Older Audiences & Advertiser Appeal (For All Markets)

[Mikey Radio]

The RCA videodisc system was an incredibly dumb move. That system was in development for a very long time, and during the time it was in development, the market changed drastically. When RCA first started early development their videodisc system in 1964, EIAJ Type 1 black & white reel-to-reel videotape systems hadn't yet come to market, let alone VHS, Beta, and the Laserdisc formats. By the time they released it to market in 1981, multiple videotape systems had come and gone, but VHS and Beta were already pretty well established. It seems that the primary reason that RCA continued with development and marketing of their videodisc system is just sheer inertia and an unwillingness to admit that they'd sunk a bunch of money into something that was obsolete before they ever sold a single unit. The problem with RCA videodiscs is that they looked no better than a VHS or Beta tape and you couldn't record with them since it was a playback only medium. And if a customer was okay with that playback-only limitation, they would choose the Laserdisc system that produced better picture and sound and wasn't subject to wear.

The interesting thing is that when it came to market, most video publications assumed that it would be a success simply because RCA was backing it. They were wrong -- it fairly quickly bombed, and in the process cost the company well over a half billion dollars.

I remember one year in the early 80s, my dad was promising our family a VCR for Christmas. I was well aware of all they could do, recording stuff off-air for later viewing, etc. a handful of stores in the area had rental movies and I was excited. He came home one night, told us he went to his buddy's electronics store and found something even better than a VCR, and presented us with a videodisc player the guy had talked him into. They only place we could find rental movies was - surprise - his buddy's store and the thing kept breaking every few months where it would just sit there and not play. Each time they told us it needed a stylus replaced. The first few were under warranty, but once that expired and they wanted to charge as much for the stylus replacement as the thing was worth, finally my parents dumped it and bought a VCR.

 

[davideduardo]

It is interesting how audio and then video technology all evolved from the model of the round and sequential "track" on early gramophone tubular devices. Those led to phonograph disks, and then to round reels of wire and on to reels of tape, 8-Tracks, cassettes, CDs and round Winchester drives and floppy disks. Even hard drives use the same "physics" as the earliest gramophone recordings, although there "random access" became possible.

It has not been until the development of RAM and, subsequently, SSDs and the like that data can be "harvested" from any point on its storage device. rather than being sequentially played off a rotating medium.

 

[Kelly A]

It has not been until the development of RAM and, subsequently, SSDs and the like that data can be "harvested" from any point on its storage device. rather than being sequentially played off a rotating medium.

I remember around the holidays in 1978, waiting in a long line outside a local furniture store to be one of the first to purchase a Pioneer Laser Disc machine and four movies on LD. It was amazing in it's day. Several years later, I purchased three industrial Pioneer Laser Disc recorders/players used for the Seattle Supersonics NBA team in-arena game replay and in-game spot playout. They worked great for both purposes. Extremely reliable and the quality was much better than tape, or expensive DDR's at the time.

 

[gr8oldies]

I remember one year in the early 80s, my dad was promising our family a VCR for Christmas. I was well aware of all they could do, recording stuff off-air for later viewing, etc. a handful of stores in the area had rental movies and I was excited. He came home one night, told us he went to his buddy's electronics store and found something even better than a VCR, and presented us with a videodisc player the guy had talked him into. They only place we could find rental movies was - surprise - his buddy's store and the thing kept breaking every few months where it would just sit there and not play. Each time they told us it needed a stylus replaced. The first few were under warranty, but once that expired and they wanted to charge as much for the stylus replacement as the thing was worth, finally my parents dumped it and bought a VCR.

I can remember radio stations promoting that they were playing music off Lazerdisc.

 

[Kelly A]

I can remember radio stations promoting that they were playing music off Lazerdisc.

In the late 80's that was a big thing; 'playing the hits from Compact Disc'. Station I worked at had an Asian guy who had trouble pronouncing disc. He used to read a liner card: "Join us tonight at 8PM for the compact dick show"..

 

[davideduardo]

In the late 80's that was a big thing; 'playing the hits from Compact Disc'. Station I worked at had an Asian guy who had trouble pronouncing disc. He used to read a liner card: "Join us tonight at 8PM for the compact dick show"..

You can't imagine how big an issue it is in Latin America where English-language pop music has always been very popular.

In many places, the record company locally would put the Spanish title on the label. Same with the names of movies.

That got us things like the "Jaws" being translated into "Peligro bajo las Olas" or "Danger Under the Waves" where it lost its "zing".

But I had a jock who liked to do his own translations... "Suspicious Minds" came out as "Suspensorios Míos" which means "My Jock Straps".

 

[vchimpanzee]

In the late 80's that was a big thing; 'playing the hits from Compact Disc'.

I remember that. I remember station sued to make a point of saying they were playing CDs. I think the first CD I ever heard was one in a record store. "Journey to a Rainbow" by Chuck Mangione.

 

[Oldie919]

When CDs first started showing up in record stores, the station I was working for did a trade-out with one of the local shops ---
We'd get so many CDs in return for on-air ads....
The very first CD player used at our station was my own -- a Sears-by-Sanyo unit.....it could only be programmed for 10 tracks...
beyond that, it was manual selection. It cost $599.99 at the "World's Largest Store"...!!!
The first cut to be played was "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger (from "Midnight Madness"); it was being programmed via our Radio Arts "Entertainers" playlist at the time......
I just pulled out that CD from my collection...Wasn't sure if I still had it!!

OOPS! Sorry....MODS....Can you please move this post to "Radio and the Senior Population"?
Thanks!

 

[Yabadabado1]

First CD I heard was at a store in Cincinnati [1982], can't remember what company had the demo set up....Philips, Sanyo, Pioneer.....somebody. Anyways, skipping, stuttering, stopping, starting in middle of songs and no demo salesperson around to stop it. I was thinking "If this is what's to come, no thanks, I'll stick with vinyl." Rest of the salespeople/management were like "Not my problem, I have no idea how this shit works." So any sales they may have made that day were torpedoed by idiot salespeople and if I was the CD company trying to get people to buy this, I would have had the demo salesguy executed for not being around. Ended up not buying a CD player till 1984 and I liked it so much, I bought another 6 months later. Both still working to this day.
None of the stations I worked at had any CD players, they were suspicious of the technology......heck, some still had the same console they had been using since the 50s although the CE had rewired it for stereo.

 

[KeithE4]

First CD I heard was at a store in Cincinnati [1982], can't remember what company had the demo set up....Philips, Sanyo, Pioneer.....somebody. Anyways, skipping, stuttering, stopping, starting in middle of songs and no demo salesperson around to stop it. I was thinking "If this is what's to come, no thanks, I'll stick with vinyl." Rest of the salespeople/management were like "Not my problem, I have no idea how this crap works." So any sales they may have made that day were torpedoed by idiot salespeople and if I was the CD company trying to get people to buy this, I would have had the demo salesguy executed for not being around. Ended up not buying a CD player till 1984 and I liked it so much, I bought another 6 months later. Both still working to this day.

The moral to that story is: "Don't buy or use technology when it's first released. Give it time to be perfected." I don't care if it's CDs, DVDs, Internet streaming (think original RealPlayer), VoIP, cellphones, or anything else including and especially computer technology.

It was before my time, but that true of FM as well. Forcing the FCC to move it to 88-108 MHz after the war was one of the few things Sarnoff got right. And let's not even go into early 1920s Ancient Modulation. It took years to make that work properly.

 

[Mikey Radio]

The moral to that story is: "Don't buy or use technology when it's first released. Give it time to be perfected." I don't care if it's CDs, DVDs, Internet streaming (think original RealPlayer), VoIP, cellphones, or anything else including and especially computer technology.

That's to say nothing of the price you'll pay for buying the newest/latest, vs. waiting a few years. In many cases where technology is concerned, if you're willing to wait a bit, you'll pay (sometimes much) less money for the product, and in many cases get something far superior vs. the original offering.

 

[landtuna]

The moral to that story is: "Don't buy or use technology when it's first released. Give it time to be perfected." I don't care if it's CDs, DVDs, Internet streaming (think original RealPlayer), VoIP, cellphones, or anything else including and especially computer technology.

It was before my time, but that true of FM as well. Forcing the FCC to move it to 88-108 MHz after the war was one of the few things Sarnoff got right. And let's not even go into early 1920s Ancient Modulation. It took years to make that work properly.

The was probably due to things outside radio's reach. Development of FM (and commercial TV) were obviously negatively affected by things like 1929's stock market crash (no money for research), the ensuing Great Depression (no money for anything) and World War Two (military research was priority number 1 for obvious reasons).

New cars are a great example of products which you shouldn't dive into until the inevitable bugs and/or buyer acceptance are worked out. Just ask anyone who bought a shiny new Edsel (no mechanical bugs but plenty of buyer complaints of styling issues and poor gas mileage during a minor recession).

 

[Greg Goodfellow]

The moral to that story is: "Don't buy or use technology when it's first released. Give it time to be perfected." I don't care if it's CDs, DVDs, Internet streaming (think original RealPlayer), VoIP, cellphones, or anything else including and especially computer technology.

It was before my time, but that true of FM as well. Forcing the FCC to move it to 88-108 MHz after the war was one of the few things Sarnoff got right. And let's not even go into early 1920s Ancient Modulation. It took years to make that work properly.

 

[Greg Goodfellow]

Good points, Keith E4. AM Radio in the ‘20’s was definitely “the Wild West.” And now, thanks to technology, we could actually have a 76-108 MHz band, but, as previously explained, it’s decades too late for most to care. Streaming technology is the game-changer.

 

[michael hagerty]

That's to say nothing of the price you'll pay for buying the newest/latest, vs. waiting a few years. In many cases where technology is concerned, if you're willing to wait a bit, you'll pay (sometimes much) less money for the product, and in many cases get something far superior vs. the original offering.

True. I waited five years to buy a VHS machine. They hit the market in 1977 for $1,000-$1,400 (a bargain compared to the $2,000+ for a Sony Betamax).

In 1982, having just jumped to TV and gotten a nice raise, I bought a really good VHS for $700.

Five years later, its replacement did more, was a better machine all-around and cost $300.

 

[michael hagerty]

Just ask anyone who bought a shiny new Edsel (no mechanical bugs but plenty of buyer complaints of styling issues and poor gas mileage during a minor recession).

Auto journalists said for a long time (and in the 80s finally began saying so in print) that you should absolutely skip the introduction year of any new GM product. And if you wanted to be safe, wait to buy until model year three.

 

[davideduardo]

It was before my time, but that true of FM as well. Forcing the FCC to move it to 88-108 MHz after the war was one of the few things Sarnoff got right.

Sarnoff did not "get FM right". He purposely got it "wrong" from his perspective to thwart the growth of FM when he believed interest in the new radio band would negatively affect his launch of television.

Sarnoff was the last of the real "robber barons", doing everything he could to to thwart the development of any technology that was not his. And his treatment of Maj. Armstrong was one of the most evil and vile behavours in the history of industry.

 

[gr8oldies]

True. I waited five years to buy a VHS machine. They hit the market in 1977 for $1,000-$1,400 (a bargain compared to the $2,000+ for a Sony Betamax).

In 1982, having just jumped to TV and gotten a nice raise, I bought a really good VHS for $700.

Five years later, its replacement did more, was a better machine all-around and cost $300.

Someone offered my first wife and I a new VCR in 1984 for $100 (they were running 4-500 or so at the time. Based on the background of the guys making the offer, we figured it was hot.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Someone offered my first wife and I a new VCR in 1984 for $100 (they were running 4-500 or so at the time. Based on the background of the guys making the offer, we figured it was hot.

My father got our first one sometime in the 90s. I refused to use it because I thought they were expensive. I found the first of several combination TV/VCRs in 2000 and it was less than $200 (and still works).

 

[landtuna]

Sarnoff was the last of the real "robber barons", doing everything he could to to thwart the development of any technology that was not his. And his treatment of Maj. Armstrong was one of the most evil and vile behavours in the history of industry.

I'd love to read the story behind that sentence if you have a reference.