New tabletop radio of the future from Sangean - WFR-20

[Radioman100]

Not to be flip, but you aren't the first MENSA candidate to think of this. The answer is economics. Economics makes for crappy programming. How many of your hundred stations will have anyone live on air? How many of your hundred stations will be assigned to one PD? How many of your hundred stations will have someone emplayed by the netcaster actually listening to them. Heck, we've got a majority of regualr radio stations that dion't always have someone listening. Are these hundred stations actually going to have a studio for each stream? How about an actual dedicated computer monitor to see what is going on. This whole idea is so unworkable, THAT"S why "no one has thought of doing it".

Bingo! Most of the XM and Sirius channels are automated music machines, and look how successful they are. So successful that they need a merger just to stay alive!

The webcasters say it's all about content. Thousands of channels, thousands of choices, virtually ALL automated and without even the benefit of decent music scheduling software. Yeah, people will no doubt want to listen to the exact same songs at the exact same time every day. Research to find out what people's tastes are? Forget about it! We have people like vsa providing divine and inspired programming genius.

 

[vsa]

Radio via the Internet can be as local as it wants to be.

Yes it can. However ECONOMICS dictate it can't be local at all. This isn't like TV where the transmitter can go down and due to cable there is almost no change in audience. Internet is an "Add on" at best.

It can cherry pick exactly the market it wants to serve without regard to an FCC ordained signal.

Yes it COULD do that. Of course the tens of listeners in an area make the idea of localized "Internet" radio an economic disaster.

There will come a time when someone will decide to serve a given market with a hundred stations online. My questions is, WHY HASN'T ANY BROADCASTER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT NOW?

Not to be flip, but you aren't the first MENSA candidate to think of this. The answer is economics. Economics makes for crappy programming. How many of your hundred stations will have anyone live on air? How many of your hundred stations will be assigned to one PD? How many of your hundred stations will have someone emplayed by the netcaster actually listening to them. Heck, we've got a majority of regualr radio stations that dion't always have someone listening. Are these hundred stations actually going to have a studio for each stream? How about an actual dedicated computer monitor to see what is going on. This whole idea is so unworkable, THAT"S why "no one has thought of doing it".

Let's assume you could increase your CURRENT station revenue by a factor of 10 by going this route. WOW, I like ten times the revenue. To get there, I would have to pretty much increase my total number of listeners to all streams combined by 10 times what it is now. Makes sense, right?

Most of the population already uses radio each week, but lets say its only 50%. If EVERYONE listened at their current rate to any of my 100 stations, I would still need to increase their Time Spent Listening or TSL by a factor of 5 times. That means the average weekly TSL would need to increase from around 5 Hours a week to around 25 hours a week.

Assuming you had just a tiny bit of trouble achieving these numbers, you'd need to cut some costs to make ends meet. Like people and ultimately programming. So now were probably talking about a hundred computers sitting side by side with someone creating program logs all day to keep something on. OR... Are we just going to put thwese things on "Auto" and let them play "Shuffle". We still have to schedule all of this wonderful choice content we're getting.

You see..... If you get 10 times the money and do 100 times the EXISTING work, you actually are only getting 10% of the revenue PER STREAM even under these insanely positive assumptions I made in this example..

Do you REALLY think you are the first one to think of an idea like this?

No one DOES it because it's out there beyond Neptune in terms of viability.

Ya know, it's just vaguely possible that every single person in the entire broadcast industry isn't an idiot..

Clouseau

Thank you for taking the bait, Inspector.

Actually CBS thought of it earlier this year when they bought Last.fm, except that it works out to many more than 100 channels per market. Think about Last.fm being applied to every single CBS website and perhaps brand new websites, unique, customizable, and personal.

The stuff you complain about above sounds an awful lot like what's being done today with HD radio. A computer, no studio, no announcer, and nobody listening.

You're a bright guy, Inspector. Think a little bit more outside the HD radio box. Think more about the possibilities and how you can make them happen.

 

[vsa]

You are a terrible guesser. You also are avoiding the issue. Internet radio will ultimately be the death of terrestrial radio and all you can do is ridicule someone who's casting pearls before swine. Shame on me for wasting my time in trying to wake you up.

Yes, for spamming the HD Radio forum, shame on you!

You're still avoiding the issue.

 

[vsa]

Not to be flip, but you aren't the first MENSA candidate to think of this. The answer is economics. Economics makes for crappy programming. How many of your hundred stations will have anyone live on air? How many of your hundred stations will be assigned to one PD? How many of your hundred stations will have someone emplayed by the netcaster actually listening to them. Heck, we've got a majority of regualr radio stations that dion't always have someone listening. Are these hundred stations actually going to have a studio for each stream? How about an actual dedicated computer monitor to see what is going on. This whole idea is so unworkable, THAT"S why "no one has thought of doing it".

Bingo! Most of the XM and Sirius channels are automated music machines, and look how successful they are. So successful that they need a merger just to stay alive!

The webcasters say it's all about content. Thousands of channels, thousands of choices, virtually ALL automated and without even the benefit of decent music scheduling software. Yeah, people will no doubt want to listen to the exact same songs at the exact same time every day. Research to find out what people's tastes are? Forget about it! We have people like vsa providing divine and inspired programming genius.

The satcasters have three achilles heals. (1) They have the high cost of building, launching and maintaining satellites. (2) They have to sell radios. (3) They've been spending money like drunken sailors.

 

[Radioman100]

You're still avoiding the issue.

There is NO ISSUE as far as I'm concerned. I'm here to discuss HD Radio NOT WEBCASTING. If I wanted to discuss webcasting, I would DO IT ON THE WEBCASTING BOARD which is WHERE THREADS LIKE THIS ONE BELONG.

I realize you think you have all the answers for us, and I also realize you think we all need your sage advice and wisdom. That's why I think you're a consultant of the Mark Ramsey variety. You're here to save us from ourselves, I get that.

The problem is, I don't need saving. There are people in my company that do web stuff. I do HD Radio stuff. That's why I'm here to discuss HD RADIO!

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The thing that would consern me if I bought something like this is it relies (it seems) on a specific website to provide the list of stations. You can update their site, etc... but.. Let's fastfoward to 6 years from now. How can anyone be assured that site will still even exist? I was hoping they offered a easy way to directly put a streaming link in the unit itself. (maybe I missed that in reading though their manual?) I've given some thought to getting a Barix extreamer for one station I listen to regularly. At least it's pretty straight-forward but unfortunatly is limited to mp3 streams and other less used formats.

 

[clouseau]

Thank you for taking the bait, Inspector.

No problem. Always glad to oblige the programming geniuses from Net Radio.

Actually CBS thought of it earlier this year when they bought Last.fm, except that it works out to many more than 100 channels per market. Think about Last.fm being applied to every single CBS website and perhaps brand new websites, unique, customizable, and personal.

Wow. An entire customizable online IPOD. What a brilliant Idea.

I am constantly floored by what some people think is "Radio". I haven't done music radio is 5 years now, but the whole Last FM thing is just so revolutionary - NOT. Kinda like having your roomate stack up a bunch of their favorite 45's and playing radio. Complete with the tonearm change and needle drop. Ooops that's actually the Buffering between tracks .

Now I'm sure as a middle aged white guy, I'm not doing something right, but I gotta tell you. I spent more time and got more mediocre results with this thingy than I did doing a whole day of music programming with MusicMaster a few years back. It doesn't flow. It doesn't have ANY feel. It's really mediocre at best with regards to music selection. There's nothing wrong with it. It's like an IPOD. But it AIN'T radio. Nothing but a music shuffler. Absolutly none of the elements of radio except recordings. None.

The stuff you complain about above sounds an awful lot like what's being done today with HD radio. A computer, no studio, no announcer, and nobody listening.

To a great extent, as of this moment you are correct. However, I think you will see a good deal more work put into the HD streams than you do now in the future. And frankly, most of the straight music HD streams I have heard are much better programmed than LAST FM. There's just WAY to much effort required to make Last FM have a wide appeal.

http://surfside1640.com

These guys give me reason to ponder the future. But not Last FM. Maybe some day, but not now.

You're a bright guy, Inspector. Think a little bit more outside the HD radio box. Think more about the possibilities and how you can make them happen.

I would cheerully plead guilty to being in the "Radio" box. Not the "Music Distribution" box, but the "Radio" box.

I create and provide programming which attracts the greatest number of listeners in a given Demographic group. Will my job exists forever? I doubt it. But frankly, Last FM just does the job of the Program and Music director (And not all that good of a job of it either)

When I listen to the radio I turn on a knob and go back to what I was doing. I question if "The Masses" are interested enough to play with a "Last FM type of device for hours, days weeks and months to get it "Just right" when the reality is I just wanted to listen to some music for 15 minutes. I've typed in more artist names and done more "Music Management" in the last hour or so than anytime in my life aside from while at work.

YMMV

Clouseau

 

[PhilJSmith67]

Are you so enamored with FCC sticks that you can't even recognize a superior form of radio delivery? No. You think pitifully bad HD radio technology is your savior. Radio is being challenged with a better form of radio, not by television or something else.

Are you so enamored with yourself that you find reading difficult? Such as, this is an HD-Radio board, not a harp-about-your-WiFi-opinions-on-inappropriate-boards board? Again, why not talk about this arguably "superior" form of broadcasting on other boards?

As for WiFi being so superior in its current state, I can't leave on any WiFi station for extended periods without having the feed drop, requiring me to run to the computer to restart the feed. And, as for listening to Internet Radio on my phone, while doing something very 20th Century like traveling in a car? 5 minutes at a time, at best. When I listen to Sirius, HD Radio or plain-old FM and the signal is interrupted, I lose very little of the audio, and I NEVER have to babysit the "radio" to get the feed back on.

[EDIT]

[EDIT-inflammatory]

 

[PhilJSmith67]

As for thw Wi-Fi radio not having HD, so HD must be dying...my XM radio doesn't have AM, or FM...so they must be dying. My DirecTV doesn't have Dish Network, so it must be dying.

Actually internet radios should incorporate HD, and vice versa (satellite too). The more (formats) the merrier, especially since they're all simply receiving packets of data...in this case audio. Much of the circuitry can be shared, so this makes economic sense. I'd quickly snap up one radio that received everything, or most everything, that I listen to.

I totally agree. There are a few channels on Sirius that I like, a few HD/FM, and several Internet stations. An HD Radio that incorporated one or more other methods of reception would be great. I might actually listen to Sirius or Internet stations more often if each were just a different button-press on my nightstand radio. I would naturally migrate to using a single receiver with more choices, which would indirectly increase my HD-Radio listening, as well.

It's no different than the all-four-corners concept with restaurants. A restaurant on one corner may do okay, but if three more restaurants of similar quality move to an intersection, all four begin to thrive, because they collectively draw more than four times as many people.

 

[Radioman100]

I totally agree. There are a few channels on Sirius that I like, a few HD/FM, and several Internet stations. An HD Radio that incorporated one or more other methods of reception would be great. I might actually listen to Sirius or Internet stations more often if each were just a different button-press on my nightstand radio. I would naturally migrate to using a single receiver with more choices, which would indirectly increase my HD-Radio listening, as well.

It's no different than the all-four-corners concept with restaurants. A restaurant on one corner may do okay, but if three more restaurants of similar quality move to an intersection, all four begin to thrive, because they collectively draw more than four times as many people.

Good points. Makes sense to me.

Each medium has its individual strengths. A device that plays to them all would be very handy.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Radio via the Internet can be as local as it wants to be.

Yes it can. However ECONOMICS dictate it can't be local at all. This isn't like TV where the transmitter can go down and due to cable there is almost no change in audience. Internet is an "Add on" at best.

It can cherry pick exactly the market it wants to serve without regard to an FCC ordained signal.

Yes it COULD do that. Of course the tens of listeners in an area make the idea of localized "Internet" radio an economic disaster.

There will come a time when someone will decide to serve a given market with a hundred stations online. My questions is, WHY HASN'T ANY BROADCASTER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT NOW?

Not to be flip, but you aren't the first MENSA candidate to think of this. The answer is economics. Economics makes for crappy programming. How many of your hundred stations will have anyone live on air? How many of your hundred stations will be assigned to one PD? How many of your hundred stations will have someone emplayed by the netcaster actually listening to them. Heck, we've got a majority of regualr radio stations that dion't always have someone listening. Are these hundred stations actually going to have a studio for each stream? How about an actual dedicated computer monitor to see what is going on. This whole idea is so unworkable, THAT"S why "no one has thought of doing it".

Let's assume you could increase your CURRENT station revenue by a factor of 10 by going this route. WOW, I like ten times the revenue. To get there, I would have to pretty much increase my total number of listeners to all streams combined by 10 times what it is now. Makes sense, right?

Most of the population already uses radio each week, but lets say its only 50%. If EVERYONE listened at their current rate to any of my 100 stations, I would still need to increase their Time Spent Listening or TSL by a factor of 5 times. That means the average weekly TSL would need to increase from around 5 Hours a week to around 25 hours a week.

Assuming you had just a tiny bit of trouble achieving these numbers, you'd need to cut some costs to make ends meet. Like people and ultimately programming. So now were probably talking about a hundred computers sitting side by side with someone creating program logs all day to keep something on. OR... Are we just going to put thwese things on "Auto" and let them play "Shuffle". We still have to schedule all of this wonderful choice content we're getting.

You see..... If you get 10 times the money and do 100 times the EXISTING work, you actually are only getting 10% of the revenue PER STREAM even under these insanely positive assumptions I made in this example..

Do you REALLY think you are the first one to think of an idea like this?

No one DOES it because it's out there beyond Neptune in terms of viability.

Ya know, it's just vaguely possible that every single person in the entire broadcast industry isn't an idiot..

Clouseau

Many HD radio supporters on this HD Radio thread keep quoting analog AM and FM stats as if they were HD Radio's stats. Very deceptive. Arbitron has yet to find enough HD radio listeners to rate any HD listening.

 

[clouseau]

Radio via the Internet can be as local as it wants to be.

Yes it can. However ECONOMICS dictate it can't be local at all. This isn't like TV where the transmitter can go down and due to cable there is almost no change in audience. Internet is an "Add on" at best.

It can cherry pick exactly the market it wants to serve without regard to an FCC ordained signal.

Yes it COULD do that. Of course the tens of listeners in an area make the idea of localized "Internet" radio an economic disaster.

There will come a time when someone will decide to serve a given market with a hundred stations online. My questions is, WHY HASN'T ANY BROADCASTER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT NOW?

Not to be flip, but you aren't the first MENSA candidate to think of this. The answer is economics. Economics makes for crappy programming. How many of your hundred stations will have anyone live on air? How many of your hundred stations will be assigned to one PD? How many of your hundred stations will have someone emplayed by the netcaster actually listening to them. Heck, we've got a majority of regualr radio stations that dion't always have someone listening. Are these hundred stations actually going to have a studio for each stream? How about an actual dedicated computer monitor to see what is going on. This whole idea is so unworkable, THAT"S why "no one has thought of doing it".

Let's assume you could increase your CURRENT station revenue by a factor of 10 by going this route. WOW, I like ten times the revenue. To get there, I would have to pretty much increase my total number of listeners to all streams combined by 10 times what it is now. Makes sense, right?

Most of the population already uses radio each week, but lets say its only 50%. If EVERYONE listened at their current rate to any of my 100 stations, I would still need to increase their Time Spent Listening or TSL by a factor of 5 times. That means the average weekly TSL would need to increase from around 5 Hours a week to around 25 hours a week.

Assuming you had just a tiny bit of trouble achieving these numbers, you'd need to cut some costs to make ends meet. Like people and ultimately programming. So now were probably talking about a hundred computers sitting side by side with someone creating program logs all day to keep something on. OR... Are we just going to put thwese things on "Auto" and let them play "Shuffle". We still have to schedule all of this wonderful choice content we're getting.

You see..... If you get 10 times the money and do 100 times the EXISTING work, you actually are only getting 10% of the revenue PER STREAM even under these insanely positive assumptions I made in this example..

Do you REALLY think you are the first one to think of an idea like this?

No one DOES it because it's out there beyond Neptune in terms of viability.

Ya know, it's just vaguely possible that every single person in the entire broadcast industry isn't an idiot..

Clouseau

To which you replied...

Many HD radio supporters on this HD Radio thread keep quoting analog AM and FM stats as if they were HD Radio's stats. Very deceptive. Arbitron has yet to find enough HD radio listeners to rate any HD listening.

What ARE you talking about? What "Stats?" I have used general terms relating to audience size.
Formulas, not stats.
What deception?

Arbitron has not yet rated HD radio listening yet.
So what? ?

We know the audience is small. Where's the "AM and FM stats" you are referring to?

Based on your reply, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ? ? ?

Clouseau