Radio Bailout

[elchupacabras]

Many of you have discussed what the government should or should not do for the radio industry. With profits falling, CUME and TSL down, why not give radio a shot in the arm with a targeted bailout program:

1) Mandate IBOC FM for all FM licensees by February 17, 2013. Provide cash and/or tax credits for smaller operators who need aid in pulling off the conversion. As of the aforementioned date, analog FM would no longer exist as we know, opening up bandwidth for new and experimental HD-4 and HD-5's.

2) Offer $50 per consumer vouchers to purchase a new HD radio.

3) Discard HD-AM altogether and look for a new, superior standard. The current state of IBOC HD is junk science. It makes no sense for a 1kw to switch over when you are lucky to pick up the digital carrier a mile away. Degradation of current audio to its 3khz state with co-channel interference is killing AM broadcasting. Perhaps we should look at forcing those FM's who abandon their analog signal and receive federal monies to place the AM as one of its HD side channels.

It may sound like an anachronism, but what the hell was ever wrong with AMAX and AM stereo, other than the FCC didn't mandate it quickly enough? If we can't find an adequate digital solution, why not look at establishing it? The Feds could mandate that every AM receiver over 20 dollars have AM stereo built in. (Yeah, I know, CC engineers are going to urinate all over me telling me the benefits of a lower bandwith, I understand, but we have to look to restoring some type of quality to attract younger demos, and 3khz defective analog at the expensive of digital IBOC AM ain't worth it! Get over 25+ miles away from a 50kw stick and it doesn't work effectively.)

4) Offer certain tax credits to smaller operators who want to take on markets with inherent risks. Nothing against corporate radio, they do a great job, but what about the 250 kw AM's that could serve local neighborhoods or ethnic interests?


Have any better ideas? Share them.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There might have been a time when it could be said that having a healthy radio broadcasting industry was important to the nation. Maybe 1949? What terrible harm comes to society and civilization today if 20, 30 or 45% of the radio stations go dark in the next 120 days?

Where does "bailing out" stop? Do offer federal bail outs to people who operate wreckers and tow trucks? Recreation boat marinas? How about all these store fronts where the industrious Vietnamese trim and paint finger nails? Should be bail out Sherwin Williams paint stores? Schwinn bicycle shops? Roller skating rinks? Convenience stores that sell fish bait?

The whole bail-out business is a very contentious political and philosophical issue in this country today. The Feds don't have enough money to make life whole for every last citizen and business entity in America. Tell me WHY we would bail out radio?

 

[PTBoardOp94]

There might have been a time when it could be said that having a healthy radio broadcasting industry was important to the nation. Maybe 1949? What terrible harm comes to society and civilization today if 20, 30 or 45% of the radio stations go dark in the next 120 days?

Amen, brother (sister?)

elchupacabras: Since your proposals focus on the HD standard, can you explain why you think this would "save" radio? Quadrupling the number of signals would do what exactly when there aren't enough formats or advertisers for the stations currently in most markets?

 

[Basnya]

To quote a well-known conservative talk show host:

"Name one thing besides the military that has ever been improved by government involvement"

Throwing money at a problem is the classic American response to just about every situation. It seldom seems to work except to benefit those who caused the problems in the first place.

I don't know the "The Answer" is when it comes to saving radio, but I can't help but think any type of a bailout is a bad, bad idea.

 

[pocket-radio]

Mandate IBOC FM for all FM licensees by February 17, 2013? Why do we need a mandate? Enough medium and major markets broadcast in HD. The problem isn't a transmission standard, it's listeners have shown no interest.

Mandate a switch from analog to digital and force everyone to buy new radios like TV did, then maybe somebody will care about HD. Until then it's a dead issue.

The future isn't HD. Within 5 to 10 years, nationwide wireless internet access will be the new standard. Every car will be web enabled. Providers will provide two access points. Free, limited bandwidth supported by advertising and paying customers for the rest. This is going to be big, because nationwide access will effect other industries other than radio. The time for HD was 15 years ago.

Times they're changing. Save a friend, just say no to HD..

 

[Carmine5]

The future isn't HD. Within 5 to 10 years, nationwide wireless internet access will be the new standard. Every car will be web enabled. Providers will provide two access points. Free, limited bandwidth supported by advertising and paying customers for the rest. This is going to be big, because nationwide access will effect other industries other than radio. The time for HD was 15 years ago.

Exactly. The direction technology is heading makes it entirely conceivable that today's broadcast towers could be tomorrow's broadband towers.

No matter how many new features and uses iBiquity comes up with, HD Radio will always be an expensive, interim stopgap solution without a future. Any of HD Radio's advantages can easily be replicated on the internet.

And if you've noticed, the FCC has done nothing to propose a mandated switch to digital radio. Instead the Commission has shown far more interest in pushing along broadband technology and making spectrum available for it.

As such, I believe it would be more prudent fiscally for a station owner to stay analog (making sure the station's signal is the best sounding it can possibly be) while keeping an eye on the horizon to broadband trends and emerging standards and investing in them when the time is right.

C5

 

[SirRoxalot]

No Bailout, Fix AM

First of all, no bailout for radio. Station values must be allowed to reflect real-world conditions. Those who overpaid should suffer the consequences, and debt loads need to be reduced through bankruptcy.

FM works fine for music and voice. Leave it alone. We don't need further dilution of the spectrum. Digital quality is no real improvement.

AM needs to be fixed so it can offer higher audio quality in stereo. If AM was fixed, the excuse for a lot of the micropower FMs and translators could go away. The question is how to fix AM.

IBOC ain't a fix. Make it go away. Do with AM what they did with TV - set aside a slice of spectrum so existing AM stations can get a purely digital signal cranked up. Since a digital signal requires a lot less bandwidth than an analog signal, ultimately power could be adjusted and interference reduced by setting aside a handful of channels that correspond with "1400". Adjacent markets would be assigned "1400.1", "1400.2", 1400.3", etc. to prevent interference. The radio readout can still say "1400HD", so nobody know who gets which channel anyway.

At some point, as AM Digital penetration increases, AM analog service is reduced. Local service is relegated to digital only, and the only thing left on AM analog would be the old Class A clear channel ("little c") stations that service wide areas beyond their local allocation. They would broadcast in both analog and digital. Digital service would cover their local market(s), while the analog signal would extend their reach into rural areas with beyond the range of practical digital service. Everybody else would be digital service only, and - if possible - would be moved back into the old 530-1600 area of the spectrum.