admit that HD is a mistake (with a few notable exceptions like Martin Stabbert and Bob Neil.) So the public is confronted with a floundering, economically-distressed industry and the spectacle of its desperate grasp on a failed, destructive "innovation" at a time radio needs every resource it can muster, merely to survive.

And you think THAT'S good for radio?? :

HD promoters "won't let it sink easily?" It's not up to them. It's up to the marketplace...and they've ALREADY let HD sink.

"First Officer Lightoller! This is the unsinkable TITANIC, dammit! Bail faster! We CANNOT let this vessel founder!"

 

[Savage]

The questions you claim to have heard about internet radio are bizarre. At our station we pioneered streaming and have been live on the web since 2000, and have tens of thousands of web listeners for tens of thousands of listening monthly.

I've never heard questions about our web stream like the ones you quote. Most of the "help desk" questions we get are about browser issues, system settings and complaints from the uninformed trying to listen via dialup, etc.

Actually we get more complaints about HD than we do about the web stream. We get constant complaints about difficulty hearing the station at night because of WBZ-HD adjacent-channel jamming. We even get complaints about the incessant HD Radio on-air promos - even though we don't air them!

 

[w9wi]

...and complaints from the uninformed trying to listen via dialup, etc.

FWIW I have excellent luck listening to WORT over dialup. They have three streams -- low-, medium-, and high-quality. The first two work over dialup. The low-quality is obviously badly compressed, nobody would say it sounds good, but it does work reliably and is passable for their talk programs. The medium-quality sounds just fine -- even with music programs -- over my Boston Acoustics table radio. (ironically it's a HD radio but it plays WORT a lot more often than any local station, analog or digital...) Stutters/gaps are rare, unless I try to load a webpage with a lot of large graphics while listening. (ironically WORT's own website is a bad offender )

http://www.wort-fm.org

I guess my point is that with care, it is possible to create a live stream that will work well over dialup connections.

 

[audioguy]

I went to the WORT web site and clicked on the "Technical" tab. Under the topic "A Digital Era...", the claim is made that "as digital radio receivers become more common, WORT will be one of the "high-definition" stations available to listeners on these receivers." Really?

This is another one of my pet peeves with iBiquity. They selected the term "HD radio" to refer to their system, knowing full well that the public would be misled into thinking this is "High Definition" radio, which it is certainly not. Even supposedly technical people like the person that authored the copy for the "Technical" section of the WORT web site apparently fall for this lie. I hear the same misuse of the term on commercial stations all the time.

 

[davideduardo]

I have heard that KFI and WHAS have turned off the 50 KHz wide noisemakers, at least at night, don't know if it's temporary or permanent.

KFI has an issue with its brand new transmitter, and the aux is not set up for HD. They'll be back.

 

[KB1OKL]

I have heard that KFI and WHAS have turned off the 50 KHz wide noisemakers, at least at night, don't know if it's temporary or permanent.

KFI has an issue with its brand new transmitter, and the aux is not set up for HD. They'll be back.

Like a bad penny.