radio groups possibly pulling back on licensing for AM HD

[Carmine5]

Hard to say who is telling the truth here but it's an interesting article nonetheless.


http://www.rbr.com/features/viewpoints/8284.html

Interesting quote from radio consultant Bob Harper:

"Talk about a problem for HD -- it doesn't deliver on the aspect potential listeners rate highest. The best way to drive around the Quality pothole is to provide content so compelling that sound quality will matter less. If a HD-2 signal was the only place to hear Radio Disney or 24/7 stock and business updates or non-stop traffic or all day WWE interviews or all NASCAR all the time, for example, the listeners would care less about how crisp and clean those offerings were..."

C5

 

[KB1OKL]

Hard to say who is telling the truth here but it's an interesting article nonetheless.


http://www.rbr.com/features/viewpoints/8284.html

Interesting quote from radio consultant Bob Harper:

"Talk about a problem for HD -- it doesn't deliver on the aspect potential listeners rate highest. The best way to drive around the Quality pothole is to provide content so compelling that sound quality will matter less. If a HD-2 signal was the only place to hear Radio Disney or 24/7 stock and business updates or non-stop traffic or all day WWE interviews or all NASCAR all the time, for example, the listeners would care less about how crisp and clean those offerings were..."

C5

And it would be career suicide for Disney to only be able to be accessed on HD-2 channels, imagine the traffic jams if that were the only place you could get traffic reports. Quality sound vs extra channels, I think HD is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

also another interesting quote from iBiquity:

“After reading the article again, my comment is that we don't comment on rumors, but continued to be very pleased with our broadcast partners roll out of HD Radio broadcasting, which is on schedule.” :

 

[Savage]

What else would you expect from The Lie Factory, a/k/a "iBiquity?"

Do they ever show a thimbleful of candor? Has any public representation of any form of HD from that company ever failed to include some obvious whopper?

"...we continue to be very pleased....with our rollout of HD Radio, which remains on schedule...."

Right. Absolutely. Station conversions have just about stopped with very small percentages of radio broadcasting in HD. Technical woes continue. Receivers have just about disappeared at retail. Great! Yep, I'd be "very pleased" too! :

Read between the lines of the RW Engineering Extra. Despite strenuous Bonneville objections otherwise, obviously something is afoot with major groups trying to back out of HD-AM, but the usual Dome Of Silence has descended and nobody's about to comment publicly. If some groups are trying to bag the HD-AM experiment that might explain the desperate damn-the-torpedoes launch of night HD on northeast CBS AMs with the attendant mutually assured destruction.

 

[Carmine5]

"Dome of Silence"?

This, of course, begs the question as to who is the Maxwell Smart of HD-Radio?

But this is why I said that it's hard to ascertain who is telling the truth. When anyone uses a weasel phrase like they're "on schedule" with something, it means they're hurting.

If I ever become president of a large corporation (put that in the fat chance category), I'll fire the first publicist who tells the press we're "on schedule" or "on track."

C5

 

[clouseau]

"Dome of Silence"?

This, of course, begs the question as to who is the Maxwell Smart of HD-Radio?

But this is why I said that it's hard to ascertain who is telling the truth. When anyone uses a weasel phrase like they're "on schedule" with something, it means they're hurting.

If I ever become president of a large corporation (put that in the fat chance category), I'll fire the first publicist who tells the press we're "on schedule" or "on track."

C5

That's "Cone of Silence". And yes for you trivia buffs, I believe it's inventor was "Professor Cone" (Don't quote me on that.)

On topic now, Does this really look like a smoking gun to you guys? OR could "on schedule" mean "more or less where we thought we'd be"?
Now I'd bet serious money they were HOPING to be a lot furthur along, but I wonder if reasonable projections really PROJECTED them as furthur along.

I agree with Carmine. It's kinda hard to tell where reality is.

Clouseau

 

[Savage]

Inspector, thanks for the correction on the Cone Of Silence. As somebody who once drove a Sunbeam Tiger a la Maxwell Smart, I should have known better.

I think reality is, in the case of HD Radio, kinda like this: Outside of the dozen anti/pro posters on radio-info.com's HD board, members of the Alliance, iBiquity Digital Corporation, a few demoralized FCC wonks, equipment manufacturers, Glynn Walden, Cris Alexander and an estimated two dozen proud regular users of HD radios....

NOBODY CARES.

HD has already been surpassed in the marketplace by far cooler, more user-friendly personal entertainment devices. In case nobody has noticed it, that's why you can scarcely buy the dopey radios at retail - RS, BB, CC and others have gotten the message from consumers and have bailed. Radio had better heed the trends instead of bucking them by trying to force the issue. This could work out excellently for terrestrial radio, much in the same way broadcast TV is consumed via cable, satellite and the web. But as vsa has succinctly observed here, the HD brouhaha blares ongoing, public and embarassing failure in the marketplace and poses a massive distraction and dissipation of needed industry resources. It also divides us into groups of elites and nonparticipants and pits us against each other. Just read this board. We really need to be working together to find real solutions for radio.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The answer for AM is VIRGIN spectrum. That means channel 5 and 6 prefereably, or maybe even 2-4 if we can't get 5 and 6. How about 1710-1810KHz? The NAB obviously isn't going to help so we, as a RADIO industry need to start RAISING HELL about getting some HELP for the AM band, not more hissing and buzzing half-assed on the existing band. It's time the big boys, iBiquity and the government admit the AM IBOC is a total and absolute failure. There are solutions but we need to be more demanding to insure we will get them. Doing nothing will get us nothing but more buzzing, hissing and interference. The AM band doesn't need help running off any more listenership. It's about time we stand up and do something.

 

[Tom Wells]

The local service "broadcast" AM needs to transplant to someting which behaves as well as FM does (excepting skip) in order
to re-use te same frequency over and over without undue headaches. 5 and 6 are ideal as the radios are already here..I have one for
TV audio, and there's no reason FM-(iboc or not), won't give these stations the best even advantage and FM parity.

That said, AM MW as such peculiar advantages as to be an undeniable "backbone" for wide area communication and very useful when
appropriately managed as the FCC did from inception to the 1970's.

I think if AMs could migrate to 5-6, there would be those who would quickly go dark on their MW BC AMs.
If they are primarily smaller stations, the FCC could easily restore some semblence of "clear, regional and local" for those wishing
to remain on MW. Certainly the 50 kw NDs will want to stay, as primary EAS stations for so many good reasons.

This would do much to return to MW the best use of its advantages.

At this time, all commercial stations could re-map to 540-1400, and the 1400-1700 could be LPAM, hobbyist pt 15 and existing
low power services as Traffic, talking house, aiport info, municpal info, etc.

Just please somehow recognize that MW hasn't the proper resolutionto run data reliably at the rate ibiquity would
like to run it.

Didn't anyone at ibiquity ever try to get "hi-speed" RTTY to copy in the old days?
I guess not. They're not radio people. If they were, they'd already know about data rates on longer wavelenghts.

Human hearing, interpretation and recognition are so much better than any scheme that in MW, any other mode of mod/detection
other than AM is ..... I lack the word here....pointless?

 

[KB1OKL]

The local service "broadcast" AM needs to transplant to someting which behaves as well as FM does (excepting skip) in order
to re-use te same frequency over and over without undue headaches. 5 and 6 are ideal as the radios are already here..I have one for
TV audio, and there's no reason FM-(iboc or not), won't give these stations the best even advantage and FM parity.

That said, AM MW as such peculiar advantages as to be an undeniable "backbone" for wide area communication and very useful when
appropriately managed as the FCC did from inception to the 1970's.

I think if AMs could migrate to 5-6, there would be those who would quickly go dark on their MW BC AMs.
If they are primarily smaller stations, the FCC could easily restore some semblence of "clear, regional and local" for those wishing
to remain on MW. Certainly the 50 kw NDs will want to stay, as primary EAS stations for so many good reasons.

This would do much to return to MW the best use of its advantages.

At this time, all commercial stations could re-map to 540-1400, and the 1400-1700 could be LPAM, hobbyist pt 15 and existing
low power services as Traffic, talking house, aiport info, municpal info, etc.

Just please somehow recognize that MW hasn't the proper resolutionto run data reliably at the rate ibiquity would
like to run it.

Didn't anyone at ibiquity ever try to get "hi-speed" RTTY to copy in the old days?
I guess not. They're not radio people. If they were, they'd already know about data rates on longer wavelenghts.

Human hearing, interpretation and recognition are so much better than any scheme that in MW, any other mode of mod/detection
other than AM is ..... I lack the word here....pointless?

Very well thought out Tom, but it makes too much sense for this FCC. :

 

[LinoNYC]

I think reality is, in the case of HD Radio, kinda like this: Outside of the dozen anti/pro posters on radio-info.com's HD board, members of the Alliance, iBiquity Digital Corporation, a few demoralized FCC wonks, equipment manufacturers, Glynn Walden, Cris Alexander and an estimated two dozen proud regular users of HD radios....

NOBODY CARES.

HD has already been surpassed in the marketplace by far cooler, more user-friendly personal entertainment devices.

Since TV had eclipsed cinema by the mid-fifties then Cinerama, Cinemascope, Todd-AO, multi channel sound were a waste of time.

Then we have this whopper:

In case nobody has noticed it, that's why you can scarcely buy the dopey radios at retail - RS, BB, CC and others have gotten the message from consumers and have bailed.

The three RS stores, two BB's and Two CC's that I frequent all have HD sets on display. Nobody is paying attention to them or any other radios, but what would you expect these days. The satRad displays are silent and ignored too.

But as vsa has succinctly observed here, the HD brouhaha blares ongoing, public and embarassing failure in the marketplace and poses a massive distraction and dissipation of needed industry resources.

This seems to contradict your statement that "NOBODY CARES. If so then where is the embarrassing failure?

It also divides us into groups of elites and nonparticipants and pits us against each other. Just read this board. We really need to be working together to find real solutions for radio.

The only reasons people on this board get pitted against each other are when some try to pass opinion as fact and selfish interest as greater good. The ever present myopia is excusable.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Is Citadel dumping HD from their AM stations? WJR has been analog-only 24/7 for sometime now, so I hope that they're not paying premiums to iBiquity when they're not even using their technology.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Is Citadel dumping HD from their AM stations? WJR has been analog-only 24/7 for sometime now, so I hope that they're not paying premiums to iBiquity when they're not even using their technology.

If so, I haven't seen a public statement about it. Citadel's DOE ordered some time ago that his group's AM stations not use HD during nighttime hours, but I don't believe they've dumped it altogether. If they had, I'm betting it would have been all over the industry periodicals.

 

[KB1OKL]

Is Citadel dumping HD from their AM stations? WJR has been analog-only 24/7 for sometime now, so I hope that they're not paying premiums to iBiquity when they're not even using their technology.

If so, I haven't seen a public statement about it. Citadel's DOE ordered some time ago that his group's AM stations not use HD during nighttime hours, but I don't believe they've dumped it altogether. If they had, I'm betting it would have been all over the industry periodicals.

I think given all the pressure to push HD at all costs by certain ahemmm... partys, these companies are all afraid to be the first to publicly dump IBOC, it's just dieing a slow death as the Yugo did. Since when are big corporations brave enough to do something as ballsy as saying to iBquity: Your system sucks.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Since TV had eclipsed cinema by the mid-fifties then Cinerama, Cinemascope, Todd-AO, multi channel sound were a waste of time.

The only reasons people on this board get pitted against each other are when some try to pass opinion as fact and selfish interest as greater good. The ever present myopia is excusable.

Interesting comparison. Things like Cinerama were very much ahead of their time. Now you have "widescreen" format HDTV, DVD, etc. Not quite as wide as Cinerama, but you can finally enjoy "How the West Was Won", "The Longest Day", and "Lawrence of Arabia" a little closer to the original viewing experience in Cinerama movie theaters.

Multi-channel, Quadraphonic, and other attempts at surround sound have finally caught on in the marketplace as 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 - whatev - surround sound. A little different, but the same idea. In fact, one of the selling points for HD FM used to be the capability of 5.1 surround sound. For cars that already have the speakers for DVD systems, it might be a real selling point. But I haven't heard a lot about it lately. The only thing I am hearing is the "pay for HD-2" stuff. What a brain dead idea that is - to eclipse one of the main selling points for HD, that it is FREE compared to satellite!

Myopia has been on both sides of the issue. I, for one, tend to put the needs of isolate people in the rural West ahead of the desire of big city broadcasters to have stereo musical beds and stereo commercials on news / talk / sports AM stations. And big bandwidth hog FM stations jamming first adjacent rim shot NPR and smaller stations off the FM dial in suburban locations. Unconscionable. Arrogant. Unnecessary - radio wasn't "broken" because of technical issues. The problem was CONTENT when big corporate programmers and lawyers ruined both dials. You wouldn't have an explosion of interest in iPods, satellite, and streaming if local radio provided what listeners wanted in the first place. But then, I am being SELFISH by saying all that. And MYOPIC I suppose. Even though I haven't expressed a single self-serving opinion in this paragraph.

 

[clouseau]

The only thing I am hearing is the "pay for HD-2" stuff. What a brain dead idea that is - to eclipse one of the main selling points for HD, that it is FREE compared to satellite!

I keep hearing the refrain, but has anyone on this board EVER seen one single Pay for play HD broadcast EVER? I'm talking one single solitary minute of HD programming which they personally were denied because they did not pay. Anyone??? Bueller?? To continue griping about pay radio is pointless. "I" just don't think it exists. (Maybe I'm Wrong)

You wouldn't have an explosion of interest in iPods, satellite, and streaming if local radio provided what listeners wanted in the first place.

I can't agree with this either. This is the "ME" generation, now. That is... I want EXACTLY what I want, NOW". Be it Nickelback, Sousa or KC & the Sunshine band, many folks just want exactly what they want to hear and they want it exactly when they want it. Including their kid singing happy birthday. That's not bad radio IMHO. That's personal choice. The I-Pod is merely an extension of the Record Collection. It's not the fault of bad radio.
Satelite radio? Streaming? Maybe, but they aren't exactly setting the world on fire. And the next compelling streaming station I hear will be the first. But that's just me.

But then, I am being SELFISH by saying all that. And MYOPIC I suppose. Even though I haven't expressed a single self-serving opinion in this paragraph.

Nonesense, you're obviously being paid to post here. I guarantee you make at least as much money as I do.

Clouseau

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Nonesense, you're obviously being paid to post here. I guarantee you make at least as much money as I do.

Good one! I think iBiquity would probably pay me to shut up --- or put out a contract on me.

 

[Savage]

Shortly after Citadel pulled the plug on nighttime HD-AM last fall (two weeks after it was FCC-authorized) Martin Stabbert advised all stations that whether or not they used HD at all would be delegated to individual, local station management.

In other words, if it's too big a nuisance just turn it off - it's fine with corporate engineering.

 

[Carmine5]

Shortly after Citadel pulled the plug on nighttime HD-AM last fall (two weeks after it was FCC-authorized) Martin Stabbert advised all stations that whether or not they used HD at all would be delegated to individual, local station management.

In other words, if it's too big a nuisance just turn it off - it's fine with corporate engineering.

Although, I don't know if Crawford has shut down HD at night.

What's so strange is that the FCC, which is usually so anal about interference issues, has been totally silent on the matter of nighttime interference with HD-AM. They approved it and that's the last they've said about HD-AM at night, even though stations are discovering problems with it.

Doesn't make sense.

C5

 

[JohnnyElectron]

There was an article in RW a while back about "Conditional Access" for HD radio. Works the same a SatRad: each radio has a serial number, and if you don't pay and get your radio's serial number in the system, you don't get the program.
Conditional Access on HD Radio would be a kamikazi mission IMO, as it would render existing HD radio base useless for HD reception on stations with CA, although it might only be the HD2 channels; still, it would defeat the "free" HD radio promos too.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Update: WJR and WFDF have both dropped their AM-HD. Who's next?