Surely you jest! That would make wayyyy too much sense for the FCC and the industry itself. LOL!
How about doing pure FM IBOC on those channels? The rest of the channels that would be unused could be reserved to eventually become LPFM signals in the future, moving the LPFMs OFF the current FM band and increasing their coverage. I'd say just make that whole expanded band digital-only. That way the big corporate concerns won't have as much of an immediate bitch that "the AMs are getting something too good". I've actually heard stupid statements like that. (funny thing is most big corporate guys own AMs.. I've never figured out that one other than they just don't like ANY form of change!)
Will any of this happen? Hell no. NAB is too busy kissing corporate ass. The FCC is too busy auctioning off frequencies. Nothing logical or sane will ever happen. Keep in mind we would have had the mechanical spinning disk system for color tv (rendering B and W sets useless of course) if it were up to the Commission. Even back then they were clueless. Now they are nothing more than a bunch of government lawyers, paper pushers, and check cashers. Nothing that makes technical sense EVER crosses their mind these days. If we, as an industry, would have screamed for the channels earlier on we might have had a prayer of getting them. At this point we are screwed out of them. One of the commissioners was basically overheard saying something to that sort.
Nice idea though...
P.S. There will be few channel 6 DTV stations after TV doomsday. Apperently they had trouble getting enough spots to fufill all of the TV allocations so a few straglers will be left. So, because of a few isolated markets we apperently are locked out of having it for radio. Never mind the fact that those few markets could just not have the expanded service in their area. Nahh.. Let's block out the entire country in honor of TV. TV has much more money to feed the politicans so radio can go hang, public service be dammed.
Has anyone noticed that the propaganda spam-mail that the NAB sends out to those of us that went to the NAB this year has about one or two listings for "radio" and the rest is entirely TV-oriented? How much of the NAB floorspace was dedicated to "radio"? I think radio is so low on the NAB's list that stations might as well not pay their membership dues. I guess big corporate gets some use out of them judgeing by some of the goofy things I've seen the NAB spew out these days.
