C'mon, as much as I enjoyed WABC in its heyday, that form of personality radio is dead and has NO appeal for the vast majority of people under the age of 40. I say vast majority instead of anyone because I know some one saying they are 20 and love listening to Herb Oscar Anderson when he shows up at reunions. The only reason AM radio is filled with Talk is that newer better sounding technologies have replaced AM's mono relatively low frequecy reponse broadcasts. Young people today expect their entertainment to be in stereo with none of AM's static prone noise. I don't want to read the Disney radio argument again either. Disney radio buys AM facilties because they are relatively cheap and their programing is seen as one big infommercial. I don't know of any Disney stations which make the ratings in any of the larger markets let alone successfuly compete with FM music stations. The percentage of people who do any significant listening to AM radio via skywave today can probably be counted on one hand. The world has changed and DXing just isn't that important any longer.
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More HD AM comments
- Thread starter SUPERCASTER
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R.F. Burns said:
That's why any technology that requires fiddling with antennas (DXing) will fail. Ask the average person on the street what a dipole antenna is and you'll see that they don't have a clue and don't care.
That's one of many reasons why HD radio is dead and will stay dead. End of story.
vsa said:
The average person doesn't know what a dipole is. They do however know that if the instructions which come with a radio says attach the included antenna, they can somehow figure out what to do. Think not? Think again. How do people manage to hok up thier home theater systems which are far and away more complicated than connecting an F connector to the back of a radio. You guys are grasping for problems which don't exist. Don't you think when a person goes into a store to buy a radio that they don't notice the atttached dipole? I did when I went to a store in NJ. Somehow peole have been willing to deal with those lousy I-Pod headphones which you have to connect and maybe untangle before using and if you have a nano and a charge base you have to (dare I say) disconnect the headphones prior to charging and reconnect the headphones prior to using every time! Let's also thinnk for a mnute here. Not only do people have to deal with heapdphones but they also have to connect the I-Pod to a USB 2 slot in their computer and then (Oh My) they have to load the software and even upgrade said softwave from time to time. Will it never end or will we the poor public end up on a technological vortex. Better come up with a more believable argument next time. Believe it or not we even have people using indoor plumbing without instructions today. What a remarkable society!
R.F. Burns said:
I don't know about you but I don't think most people even know what stereo is, they confuse hifi with stereo. I have countless times come upon stereos set to mono and asked the owners if they knew they weren't receiving ins stereo and most have no idea what I am are talking about. People want their radio to sound clear but stereo? Most wouldn't recognize it if it bit them, as long as it is coming from two speakers it is stereo to 99% of consumers. Anyone out driving at night who listens to AM and hits scan is using skywave and they probably have no idea. Most people that have half a brain know that AM radio goes a long way at night and I'm not talking DXers either. My father has bragged that he used to listen to WBZ when he was in the service in North Carolina, DXer? No, couldn't care less. But he liked his WBZ, in fact he still listens to it. People want personality in radio, it's just such a rare thing nowadays.
vsa said:
Any non-DXer who has to use an antenna is mystified usually and/or just plain doesn't want to use it. I don't even like moving my dipole around for my receiver, I put it where it picks up the majority of FM stations I want to hear and leave it tacked up to the wall like almost everyone I know does, and I AM A DXer. Incidentally I live about 40 miles from Boston, 35 miles from Providence and 50 miles from Springfield, MA and can clearly pick up stations from all of those cities with my dipole on my 30 year old Marantz receiver in stereo and my location is very noisy.
People who really want to hear something bad enough will donk-around with an antenna. I've horsed-around with the XM antenna inside my office building in order to hear XM inside, and people will mess with an AM loop in order to hear compelling music or programming that they can't easily get elsewhere.
TheRover said:
Makes perfect sense to me, and most everyone else except rabid HD radio supporters and members of the HD cartel.
Internet digital radio works very well, offers worldwide digital coverage, over 30,000 radio stations, 100,000 podcasts on demand (that's real choice) no proprietary HD radio (that's limited to "local" coverage), no additional fees (I already have, and pay for broadband internet and a computer), some internet radio stations have been providing artist, label, album info. immediate "buy now" purchase & download buttons for years, and it works wirelessly with WiFi or WiMax.
With internet radio I can reliably get HD digital stations, 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound, plus Low Power FM's and AM's from well over 3000 miles away 24/7/365.
Who needs an HD radio?
Only radio DXers it seems.
So HD radio promoters just beware of those very few, dreaded, damned, obsolete, DXers HD radio proponents enjoy attacking.
It seems only the tiny minority of DXers, HD promoters, HD broadcasters and HD cartel members, have much interest in those clunky, finniky, problematic HD radios, and antennas.
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
R.F. Burns said:
You know - I've re-read that first sentence I've quoted a few times and have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say! Talk radio doesn't need IBOC, it doesn't need stereo - it doesn't even need 5 kHz. Neither does sports radio. But these are the very stations converting to IBOC and taking up to 50 kHz of public spectrum for nothing more than speech. Ridiculous - if the cell phone companies wasted spectrum like that, there is no way they could support the calling volume they do!
Why do you hate Radio Disney? I find it a listenable mix of oldies and current top 40, plus some really good, fresh talent I don't hear anywhere else. They play no more commercials than other stations, if as many. And it is a breath of fresh air not to hear profanity, explicit sexual lyrics, and promotion of drug use every other song.
Come on - there are MORE than 5 DX'ers on the limited membership of this board. So your one hand statement is ridiculous. I will be sure and tell the remaining hurricane Katrina refugees in a housing development nearby that you think they are obsolete DX hobbyists as they listen to WWL skywave. As for the world changing - it looks pretty much the same to me, unless you count "global warming" - that if it gets any worse, people will freeze to death as glaciers are once again advancing.
R.F. Burns said:
Not really I know some people who are DX'n and dont even know it. They listen to 93Q out in Southern Lavaca county, I told them one time that did they know they were DX'n to Houston, they diddnt know what that was. They just had a boombox outside tuned in it came in good, FM stereo.
jras20 said:
Say there are 10,000 people in the country who do that on a regular basis. That's an insignificant number of people in the scheme of things.
R.F. Burns said:
Sorry to contradict you but you don't know squat about young people. Radio Disney is probably the hottest radio format with the teen crowd, particularly teenage girls. All of my friends and family who have teenagers, and specifically teen females, tune in to Radio Disney (if they listen to radio at all). Where else can they get up-to-the-minute information on a Hannah Montana concert or what the cast members of High School Musical are up to or about Miley Cyrus as well as hearing the latest music from these Disney properties? All served up by an anonymous boy-toy voice. And they don't give a flying flip that it's on AM or in mono.
Maybe the Radio Disney stations don't get ratings but they certainly are successful in stoking the publicity/marketing fires under the Disney Channel, which is obviously what these stations are meant to do.
But most significantly Radio Disney brands as false the notion that young people will not listen to AM. They will IF the programming interests them. And they will gladly listen to Radio Disney in mono analog.
C5
Carmine5 said:
I might not know young people but I do know professional broadcasting and Radio Disney is a low rated outlet which is really a loss leader for the Disney corporation. In NYC alone Radio Disney doesn't even garner a .4 share 12+ even though it is broadcst over a 50 KW am facility. By the way, the NY Radio Disney is testing in IBOC. So much for your "theory". You guys who see the business through the eyes of a handful of your friends are only fooling yourselves. By the way, while it is true that people will seek out programing of interest on AM or FM. What do you think the chances are of someone listening to a music AM facility when they can hear the same thing in stereo on FM. Maybe you should ask your friends.
R.F. Burns said:
Actually, KDIS 1110 in Los Angeles has been broadcasting in HD for about two years so it's hardly a test. But how many teens are a listening in HD? I'd venture to say few given that only a few hundred thousand HD Radios have been sold so far.
Radio Disney is not a "loss leader" for Disney but a marketing tool; nothing more, nothing less. There's a big difference.
The point is not that the under-20 somethings will prefer FM to AM if given a choice, it's that they will listen to AM if
the programming is of interest to them. They are not put off by the fact that Radio Disney is on AM. They listen anyway.
C5
Carmine5 said:
Call it what you will, their audience is tiny and I'm sure the under 20 numbers are for those WAY under 20. Radio Disney isn't even seen in the ratings. Why would anyone want to put a radio station on the air which is attracting such small numbers. You claim that large numbers of young people love radio Disney, but they don't show up in the ratings. That means they have literally no listeners. You are only fooling yourself if you think radio Disney is a major broadcast success, they aren't.
There is a common and fallacious assumption in the industry - it's frequently aired here - that the only valid way to measure the success or failure of any given radio station is through Arbitron results. While that's certainly the most common viewpoint ratings are not the only yardstick of a station's viability.
Increasingly the better agencies and buying services look at factors other than ratings. They look at facilities, formats, ownership and programming to see if a given station offers anything for clients for whom they are purchasing advertising. Another way to view the viability of a given station in any market is to look at their total internet listening hours and TSL. There is a beautiful simplicity to stating your web stream listenership. The streaming company simply tabulates the listening from each IP address and adds 'em up.
Sure, it lacks the "sophistication" of Arbitron in that demographics aren't available; there's no way to know the identify of any web listener logged on. On the other hand, the the totals are absolutely accurate, as opposed to the multiple guesswork produced by Arbitron diary editing protocols. Look at the front of every Arbitron ratings book and you will see the title "Listening Estimates for (Metro, time period, etc.)"
If you check Webster you will see that "estimate" is a synonym for "guess." More and more agencies are relying less and less on mere ratings in making buying decisions. They temper Arbitron-driven decisions with other factors, such as comparisons with streaming audience figures and their relationship with station people, including management. Increasingly clients are insisting on closer attention to buying decisions. After all, every client out there has had the experience of entrusting a major buy to agency "cubicle queens" who crunch the Tapscan computer, crank out a boilerplate buy of "top three in key demo" - and having the campaign produce squat for results. They get ticked when they drop $50K in a quarter and get bupkis for sales results.
Increasingly the better agencies and buying services look at factors other than ratings. They look at facilities, formats, ownership and programming to see if a given station offers anything for clients for whom they are purchasing advertising. Another way to view the viability of a given station in any market is to look at their total internet listening hours and TSL. There is a beautiful simplicity to stating your web stream listenership. The streaming company simply tabulates the listening from each IP address and adds 'em up.
Sure, it lacks the "sophistication" of Arbitron in that demographics aren't available; there's no way to know the identify of any web listener logged on. On the other hand, the the totals are absolutely accurate, as opposed to the multiple guesswork produced by Arbitron diary editing protocols. Look at the front of every Arbitron ratings book and you will see the title "Listening Estimates for (Metro, time period, etc.)"
If you check Webster you will see that "estimate" is a synonym for "guess." More and more agencies are relying less and less on mere ratings in making buying decisions. They temper Arbitron-driven decisions with other factors, such as comparisons with streaming audience figures and their relationship with station people, including management. Increasingly clients are insisting on closer attention to buying decisions. After all, every client out there has had the experience of entrusting a major buy to agency "cubicle queens" who crunch the Tapscan computer, crank out a boilerplate buy of "top three in key demo" - and having the campaign produce squat for results. They get ticked when they drop $50K in a quarter and get bupkis for sales results.
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
R.F. Burns said:
I am starting to suspect that Arbitron is flawed. A lot depends on their sample size. If you sample 1000 people in an area that has 5.6 million people, there is no way you can get a statistically sound result.
The only ratings that matter are ad revenue dollars / return on investment. Disney is a shrewd outfit. Somehow, they are seeing a return on their radio investment that makes it a sound business investment with metrics that can be measured and documented. Otherwise, they would pull the plug immediately.
There is something in the negative comments about Radio Disney here that sounds strangely reminiscent of the attitude AM top 40 stations had about FM in the late 60's. Audiences were going somewhere else under their noses and they were in denial. No, I'm not saying the whole country is going Disney - but something is up. Miley Cyrus concerts are selling out, tickets going for $2500 through brokers, movie in limited release still topped the money for its opening weekend. I've lived a lot of years and I haven't seen this level of fan intensity since the Beatles - and I went to one of their concerts, too. With CDs going platinum within a week - if radio stations can't find a way to make money off the trend they are stupid. And Disney repeats it with the High School Musical craze.
If I owned a top-40 station, I would be playing a lot of Miley Cyrus and High School Musical stuff - or I'd be very afraid some of my audience would be on radio Mickey instead of my station.
rbrucecarter5 said:
And that is why they are going to the PPM. NYC had one PPM book/partial and WQEW did not appear in the ratings. Radio Disney's audience is tiny and I'm sure operating at a loss. Most commercial broadcasters couldn't sustain the cost if it isn't being absorbed elsewhere. As I said, Radio Disney is a 24/7 advert for Disney products. My daughter used to tune into Radio Disney now and then when she was in her early teens. She's 22 now and no longer listens to Disney. She is the demographic advertisers want to reach.
Savage said:
I have first hand knowledge of several stations in my part of the country that make absolutely no showing on Arbitron, but the owner is making a decent living from them. There are many yardsticks of success. At least to me, doing something you like to do and making a decent living doing it is fairly high on my list
And, no, I'm not talking about my own station which did remarkably well in the County Arbitron ratings, thanks.
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