Savage said:
Argentina. Brazil. Paraguay. Whatever. This is the HD Radio board, not the Latin American Radio board.
Who cares? You posted the link, not me, and it has nothing to do with the current discussion anyway.
Excuse me, but you were one of several persons who suggested that abandoned HD equipment would end up in Latin America, where, according to you, old, outdated gear goes to die. I simply stated that the better
stations in Latin America are as well equipped, or better, than those in equivalent US markets.
And I clearly mentioned a station in Argentina, and included a link that shows the AM site of a station in
Argentina. Conclusion: your may need to refer to a map a little more often.
My station has been profitable for 11 of the past 11 years, has won a number of community awards and in the two years you've been predicting doom for me and my operation, it's actually grown 40% in revenue.
If you check back on the posts, I have been referring to an eventual demise of AM as a number of things
happen. First, the average age of listeners to the band increases by a year every 18 months, so, over the
next 10 years, the band's listeners will mostly be over 60, and nearly all of them will be out of any sales
demos, even for most direct accounts. Then, the formats that still have a hold on listeners are ever more
hastily moving to FM, either transitioning by simulcast or just plain moving. And finally, we have
constantly increasing noise levels, with the CFL the latest aggressor, making AM hard to listen even with
field strengths on the order of 10 to 15 mV/m.
If you are making money now, I suggest you save a lot of it, or try to buy a few of the FMs that you say
are not doing well so you have a backup plan or an exit strategy.
We haven't laid a single person off. EVER. We outbill numerous FMs in the market (and would do
even better but for the nighttime interference from WBZ-HD.) Which goes to show: you know about as much
about my AM operation as you do about Arbitron PPM, the AM band's allocation history, HD Radio, directional
AM arrays and Arbitron PPM - which is to say, enough to shoot your mouth off arrogantly, make yourself look
silly and drive away intelligent discourse.
Let's take those accusations one by one.
PPM. I have been involved with the PPM development for over 10 years. For the Philadelphia tests, I was
part of a small group of advertising and media representatives who participated in the review of the
Philadelphia tests. I've been analyzing test results from the PPM for 8 years, and have even been asked by
Arbitron to assist in the development of PD Advantage for PPM. Beyond PPM, I've given seminars for Arbitron
for it's Mexican service on several occasions and my reviews of diaries have resulted in multiple books
being reissued. I'm the only person who managed to get a trend reissued in 29 years. I don't think my
comments on PPM make me look silly; I'd say if you don't understand my comments perhaps you need to read the material available on PPM from Arbitron and a variety of consultants and take the on line training
Arbitron offers. While the roll out of the top 50 markets does not include Rochester, the second phase
likely will.
I've designed and built functioning AM directionals, and as to knowledge of allocation history, you might
check out
www.americanradiohistory.com which documents allocations, regulation and stations themselves
going back to the mid 20's.
As far as the industry goes, sure AM's been declining. Guess why? Anybody stupid enough to crud up
a magnificent 50kw signal - in many cases, nondirectional unlimited hours - with IBOC hash and tinny analog
audio is capable of screwing up just about anything.
The receivers made in the last 30 years are incapable of any fidelity. The NRSC committee headed by Bob
Orban (of whom I trust you have heard) determined that a broad range of consumer receivers was down 10 db at 3.8 kHz, and that a rolloff around 6 kHz was optimal for such receivers and actually made them sound
better than pushing higher frequency audio through a system that could not reproduce it.
Why are these bad radios so pervasive and good ones barely exist? Blame WalMart, Bed Bath and Beyond and the places most radios are sold... they look for the lowest cost suppliers, and a dime is a big cost
difference. Since these folks see AM is barely used by most consumers, they have allowed the AM stage to be degraded over cost issues... because they know that radios will never be returned because the AM sounds
tinny.
In case you haven't noticed, Big Group Radio is trashing FM even faster than it's destroying its
AMs (in many cases deliberately interfering with co-owned adjacent AM facilities at night, all in the name
of HD.) The revenue losses for FM industry-wide outstrip AM's problems by a wide margin, which should put
the AM plight in perspective.
The revenue declines have affected AM and FM alike... whether they are caused by the economy or the shift
to new media. Since there are only a limited number of major billers on AM in the rated markets, of course,
there are fewer AMs declining in revenue due to the economy... the religious and brokered stations are a bit more immune to the effects of the economy as they are not ad based.
My recommendation is for you to continue hiding behind your ersatz "Latin" persona and blathering
about the superiority of Central American radio while denigrating the US industry and individuals who are
actually making successful radio happen here - and do so from the safety of a Constitutional democratically
elected republic.
There is nothing "Ersatz" about my persona, as "David" and "Eduardo" are my given names. I use them to have a separate Internet identity only...
I neither denigrated the US radio industry nor hyped Central American radio (most Central American radio is
kind of like medium and small market US radio... there are no really big markets). However, I have said
that it is unfair to say that Latin American stations are the dumping ground for old US gear... some buy
used gear, but most buy "the good stuff" as my example was intended to show.
Nearly all Latin American governments are, in fact, elected democratically.
If you were to actually move to one of your beloved banana republics and behave the way you do,
the junta will shove you up against some stuccoed wall and prang you.
I actually lived most of my teen and adult life where Spanish is the official language. And some nations
are, indeed, different from the US. But most of the people cherish the same values and ideals. And when
things to wrong, there can be dire consequences. When I lost my stations in Ecuador, 12 of them on the air
and a dozen more CPs, it was because one of my stations allied with a daily paper to encourage the military
government to honor its promise of a return to democracy. I saw the wrong end of a bunch of rifles, while
my counterpart at the newspaper was "disappeared." So don't preach to someone who has lived what you can only imagine, based on some stereotyped Hollywood movie.
