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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ALLIANCE LIES JUST KEEP ON COMIN'

S

Savage

In a recent article in the online edition of The Washington Post, columnist Rob Pegararo quoted some spokestwinkie from iBiquity who declared that "392 AM stations are now broadcasting in HD."

Sure. Right after monkeys start flying out of Diane Warren's...umm....ears.

We now pause in the endless stream of shameless HD fibbery and hyperbole for a brief moment of truth: the most reliable ongoing measure of the true HD-AM pop-count out there is Barry McLarnon's site, which relies on hundreds of regular field contributors and a multiplicity of sources. As of three days ago the REAL (as opposed to fantasy) HD-AM pop-count is 260 stations, not 392, but even that's somewhat misleading. Barry reports that only EIGHTY of those station transmit HD 24/7, with the remaining 180 being HD only during daylight hours, for a variety of unsolveable technical problems.

Further consider: of the 80 fulltime HD-AM stations, at last count 34 of those were graveyarders. That means that only about 46 widely-receivable AM stations are broadcasting fulltime in HD - less than one per STATE, and even that paltry total is producing horrific night skywave interference.

(Footnote: Barry's site also notes a total of sixteen AM-HD's as "intermittent operation," whatever that means - but you can be sure it doesn't mean fulltime hybrid digital.)

Only the A-LIE-ance and iBiquity could be so collectively stupid as to publicly inflate their numbers by a margin of FIFTY percent. Talk about "Home Of The Whopper" - Burger King is now surpassed by HDRadio.com.
Of course this massive public falsehood calls into question all of their obviously-spun numbers, from "multicasting FMs" to "distinct SKU numbers" for HD Radios at retail. Few world-class liars stop at ONE.

Oh, and think the Alliance's lies are limited to HD-AM? That would be....WRONG, radio fans. A well known Philly consulting engineer and frequent contributor here reports a Harrisburg FM proudly listed by HDRadio.com as being one of those 1891 (or whatever it is today) HD-FM stations removed and sold its HD equipment months ago. New owners weren't interested in the additional expense and interference.
 
I've noticed there's important information always missing from the Alliance new releases, or puff pieces from radio world. It's not HD models, or the always flexible, floating total number of HD stations. Licensed or broadcasting.. Do you care to guess? It's a killer! It's really important! and as abvious has the nose on your face..

Ok...IT'S LISTENERS! IS ANYBODY LISTENING? It's very interesting that the Alliance always sidesteps ratings, or if nothing else, sucessfull station promotions, where two people showed up... or called the bat phone to win a million bucks..Build it and they will come, ya right!
I forgot HD stations are merely ghost ships, nobody's home..And PC works hard playing more music..

I sell spots for a small 10K newsTalk station. It's six months new and I know people are listening and i can document successful station promotions where hundreds showed up, or clients got results from their ads..Can HD do any of that?

Number of units sold, total HD's on air, or the price of receivers is getting old and doesn't really matter..
it's time to play radio.. and make something happen. otherwise whats the point..

Alliance, it's time to put up of shut up.. if not, unplug and go dark you're just wasting resources...

It's radio, not news releases filled with hype, crap and lies..
 
If a dog poops in the back yard at midnight and no one is there to smell it, does it still stink?
 
Okay....assuming "commercially successful" means "not hemorrhaging money any more" (personally I would prefer "profitable", but that's just capitalist me) after five years and an estimated billion-plus dollars of relentless hype, that's ONE.....

Not exactly what I would call a good ROI on the Alliance's massive push to force HD on the marketplace.
 
DavidEduardo said:
pocket-radio said:
Number of units sold, total HD's on air, or the price of receivers is getting old and doesn't really matter..
it's time to play radio.. and make something happen. otherwise whats the point..
Click to expand...

Non Alliance HD2 station's campaign on LA's #1 TV station:

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=30fcdbe9c0e826a056b6

Commercially successful, now on in 5 major markets.
Click to expand...

K-Love on the FM and now Spanish Christian on HD-2? It all makes sense except it's owned by Univision and not EMF. Is this running on any of the Univfision stations in Houston?

Clouseau
 
Savage said:
Okay....assuming "commercially successful" means "not hemorrhaging money any more"
Click to expand...

The two terms are synonymous. It is a profit center.

(personally I would prefer "profitable", but that's just capitalist me) after five years and an estimated billion-plus dollars of relentless hype, that's ONE.....
Click to expand...

The value of the ads on Alliance stations is $1 billion; the out of pocket expense is nearly nothing.

Not exactly what I would call a good ROI on the Alliance's massive push to force HD on the marketplace.
Click to expand...

It does not take much to make a good ROI on nothing.

[/quote]
 
Typical hairsplitting and deliberately missing the point. Of course my reference wasn't limited to three years of "unsold inventory" on-air promotion (which I would parenthetically theorize has had a depressing effect industrywide on TSL because of HD promos which are as incessant as they are insulting and repetitive.)

Of course funding iBiquity, (ahem) "lobbying" at the Commission, countless engineering man-hours wasted in installation and maintenance of a system whose future is as bright as Teddy Kennedy's, and tens of millions piddled away in capital expenditures are NOT free. Particularly when you consider HD has diverted funds from arguably more critical uses which might have mitigated many REAL problems currently facing the radio industry (one of those NOT being "damn, it isn't DIGITAL.")

And I repeat: taking at face value your claims for the HD-2 Latino Christian channel. Fine. That's ONE.....
 
Tom Wells said:
If a dog poops in the back yard at midnight and no one is there to smell it, does it still stink?
Click to expand...

If HD is also in the yard you don't even need the dog to get the stink, and it does stink even when no one's listening, and that actually that just about sums up HD radio in it's entirety: no ones listening.
 
..at last count 34 of those were graveyarders...

Surprisingly enough, HD-AM actually works okay on the graveyarders as HD doesn't have as many problems on a single omni tower with decent bandwidth like it does a directional array with 5x the power.

I agree with the previous poster - AM stations that run music sound decent in HD, but news/talk/sports is a waste of time with HD-AM.

I thought iBiquity said that they were expecting an onslaught of music stations to return to AM with HD - I for one would like that if it were remotely true.
 
JohnnyElectron said:
AM stations that run music sound decent in HD, but news/talk/sports is a waste of time with HD-AM.

I thought iBiquity said that they were expecting an onslaught of music stations to return to AM with HD - I for one would like that if it were remotely true.
Click to expand...

If only an AM station would be run in HD with the Rock music that doesn't get played on all of the FM "Rock" stations... then I, and others, could easily be lured from the likes of paying a subscription to SIRIUS. All I want is Deep Cuts MINUS the already overplayed commerical music. "WE" may not be 100,000 in a market, but WE deserve at least ONE ROCK outlet dedicated to something OTHER THAN the commerical hit machine (of WHATEVER Rock Sub-Genre).
 
Having a brand anchor like Howard Stern might help sell a few HD radios.
Having exclusive rights to the NBA might help sell a few HD radios.
Having exclusive rights to anything.. might help sell HD radios..

You see that's what's missing... The Alliance made an assumption and guessed people wanted radios that sound better. Is that what listeners want??? When in reality radio sounds good, so what they want is something worth listening to. Free music is everyplace today, playing more free music, isn't a rare commodity anymore and more free music has lost some value. the reason gadget guru’s love their Ipods is because virtually every song known to man can be played on a device no bigger than a deck of plays cards. And the next generation of Ipods SAY THE ARTIST…A long time ago before Clear Channel the jocks added something worthwhile to the listening experience.

Boys, find a void and fill the hole. You're attempting to sell brand extensions that nobody was asking for, except for maybe Clear Channel who forgot what business they were in. They just want to sell anything to a warm body who can pass a credit check.

Free music isn’t a rare commodity anymore. so what else do ya got?
 
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