Pew: "We Stand By Our Research On HD"

[KB1OKL]

Tired of Stru-bulls malarkey all this past year about how wonderful HD radio is doing?

From Radio Ink comes this:

3-21-13

Earlier this week, the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism released its annual report called The State of The News Media 2013." In the audio portion of that report, Pew was very critical of HD Radio, calling it a beleaguered attempt to draw people back to radio. We reached out to Pew's Acting Director Amy Mitchell (pictured) to find out if, perhaps, the Center had some bad information. According to iBuiquity, the number of stations turning on HD is up and integration into vehicles is strong. In our interview HERE, Mitchell said from all the data we look at, it cannot be disputed, more stations are dropping HD than are adopting it and there aren't a lot of positive signs for HD.

comment here:

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2631886

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Considering all the lies and deceptions connected with HD and iBiquity, it will be a cold day in hell before I believe anything they say over a research firm like Pew.

 

[tomservo]

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. We know which to trust in this case.

 

[TheBigA]

calling it a beleaguered attempt to draw people back to radio.

That's the quote that bothers me. Where do they come up with that idea?

First of all, there's no need to "draw people back to radio," because they're already there. Perhaps they hoped to draw people back to AM, but we now know even new radios won't do that. The other fact is that you can't draw people back to radio when people aren't buying them.

I really don't think iBiquity's motivation was to "draw people back to radio." Maybe at one time, some in the industry thought or hoped that it might revive the declining fortunes of most of the AM band, considering the total lack of interest on the part of the FCC to do what is necessary. But I don't think it's on anyone's radar any more. Certainly not Bob Pittman's. His focus is mobile, and I think that's what everyone else is thinking about. You don't hear Pittman or Dickey disputing Pew's findings.

Having said all that, there are no real new technologies or products that ARE in fact aimed at drawing people to radio. The days of the pocket transistor, Walkman, and boom box are done. The CEA spends lots of time and money fighting radio. You can't have new excitement for radio when there are no new products featuring it. The phone has replaced the radio as device of choice. While some see the end of HD Radio as a great thing, it really isn't, because it means that there is no hope for improving the sound of AM radio. The FCC is content to let it die.

 

[Savage]

Surprisingly - - I disagree with BigA !!

There are plenty of things which can be done to improving the "sound of AM Radio." LOTS of things.

And amazingly, they're cheap and easy to do, at least on the transmission side. No need to buy expensive equipment or endure recurring license fees. No extra maintenance. No injurious side effects from implementation. There are concepts which will maximize the performance of existing receivers.

And properly marketed with a coordinated, thoughtfully executed campaign - you know, one that isn't insultingly stupid, doesn't alienate women with scatalogical references to their bodies, and tells the truth - it could help start to resuscitate not only AM specifically but radio in general.

 

[TheBigA]

Surprisingly - - I disagree with BigA !!

There are plenty of things which can be done to improving the "sound of AM Radio." LOTS of things.

Sure, but the biggest issue is perception. You can fix the technical flaws all day, but the perception is still Ancient Modulation, and a band filled with conservative talk, religion, and Spanish (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Perhaps the perception thing was behind the initial support for HD, but I think we've seen that it was ineffective. Personally, I really don't see ANYTHING changing the perception. So all the HD transmitters shutting down will be like more businesses leaving a ghetto. It just means more vacant storefronts and burned out buildings, with no one moving in to replace them. That plays into the FCC's strategy of giving the abandoned airwaves to minorities. But that's not exactly the solution most radio fans are looking for.

 

[Savage]

Yep. Just what they said about phonograph records as radio came into universal acceptance 1930-1938. And what they said about radio as TV became the biggest consumer electronics phenom to date 1946-1956. Just what they said about movies. Refresh your Marshall McLuhan and your media history.

The biggest impediment to resuscitation of AM is, frankly, the defeatist attitude of "smug radio industry savant know-it-all" types, expressing the sentiments you echo. You know: the brilliant guys who gave us HD Radio in the first place. (And, I will warn, are similarly screwing up FM Radio. Think their messes are going to be limited to ruining AM? They're kidding themselves blaming AM's problems on technical shortcomings.)

If you guys don't want to lead, shut off HD, shut up, and get out of the way. Let somebody with some vision take a crack at it.

 

[TheBigA]

The biggest impediment to resuscitation of AM is, frankly, the defeatist attitude of "smug radio industry savant know-it-all" types, expressing the sentiments you echo.

I think if you added up all of the radio industry people and the "savants" you talk about, it would total just a fraction of the number of people who NEVER listen to AM. Every year, more and more AM stations fall out of the ratings Top 10, regardless of the programming they provide. You can blame the industry if it makes you feel good, but the public is leaving AM. Sure, you love to quote how the public never bought HD radios, but you ignore that they also stopped buying AM radios. This is not invented by the industry. It's real and documented. It's why so many AM station owners, including Mr. Savage, have invested in FM translators. The writing is on the wall.

 

[tomservo]

calling it a beleaguered attempt to draw people back to radio.

That's the quote that bothers me. Where do they come up with that idea?

First of all, there's no need to "draw people back to radio," because they're already there. Perhaps they hoped to draw people back to AM, but we now know even new radios won't do that. The other fact is that you can't draw people back to radio when people aren't buying them.

I really don't think iBiquity's motivation was to "draw people back to radio." Maybe at one time, some in the industry thought or hoped that it might revive the declining fortunes of most of the AM band, considering the total lack of interest on the part of the FCC to do what is necessary. But I don't think it's on anyone's radar any more. Certainly not Bob Pittman's. His focus is mobile, and I think that's what everyone else is thinking about. You don't hear Pittman or Dickey disputing Pew's findings.

Having said all that, there are no real new technologies or products that ARE in fact aimed at drawing people to radio. The days of the pocket transistor, Walkman, and boom box are done. The CEA spends lots of time and money fighting radio. You can't have new excitement for radio when there are no new products featuring it. The phone has replaced the radio as device of choice. While some see the end of HD Radio as a great thing, it really isn't, because it means that there is no hope for improving the sound of AM radio. The FCC is content to let it die.

It's not that people are really leaving radio in droves, its that their attention is being split a million different ways now. TV was not the threat to radio that people thought it was, because it was still a trifecta of entertainment: moving pictures (TV/movies), music radio and phonograph/8-track recordings.

Nowadays it's TV/movie theaters/Netflix/Hulu/YouTube, streaming, mp3 player, satellite radio, the internet in general… all competing for face and ear time.

And let's be fair, I don't think ANYONE but the FCC thought HD would do anything for AM radio. Remember, it wasn't even designed for AM in the planning stages. They only cobbled together the disastrous scheme we have now to placate the Feds. HD was never meant to "save" AM specifically, just keep radio from losing more ears to other, better sources of music and information.

IMHO radio has long ago ceased being a destination for all but the poorest of people. Ever since car radios began being made with tape decks, radio's dominating presence has been in decline. People still listen, by the hundreds of millions, but they now prefer other means of entertainment. Radio just happens to be the avenue of least effort for most folks.

Poorer people are less like to have generous data plans on smart phones, or able to afford hundreds of bucks in digital downloads for music. They only have radio, and the quality of the advertisements on my local mainstream pop and hiphop and country stations seems to reflect this. There aren't ads for high end jewellery stores and BMW dealers and fancy clothing shops… it's Kia cars, barber shops, payday loan sharks and today I even recorded an aircheck with an adult novelty store ad. At least around here, country does better, but not by much. Replace "Chevy trucks" with "Kia" in the previous example. Not a big step up, in other words. Only NPR seems to be holding on to an affluent base of listeners.

AM of course fares worse for the most part. Almost all the major blowtorch news stations have FM companions now. The lesser market news/talk stations' commercials reflect their ageing demographics to a tee: boner pills, prostate pills, injury lawyers and all kinds of fly by night moneymaking schemes. The next step down is the dollar-a-holler outlets. Every market has one, some now have two or three or even four.

But maybe this isn't the end for radio, just a life-change. I think AM can continue to thrive (without HD) by serving minorities who might not otherwise get a broadcast voice: Immigrants who don't speak much English, religious programming, even community radio could flourish on a little flea power AM these days. FM will no longer be the go-to medium for mass audiences, but it'll always have a place (with or without HD) for those who are too poor or too tired of their own music, or better, who need information but can't be bothered to Google from their phones. Unfortunately it'll take completely undoing all the corporate gutting that's gone on, because you can't provide late breaking information when the station is run by a PC. You can't provide spontaneous interactive entertainment to music listeners when the host is voicetracked weeks ago from Denver.

Everyone who can afford better, of course, will find other outlets. They'll pay for Pandora or Spotify, and get their news from Twitter and Facebook.

 

[TheBigA]

It's not that people are really leaving radio in droves, its that their attention is being split a million different ways now.

Sure, and perhaps the goal of HD was to be one of those million different things. And for some, perhaps it is. But for the most part, it isn't. What's changed in the ten or so years since the arrival of HD is that all those other things use a more popular platform. That new platform is growing faster than radio, and OTA stations are joining other sources on that platform. What we can see is that when you attach your invention to radio, and something that is strictly a radio-only feature, it's chances for success aren't good. That doesn't mean radio is dead. Just mean it's less likely that inventors will be trying to come up with things that could improve or grow OTA radio. All of the great inventions that perpetuated radio's growth over 70 years, from the transistor to FM to the Walkman to the Boom Box, are now done. All of the innovation is directed to other platforms. All of the new regulation will be focused on expanding other platforms, sometimes at the expensive of broadcasting. At some point, that has an effect.

 

[audioguy]

In my view, radio should show a little leadership of its own without expecting the government or somebody else to do it for us. I think radio could continue to be viable for a long time-- possibly indefinitely-- but only if we make it happen ourselves. Let's start by acknowledging that HD radio is a failure and turn off the jammers, especially on AM. Absolutely nobody is listening to the digital signal on AM, and it just makes the analog signal sound like crud.

Next, tune up the audio channel and make it sound decent again, with good clean response out to 10K. Sure, not everybody will be able to appreciate all of that, but certainly it will be apparent on many receivers. Don't believe the lie that nobody has a radio that goes beyond 5K just because there are some that won't.

And then, put something on the air that people would actually want to listen to. Use live announcers during at least some of the day. Reduce the number of infomercials, and syndicated far left and far right talk shows. Stop repeating 800 numbers 4, 5, and even 6 times during a spot. Be imaginative and creative, not only for programs but also for ads.

As it is now, there's very little on radio that is worth tuning into. There are notable exceptions on public radio, but I'm not advocating that every station should sound like NPR.

If commercial broadcasters can't make a go of it, then sign off and let community groups and schools have the frequency. Bring back low power AM and FM broadcasting at the 1-10 watt level and create micro-stations that serve just a neighborhood or small village.

 

[TheBigA]

In my view, radio should show a little leadership of its own without expecting the government or somebody else to do it for us.

Radio isn't a company or a person. There is only so much these companies can do with a resource they don't actually own. The airwaves are regulated by the government. It's THEIR responsibility to keep this public asset viable, and for 40 years, they've failed to do so. The government is supposed to be the one part of the equation that isn't driven by self interest or profit. They're the ones who should show leadership, because they have the interest of the spectrum and the people at stake. To put this on anyone else ignores the legal responsibility of the government.

If commercial broadcasters can't make a go of it, then sign off and let community groups and schools have the frequency. Bring back low power AM and FM broadcasting at the 1-10 watt level and create micro-stations that serve just a neighborhood or small village.

I don't know if you noticed, but community groups and schools are getting out of broadcasting. They can't afford to pay for towers and transmitters. They can barely pay for schools and police. State governments have been selling their public broadcasting systems in populous states like New Jersey.

 

[davideduardo]

Poorer people are less like to have generous data plans on smart phones, or able to afford hundreds of bucks in digital downloads for music. They only have radio, and the quality of the advertisements on my local mainstream pop and hiphop and country stations seems to reflect this. There aren't ads for high end jewellery stores and BMW dealers and fancy clothing shops… it's Kia cars, barber shops, payday loan sharks and today I even recorded an aircheck with an adult novelty store ad. At least around here, country does better, but not by much. Replace "Chevy trucks" with "Kia" in the previous example. Not a big step up, in other words. Only NPR seems to be holding on to an affluent base of listeners.

Actually, formats like country often index quite well as to income. And pop formats can be seen to represent households with significant income as they are mostly targeted at women 18 to 34 years of age. And since hip hop is an element of urban, CHR and other formats, we can't generalize about its appeal... much of it is highly mainstream.

Interestingly, the cars that promote connected dashboards tend to be the entry level vehicles... like the Ford Focus, for example. That's because much of the 18-40 year old group has eliminated landlines, and has smartphones and data plans. The same is true of Hispanics... limited landline use and lots of apps and Pandora listening.

Lower income households are actually more likely to have phones with data plans, as smartphones represent an economical solution to communications and entertainment in a single package.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Don't believe the lie that nobody has a radio that goes beyond 5K just because there are some that won't.

I would take it a bit further - I've analyzed dozens of modern radios, and this is what is inside:

http://earmark.net/gesr/Current_Radio_Design.htm

All - as in ALL - radios produced today use minor variations of this, and are inherently wideband on AM. iBiquity either intentionally lied by picking radios that support their narrowband claim, or got statistically lucky in finding just those models that contained a 50 year old reference design. I strongly suspect the first of the two possibilities.

The ONLY exception to the wideband AM radios in production today would be Sony radios using the CXA1129 chip, or perhaps car radios that MAY have more than one AM ceramic filter or are directly sampled.

 

[davideduardo]

I would take it a bit further - I've analyzed dozens of modern radios, and this is what is inside:

THis is a moot point.

Nearly nobody buys a "radio" today. People buy devices that have radios in them, like cars and phone docks and such.

But mostly, people buy smartphones and expect them to provide all the needed entertainment options. Smartphone penetration this year should approach 70% of total cellphone subscribers, so we are getting close to the kind of percentage of penetration that cable / satellite has.

So if you are talking about "radios" today, you have to talk about smartphones. AM and FM are increasingly irrelevant distribution systems.

 

[TheBigA]

So if you are talking about "radios" today, you have to talk about smartphones. AM and FM are increasingly irrelevant distribution systems.

And this is why HD Radio is the failure it is. They made a product for a device most people no longer buy. They made a better buggy whip. Congratulations.(Of course some will argue if it's actually "better." That's a different discussion) Or anaccessory for an IBM Selectric. Hoo-ray. I'm gonna rush out and buy me one.

Looking at my own experience, the only AM/FM radio I bought in the last ten years is the one that came with my new car. I'm not alone. The fact that HD didn't win the dashboard is the single biggest contributor to its failure. Not interference, not quality, not programming content, not marketing, but becoming standard equipment. Satellite radio understood that, and paid dearly for it. iBiquity didn't have the deep deep pockets.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I would take it a bit further - I've analyzed dozens of modern radios, and this is what is inside:

THis is a moot point.

Nearly nobody buys a "radio" today. People buy devices that have radios in them, like cars and phone docks and such.

But mostly, people buy smartphones and expect them to provide all the needed entertainment options. Smartphone penetration this year should approach 70% of total cellphone subscribers, so we are getting close to the kind of percentage of penetration that cable / satellite has.

So if you are talking about "radios" today, you have to talk about smartphones. AM and FM are increasingly irrelevant distribution systems.

Absolutely agree. But in devices that DO include radio, that is what is doing the radio function. Cheap, easy to construct, does the job on local stations.

What gets me angry is when iBiquity lies and says AM radios are narrow band. They are not any longer, and it is no attempt to have better audio. It is just to make them as cheaply as possible. And I am starting to see AM radios where the ceramic filter is not used, and the IF is just a ceramic capacitor. ALL of the selectivity is then determined by the ferrite bar and tuning capacitor. I first saw this about 15 years ago in "sports" headphone radios. The trend is accelerating. And I am seeing more and more non-superheterodyne AM radios. Ferrite bar, one gang tuning capacitor, gain stage, detector. A crystal radio with amplification so local stations come in. AM has taken a long step backwards. The next step will be no AM included at all. All of this makes iBiquity a big fat liar whenever they say AM radios have poor audio response. On the contrary - local stations sound really good on such radios, provided they are still selective enough to keep nearby locals from mixing into the audio.

My first experience with this planned cheapness had nothing to do with iBiquity or AM HD. My very young daughter was upset that her "Bratz" combination lamp and radio would not get Radio Disney on 620, she was hearing KSKY on 660. I don't know what the part number was of that ceramic filter, but I swept it with a network analyzer and it was +/- 40 kHz wide at -3dB. A better ceramic filter, it separated 620 and 660 easily. But it was a pain to tune because the tuning mechanism was terrible. So I tuned it and she never touched the tuning. The next Christmas she got a Radio Shack 12-603 I got for $40 on clearance. Not a trendy kids brand, but it was a much better radio. She promptly wanted a Mary Kate and Ashley boom box. Strangely - the MKA radio - although typical of the circuitry I described - was amazingly sensitive and had a much better ceramic filter. It also had a 4 inch ferrite bar, more than most radios you buy. Out of the box it would get Austin's KLBJ 590 from Plano, TX witih good volume and clarity. The tuning mechanism was also quite good. It just goes to show - you can use these single "radio on chips" and if you put good components around them, they will do remarkably well. Put cheap stuff around them and you get a cheap radio. But to say - "all AM radios have 4 kHz bandwith" is a bold-faced lie, and I am calling iBiquity's bluff on that one. You can't buy a radio with 3-4 kHz IF bandwidth today, unless you happen to know about Sony's CXA1129 IC and buy a Sony radio with it inside. Why should people want a more selective radio if they are not DX'ing? It is better for the manufacturers and consumers if it is as easy as possible to tune local stations even if the tuning mechanism is substandard.

 

[davideduardo]

What gets me angry is when iBiquity lies and says AM radios are narrow band.

You have this wrong. iBiquity took a study done by an NRSC committee headed by Bob Orban which said that most receivers rolled off at around 3.9 kHz, and the ideal bandwith for a receiver is around 6 kHz to 7 kHz. The NRSC study was done using a broad sample of consumer grade radios.

So in this case, iBiquity is not fibbing... they are just quoting an NRSC study.

One of the real issues is that, whatever the bandwidth, few markets today have more than one or two AMs that cover the metro with a usable signal day and night.

In fact, in the top 100 markets, where about 70% of the population lives, there are less than 175 viable AM radio stations (those that cover at least 80% of the market day and night with a usable signal). So the issue is not how an AM sounds when you listen to it, but about the fact that very few AMs offer decent, competitive signals in their own market.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

You have this wrong. iBiquity took a study done by an NRSC committee headed by Bob Orban which said that most receivers rolled off at around 3.9 kHz, and the ideal bandwith for a receiver is around 6 kHz to 7 kHz. The NRSC study was done using a broad sample of consumer grade radios.

So in this case, iBiquity is not fibbing... they are just quoting an NRSC study.

Then I will call Bob Orban and the NRSC study the liars. I don't see any scenario where you could find a broad sample of consumer radios sold today - or even ten years ago - with an audio roll off of 3.9 kHz, based on a 50 year old reference design. The study is suspiciously exactly what the iBiquity folks would need to justify mandatory roll off for all radio stations. In other words - NRSC was in league with iBiquity. Funny - how you never see a list of the radios they found that supposedly roll off at 3.9 kHz. The only thing I found on the web was a list of conclusions from the "study".

If they managed to dredge up a list of radios currently sold based on the "All American 6 transistor" design, sometimes also called "the All Japanese 6 transistor", they went to an extraordinary amount of research to find them. Even ten years ago, virtually all radios had the radio on a chip design. If they found radios that rolled off at 3.9 kHz, it was done in the audio section - not the IF section, and there is a huge difference between IF bandwidth and audio roll off. Audio roll off would do nothing to change selectivity of the radio.

Incidentally - it was TI that invented the "all American 6 transitor" design, not Japan. The Regency transistor radio had the basic architecture in 1954:

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/regency_pocket_radio_tr_1_tr1.html

But with only 4 transistors, the audio was weak. A class B audio output stage was soon added to newer models to boost volume - which would have nothing to do with the RF characteristics. By 1960, virtually all transistor radios had similar schematics. The only real change to the design was a change from germanium to silicon transistors in the early 1970's.

To produce all American 6 transistor radio today would be ridiculous:

--- The board space required would take up too much room wanted for other features.

--- Reliability of such a radio would be less than one made with a single IC.

--- No manufacturing line wants to add a alignment station - radios are sold with little or no alignment today. The "All American 6" design requires too much time for alignment.

--- A lot of the manufacturers that produced IF and audio transformers have gone out of business, or jacked up the prices due to lower production runs / less demand.

So - no - Bob Orban and NRSC. The chances of finding a lot of "All American 6" based radios ten years ago would have been almost non-existent unless they went to radio collectors, flea markets, and Goodwill shops in search of them. They certainly didn't find them on the shelves at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc. You can find a lot of radios there, but ALL of them except Sony are based on the new reference design I documented. That was true even 10 years ago. They are LIARS, and I would say it to their faces.

Incidentally, they also lied about the GE Superadio 3 in their tests. They claimed it had a low bandwidth - obviously they never flicked the bandwidth switch to the "high" positions because the measurements I did on it closely matched their results - when I had the switch in narrow position.

BAD science leads to BAD conclusions. BIASED science leads to BIASED conclusions. What they did was not science. It was a paid promotion of a conclusion iBiquity wanted them to make. So much for integrity.

 

[tomservo]

To find all the low bandwidth AM radios, you need to include ALL radios not just cheap Chinese portables.. Find me a modern car stereo, OEM or aftermarket, with more than 5 kHz on AM. I can't find one. I checked the small handful of radios at Best Buy just yesterday (while looking for HD, which they NO LONGER SELL in standard DIN radios) and none of them sounded better than a telephone on AM.