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New Radio Service Will Reportedly be Tested Nearby

B

Barry

The trades and general news reports are mentioning that a company called Ludwig Enterprises will be testing out a service that uses signals piggybacked on a digital TV signal to broadcast about 50 channels of audio.
They say it will differ from satellite radio because it will not have a monthly subscription, and the programming will be mostly ethnic. Naturally a special radio receiver will be offered.
Many of the channels will be in various languages. They are expected to carry advertising.
The company is said to have selected nearby Bridgewater NJ to try this out.
Does this seem like something that will actually come to fruition?

Ludwig/TheOne Radio: http://ludwigent.com/a/
 
ATSC does not like movement or multipath.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
badjef said:
ATSC does not like movement or multipath.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Click to expand...

According to the article in AllAccess: " 'The One' radio receivers will receive a digitized signal sent over a local digital Television transmitter using ATSC/MH technology. Unlike traditional digital television signals this technology will allow LUDWIG's 'The One' radio receiver to operate while walking or riding in a moving automobile."

That may be an advantage such a system could offer over the current SCA system which is currently used to carry lots of ethnic and specialized programming in large urban markets. To my knowledge, there are no mobile SCA radios. Also, SCA does not sound too good, as there is often hiss in the background, and it is only in mono.
 
FMExtra will do the same thing as an SCA, and do it digitally and work well moving or stationary.

Radio stations that depend on revenue from their SCA's aren't going to like this...

Of course, a station can always lease out an HD2 or 3.
 
WNTIRadio said:
FMExtra will do the same thing as an SCA, and do it digitally and work well moving or stationary.

Radio stations that depend on revenue from their SCA's aren't going to like this...

Of course, a station can always lease out an HD2 or 3.
Click to expand...
Are any stations in the U.S. using FMExtra/VuCast for audio, or only for data transmission? Does the F.C.C. permit it to be used for additional audio channels, like the HD2/3/4 transmissions?

In New York, Clear Channel recently did lease out WWPR HD2 on 105.1. One Caribbean Radio sounds good, with excellent audio and decent range. But if I understand the articles correctly, this new service, if it actually implements the plans, will offer a choice of 50 channels in each market that it enters. And since TV signals run so much power, it is possible the signal may be more robust than HD radio transmissions.
 
Barry said:
badjef said:
ATSC does not like movement or multipath.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Click to expand...
According to the article in AllAccess: " 'The One' radio receivers will receive a digitized signal sent over a local digital Television transmitter using ATSC/MH technology. Unlike traditional digital television signals this technology will allow LUDWIG's 'The One' radio receiver to operate while walking or riding in a moving automobile."

That may be an advantage such a system could offer over the current SCA system which is currently used to carry lots of ethnic and specialized programming in large urban markets. To my knowledge, there are no mobile SCA radios. Also, SCA does not sound too good, as there is often hiss in the background, and it is only in mono.
Click to expand...
SCA was an underutilized service left for Muzak, Radio Reading Service, Physicians Radio Network, and Data Broadcasting (now called E-Signal).

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
SCA is still used in this area by a number of ethnic programmers. Many have live on air personalities.
I find that the hiss in the background makes it tiring to listen to for more than a few minutes.
The new service is promising high quality audio, that can be heard in mobile environments. That would certainly be an improvement over SCA, and competition with leased HD radio subchannels.
BTW, Ludwig Enterprises states in its press release that 10 of the 50 channels will broadcast in English; many of these will carry general rather than ethnic programming.
 
Barry said:
SCA is still used in this area by a number of ethnic programmers. Many have live on air personalities.
I find that the hiss in the background makes it tiring to listen to for more than a few minutes.
The new service is promising high quality audio, that can be heard in mobile environments. That would certainly be an improvement over SCA, and competition with leased HD radio subchannels.
BTW, Ludwig Enterprises states in its press release that 10 of the 50 channels will broadcast in English; many of these will carry general rather than ethnic programming.
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that was what the HD-x's were for.

What makes these guys think this system is going to work when HD didn't?

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
What makes these guys think this system is going to work when HD didn't?
Click to expand...

Most HD isn't targeted at specific ethnic groups that don't have many other programming choices in their own language.

From an advertisers viewpoint this is really better than anything else in verifying who was listening, since the system reports each listener to each spot by location and demo within 96-hours of broadcast. This is not a sample rating it is a full census of listeners.

These special radios are going to be cheap and designed to fit into i-Pod docks, so you can use it in the car or with bigger speakers in your house.

TV signals have a lot more power behind them than HD radio channels. These guys have thought this through.

As with the SCA broadcasters they just have to go out into the right communities, and neighbourhoods, to sell their radios, and get their target audience interested in the programs. If they go to Central New Jersey they will have lots of Asian immigrants, if they go to Paterson they will find lots of Arabs and Turks, if they got to Fort Lee they will find Koreans, and Japanese, and there are spots in NJ where they will find Russians. And then there is half the population of New York City that speaks one foreign language or another.

Hey, if they programmed Alternative and Country how many guys on this board would buy a receiver if it cost $25 ????
 
HumDesi's South Asian channel moved from 98.7 HD2 to 97.1 HD2 when ESPN took over the 98.7 frequency on 4/30/12.

98.7 HD2 = ESPN Deportes
98.7 HD3 = ESPN News

Hot 97's "Throwbacks" (classic hip-hop/r+b) channel had been eliminated from 97.1 HD2 to make way for WRXP's rock format (which had already departed from the airwaves several months earlier). Then the rock format was replaced by HumDesi.
 
pjc1961 said:
HumDesi's South Asian channel moved from 98.7 HD2 to 97.1 HD2 when ESPN took over the 98.7 frequency on 4/30/12.

98.7 HD2 = ESPN Deportes
98.7 HD3 = ESPN News

Hot 97's "Throwbacks" (classic hip-hop/r+b) channel had been eliminated from 97.1 HD2 to make way for WRXP's rock format (which had already departed from the airwaves several months earlier). Then the rock format was replaced by HumDesi.
Click to expand...
No, you are confused by my wording of the question.

I am asking about the Greek Language format utilizing the SCA-1, which is a subchannel on the analogue signal. Was that part of the Disney/Emmis deal. I find it had to believe there would be that loophole that would have kept the SCA in Emmis control, but stranger things have happened.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
This would be a much better system than HD radio. Put all the stations in the market, plus two subchannels each, on this system, broadcast it from the Empire State Building, and then everyone in the market can receive all the stations in digital format without dropouts and no analog interference. Even stations with low power like the 10 watt WKRB 90.3 could get a full market digital signal. And it would just take up a few TV channels. The power of the master signal can be high enough to reach the full 40 dBu coverage area of the class B's without dropouts, and it wouldn't interfere with anyone. The VHF channels can be used since TV broadcasters don't like VHF, and radio antennas are designed for VHF reception. The only problem would be the low VHF band in summer when e-skip occurs almost daily.

If this gains traction, it'll probably beat out HD radio within a decade as the digital radio standard decided by the market, just because the technology is better.
 
[/This would be a much better system than HD radio. Put all the stations in the market, plus two subchannels each, on this system, broadcast it from the Empire State Building, and then everyone in the market can receive all the stations in digital format without dropouts and no analog interference. Even stations with low power like the 10 watt WKRB 90.3 could get a full market digital signal. And it would just take up a few TV channels. The power of the master signal can be high enough to reach the full 40 dBu coverage area of the class B's without dropouts, and it wouldn't interfere with anyone. The VHF channels can be used since TV broadcasters don't like VHF, and radio antennas are designed for VHF reception. The only problem would be the low VHF band in summer when e-skip occurs almost daily.

If this gains traction, it'll probably beat out HD radio within a decade as the digital radio standard decided by the market, just because the technology is better.quote]

Hahahahaha that's pretty funny. The best comedy post I've read in a week! You really think the NABoobs would let that happen? Let WKRB have a signal on par with WPLJ? Or *worse*, have a 1kW AM such as WFAS cover the whole market?

They fought LPFM tooth and nail, worried that a 100w station at 100' would suck listeners away from 50kW stations. How long did they resist putting AM's on translators?

I'm not saying you're idea isn't a good one, I am saying that the economics involved and the near-sighted NAB will try and fight it as much as possible.
Click to expand...
 
WKRB does have an equal range as WPLJ, on the Internet. The NAB would love to think that online radio isn't a threat, but it is growing rapidly. It's gotten to the point where the popular Internet stations can make money selling ads online. I'd say traditional radio has only about 10 years before Internet radio dominates.
 
Nah, internet radio won't dominate and here's why:

1. Cost per listener. A radio station's cost whether 5,000,000, 5,000 or 5 people are listening is the same. The transmitter is on, and the signal is available in the coverage area. On the web, each listener costs a station in two things: Bandwidth and royalties. Each listener is, for the sake of example, 48kbps of bandwidth. Let's say you have a high rated morning show and have 450,000 people tuning in at the same time, that equates to almost 2.6GBps of data going out!!!!! Yikes!!!!

2. Cost TO the listener. Now that cellular providers are getting stingy with the mobile bandwidth, people aren't going to want to go over their plan and pay extra just to listen to something that already exists on their car radio.

3. Limited bandwidth. The cellular companies also have limited bandwidth in any given geographic area, due to the nature of RF. Let's say your high volume morning show (in listeners not loudness) plus every other station has each person waiting to go into the Lincoln Tunnel tuned in to a station and pulling down at minimum 48kbps. Good luck trying to make an actual phone call when that is going on. If the providers need to carry more bandwidth and put in more cell sites for support, then everyone's prices go up.

A point to point model is not cost effective for broadcasting. It's different where there can be fiber or a cable modem in every home, and there is adequate bandwidth (for now) to carry the traffic. With RF, there are only little slices of the spectrum to fit everything in and still manage to make all the services work.
 
I agree that the the spectrum cost and availability problem puts a cap on the potential for internet radio to overtake traditional broadcasting. But, I wonder if the bandwidth costs of an audience in the hundreds of thousands wouldn't still be cheaper than some terrestrial radio.

Looking at the lease for WEPN-FM, ESPN committed to spending more than $900 an hour, every hour of every day for the next ten years just to use the license. In comparing that cost to an internet feed, it still had the cost of the transmitter and big rent on the transmitter location. And probably it's audience never exceeds the few hundred thousand that would be using the 2.6GBps used in your example, which probably would cost hundreds of dollars to reach per hour.

On the reception side, there are schemes for listeners cell phones to hand off to WiFi connections whenever they can to reduce bandwidth usage. Cell phone operators may also have the option of providing actual broadcast feeds of the most popular internet radio stations using systems like the new one discussed in this thread that piggybacks 50 audio channels on existing TV signals and therefore reducing bandwidth congestion.

There are also several schemes in the works to squeeze more usage from the available spectrum. A method of twisting signals to increase their carrying capacity nine-fold was recently discussed in this Scientific American article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=-twisted-radio-waves-could-expand-bandwidth-mobile-phones

And there are other schemes that use time division to maximize the usage of any particular frequency. So, the current bandwidth limitations for cell phone usage may fade in importance.

By the way, there was an interesting discussion on "Spectrum Challenges Facing The U.S. Wireless Industry" on NPRs Diane Rehm Show yesterday, that I just happened to catch pieces of while driving.

The full program is available here:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-06-26/spectrum-challenges-facing-us-wireless-industry

It is worth a listen if you are interested in the topic.
 
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