I'm sorry but I don't understand your first sentence.
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Should the US do like Brazil?
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
I'm sorry but I don't understand your first sentence.
Can't agree with that, David. I'll maintain that an older analog FM radio, from a cheap transistor portable to a good quality stereo from the '70s, does not have the selectivity to be able to pick up all the translators and LPFMs that are coming online. Today's technologies and new ICs allow much better reception from stations 400 kHz apart (or even 200 in some cases) than the old tube and transistor superhet designs with a 10.7 MHz IF, which was the standard until the mid 1980s. That goes for the few remaining analog radios in old cars as well. In 2015, these are as obsolete as Great Grandpa's cat-whisker crystal set on AM.
David, you're the only person I've seen on this board and elsewhere saying this. Most of what I've read says the exact opposite, with most listening being while driving. One I just found (PDF) is linked below. Check page 12.
http://www.rab.com/whyradio/images/full_fact_sheet_v2.pdf
Can't agree with that, David. I'll maintain that an older analog FM radio, from a cheap transistor portable to a good quality stereo from the '70s, does not have the selectivity to be able to pick up all the translators and LPFMs that are coming online. Today's technologies and new ICs allow much better reception from stations 400 kHz apart (or even 200 in some cases) than the old tube and transistor superhet designs with a 10.7 MHz IF, which was the standard until the mid 1980s. That goes for the few remaining analog radios in old cars as well. In 2015, these are as obsolete as Great Grandpa's cat-whisker crystal set on AM.
I've worked in markets where there were local stations every 400 kHz on FM and where AMs were licensed every 20 kHz, and the radios of the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's had no trouble dealing with them.
I once owned FMs on 95.1, 95.5 and 95.9 in the same market as well as AMs on 570 and 590 in that same market. No problem even with 60's technology... ever.
Of course, the blanketing areas of each station could affect adjacent stations in small zones, but that is still the case.
The RAB piece talks about cume listening in the car... that is, the number of people who listened for at least 5 minutes a week while in a car. That is a good piece of data for showing the need to buy radio as the reach is extensive in the car, and in-car is the closest you can get to point-of-purchase other than in-store displays and support. The RAB is selling the "captive audience" in cars that is efficiently reached by no other medium and which is massive in terms of market penetration. The idea there is "don't leave radio off your media plan".
But radio is actually bought based on the average "instantaneous" size of its audience, not cume. In other words, "when my spot runs, how many people will hear it?". If you look at the Nielsen data for the 200 diary markets where listening location is broken out by "home", "car" and "at work" and "other" you will find that in-car contributes about 1/3 of the time the average listener spends with radio in a week.
For most people, in-car listening time is limited by the length of their commute, so it is relatively short in duration. Many people do listen in the car... more than at home and at work, but the listening times are brief so the aggregate time spent listening in the car is no greater than that reported for in-home or at-work.
If a radio can pick up, today, all the stations licensed on AM and FM in today's FM and AM bands, it is not obsolete as it does what it is intended to do.
We've had this discussion before but this is an excellent time to summarize it again. I would think the advertiser is more interested in PENETRATION than just HEARING - that is, people actively listening versus background noise.
In a car commuter situation you would be much more likely to have listeners fixated on the radio than in an office or home environment. In my experience, office listening is definitely secondary to the task at hand with frequent interruptions and absences (bathroom/smoke breaks, meetings, visitors etc.). I used to keep earphones on while programming just to block out the unwanted noise from adjacent cubicles but my complete focus was on my job, not the radio. The last person I knew who kept a radio on while home was my little sister who was home with her two babies but that was in the late 60's. Unless someone is home listening to a specific show (NPR, baseball game etc.) I don't know of anyone who "just listens". In my experience they are far more apt to have the TV on than the radio.
And I am talking adults only here. Anyone under the age of 20 is probably listening to Pandora or their own music library than OTA radio.
Perhaps the confusion stems from your typo of "630" rather than "530" when stating the lowest frequency in the AM band that tops out at 1700.
But people who are actively listening will sometimes change the station when advertising comes on. That's not the case with the passive listener, which allows the advertising messages to seep into the brain subliminally and influence the listener whether he knows he's been influenced or not.
You also stumble into the "no one I know does x, therefore nobody does x" logical fallacy yet again.
Hah! I just saw that. Of course it should read "530 to 1700" for today's AM band and 88 to 108 for FM.
I was part of a committee formed by Arbitron about 7 years ago with the purpose of looking into the creation of an "engagement metric" that would show the degree of involvement with a station each listener had. The committee had representatives from Arbitron, from the agency and buying side and from radio.
The conclusion was that buys looked for impressions, and an additional metric would complicate the buying process and make radio even more time consuming to buy. The idea was abandoned.
At that point in time, buyers of radio advertising wanted impressions. They were not concerned about how engaged with the station a listener might be, but, rather, whether the commercial was heard. The sentiment that was expressed is that they factor into the cost of any media buy the fact that some listeners or viewers will not pay attention... so they already have built this into their pricing models. This is no different than buyers of newspaper and magazine ads being aware that not every ad on every page gets noticed... but enough do to justify the cost.
That's not true. In any situation, we have moments of attention and moments... such as when in tense driving situations... when we "tune out" the noise from the radio and we just don't "hear" it.
But, again, the advertiser knows this. And that is factored into the evaluation of the rates paid for campaigns. Again using the newspaper analogy, it is no different than knowing that "my" ad in the sports section will not be seen by most women and, also, not seen by many less engaged sports fans who don't read the whole section.
True, and that "active listener" is far more likely to be in the car than at home or work. And, in any event, doesn't that also defeat the advertiser's intent? Paying good money for his message to be ignored. Especially if the listener knows there are likely to be 5 or 6 commercials strung together.
You have been watching too many Warner Brothers cartoons about sleepwalking.
It's my experience and I'm sticking with it.
Interesting you bring this up because another thought crossed my mind after writing the above and that is, what commercials over TV/radio make the biggest impression on you? Which ones are uploaded to YouTube and become part of Americana? Which commercials do we older folks tend to remember for decades after they aired?
The answer is (drum roll please): TV. And I have my own personal example. Back in the 80's Stiller and Meara did a radio commercial for Blue Nun wine. It was a comedy sketch and featured a woman named "Amazonia". It was hilarious but didn't air very long. Although I am not a wine drinker I remembered this ad for years and years and can still remember most of the dialog. That's about the only commercial from over 60 years of listening to radio I can remember.
TV on the other hand has hundreds if not thousands of examples that most people can recall.
When a commercial comes on TV the viewer is less inclined to hit the scan button than a radio listener is on music radio. The TV viewer selects this particular show to watch and just sees the commercial as a necessary interruption but wants to watch the rest of the show. The radio listener knows there is another song playing on another station and risks nothing bypassing 5 minutes of commercials.
The point I am trying to make here is that giving someone something to watch in addition to something to listen to creates a deeper conscious impression than listening alone, and, watching TV programs are far different than listening to music radio (but perhaps not too much different than intentional radio listening such as the news or sports programming). Applying that to programs sponsored by political advertisers means radio advertising (on music radio) is less penetrating than a similar ad on virtually any TV program. The people looking for more than their 7% of the revenue pie will, of course, disagree with me but I don't see the statistics to prove their side.
I don't think it will happen
Channel 5 and 6 are for TV, I want it to expand, but won't happen
Channel 5 and 6 are for TV, I want it to expand, but won't happen
The fact is you don't see ANY statistics.
I see you are honoring my request.
Yes, CTL to the rescue! I couldn't figure out if it was a typo, the band used in another country or something else entirely.
Didn't VHF channels 5 and 6 move to UHF transmission with the change to DTV?
No. There are TV stations broadcasting on channels 5 and 6.
https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...t2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9
https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...t2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9
This is in 2008
Seems like the public said No to it..So it will never happen ...Besides there no Radios can tune down to 76 MHz in the US
Seems like the public said No to it..So it will never happen ...Besides there no Radios can tune down to 76 MHz in the US
The needs of the wireless industry (used by 99.9% of Americans) are several orders of magnitude more important than the needs of OTA broadcasters (used by about 15% of Americans, plus feeding translators). Congress long ago mandated that spectrum for for-profit use be sold, not allocated, and the FCC made it clear that all current VHF-TV spectrum will remain allocated for television use.
Most if not all these days use a tuner chip that can tune from 76 to 108 MHz. Country-specific firmware sets the subband within that segment.
That's more the reason, not because of the needs of the public. The government wants public assets to be sold, not licensed. That's why the FCC must pay its own way.
Truthfully, if the Congress and FCC wanted to be fair, they'd SELL the AM & FM bands to broadcasters too.
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