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Subscription Terrestrial Radio (USA)

kfbkfb

kfbkfb

I've heard about 2 subscription OTA TV systems, one promoted by Zenith in Chicago:

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and one promoted by ABC TV in Chicago:

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Has terrestrial subscription radio been tried (if so, how recently)?

One way to do it would be to replace the analog audio with digital audio in a regular analog FM signal (not HD signal), this would have 2 benefits, the digital audio would need to be decoded (with subscription enabled radios) and an FM station would not need to install any new equipment to broadcast the new type of signal (just substitute the digital audio for the analog audio).

This could increase the value of weak FM stations, since they could become part of a national subscription radio system (the digital audio would of course contain extra error correction to help overcome reception problems in FM [multipath, low transmitter power/directionality] that can't easily be dealt with by other methods]).


Kirk Bayne
 
kfbkfb said:
Has terrestrial subscription radio been tried (if so, how recently)?
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Technically speaking, that's what public radio is. However, it sounds as though you want the audio to be encoded so that only subscribers can hear it. From what I understand, the FCC doesn't permit encoding of main channel FM stations. The airwaves are supposed to be public, and encoding would make them private. Having said that, some stations have been known to encode their HD signal, and I believe they can also do that to their SCA.
 
kfbkfb said:
I've heard about 2 subscription OTA TV systems, one promoted by Zenith in Chicago:

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and one promoted by ABC TV in Chicago:

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Click to expand...
Zenith's pay-TV efforts were just too early. It failed in Chicago -- in fact, it lost its license when CBS bought the WBKB license and transmitter, and moved to Channel 2 as WBBM-TV after the ABC/United Paramount Theaters merger that moved the WBKB call letters to Channel 7. W9XZV/KS2XBS had occupied Channel 2 since 1946, and had been on pre-war Channel 1 before that. The FCC placed commercial licenses ahead of experimental licenses on the TV food chain, and Zenith was SOL.

Then they tried it in Hartford CT on Channel 18. It failed there as well.

I wonder if anyone ever bothered with TeleFirst. I certainly didn't. It was more trouble than it was worth. IIRC, ABC lost money on it.

ON-TV on WSNS/44 and Sportsvision on WPWR/WBBS/60 (the stations shared time) were destined to fail as well. Not only were decoder boxes easy to build, but a VCR could tune in the picture with careful adjustment of the fine tuning. In the case of games on Sportsvision, the sound would just come from a radio.

Nobody bothered with Spectrum on WFBN/66. It had a more robust scrambling system, but the sound was decoded the same as on ON-TV.

As far as "pay radio" goes, AFAIK, it is illegal on analog and HD1 channels.
 
gr8oldies said:
I remember ONTV on Channel 64 in Cincinnati, which was subscription 6pm until the next morning.
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They were on KNXV/15 Phoenix as well. The station has been much more successful since those days. :D
 
KeithE4 said:
They were on KNXV/15 Phoenix as well. The station has been much more successful since those days. :D
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Speaking of Phoenix, I hear one of their ATSC 3.0 signals carries ESPN and is scrambled, right?
 
Seems like there would have to be a rules change by the FCC, but this could help marginal (profitability wise) FM stations by changing them to part of a subscription network.


Kirk Bayne
 
kfbkfb said:
Seems like there would have to be a rules change by the FCC, but this could help marginal (profitability wise) FM stations by changing them to part of a subscription network.
Click to expand...

Changing the concept of the "public airwaves" would likely require an act of congress. The ability to receive radio without a subscription is seen by the law as a right.

What radio stations can do is put their streaming signal behind a paywall.
 
TheBigA said:
Changing the concept of the "public airwaves" would likely require an act of congress. The ability to receive radio without a subscription is seen by the law as a right.

What radio stations can do is put their streaming signal behind a paywall.
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I pay $60 (plus tax and fees) a year for SiriusXM. There are also thousands of channels between iHeart, Audacy and TuneIn supported by advertising. How much am I supposed to be willing to pay a year for one of my local stations? How exactly do I get a subscription box attached to my car sound system or portable?
 
ZantennaG1 said:
Speaking of Phoenix, I hear one of their ATSC 3.0 signals carries ESPN and is scrambled, right?
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Not that I'm aware. I don't have a converter box for ATSC 3, so I can't say for sure.
 
gr8oldies said:
How much am I supposed to be willing to pay a year for one of my local stations? How exactly do I get a subscription box attached to my car sound system or portable?
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Probably explains why stations aren't clamoring for the opportunity. Memberships at public radio stations usually cost about $100 a year. But only about 7-10% of the listeners actually pay.
 
I might add that that 7-10% that actually donate to public radio is mainly those stations that use firms that specialize in getting good results on fundraising. There may be third party consultants on hand coaching on air staff on the pleas and crafting the hot buttons that get people to call. Many times these companies take care of the fulfillment (ie: the after fund drive details of collecting the pledged amounts). I understand those stations that either have smaller budgets or choose not to use an outside company often see results ranging from 1 in 15 to as low as 1 in 35 pledging and likely the collection rate is far less.

MPR is one of the more successful at listener donations: more than 28.5 million from just over 167,000 'members'. Ratings show MPR's offerings securing about 12-13% of radio listeners with about 5.7 million population, assuming listening beyond the Minneapolis/St. Paul market is about the same (I've seen a couple of county books that seem to indicate about the same numbers). This is based on Nielsen 6+ ratings for what that is worth.
 
KQED'FM ran an overnight experimental encrypted service many decades ago.
Obviousñy it failed. Technically Sirius/XM is also a terrestrial pay radio service as technology includes ground-based repeaters for urban canyons.
 
The Oddity Archive channel on YouTube has done several videos about over-the-air pay TV, both the initial trials back in the '40s and then the UHF channels that started popping up in the late '70s but quickly disappeared once cable TV became widely available by the mid-'80s:

Oddity Archive: Episode 11 - Pay TV (but not Cable or Satellite)

Oddity Archive: Episode 89 - Prehistoric Pay-Per-View

Oddity Archive: Episode 166 - Ben's ONTV Box/Non-Cable Pay TV Vol. 2

Subscription-only terrestrial radio still exists today as SCAs and the data capabilities of HD Radio.
 
Just to ask the obvious question - if encrypted pay TV is currently legal (USA) for OTA (public airwaves) TV signals, is it already legal for OTA FM (and even AM) radio signals?

Another idea - substitute digital audio for analog audio in AM radio [not HD, there would be no analog audio at all], it seems like it would need a very robust error correction scheme for this digital audio in AM radio to work.


Kirk Bayne
 
b-turner said:
I might add that that 7-10% that actually donate to public radio is mainly those stations that use firms that specialize in getting good results on fundraising. There may be third party consultants on hand coaching on air staff on the pleas and crafting the hot buttons that get people to call.
Click to expand...
And all that is why the managers for the major public stations make high six-figure salaries: they are skilled at fund raising. Salaries are based on skills and availability of others with the same skills. Good fund raisers, in general, are in high demand and short supply.
 
kfbkfb said:
Just to ask the obvious question - if encrypted pay TV is currently legal (USA) for OTA (public airwaves) TV signals, is it already legal for OTA FM (and even AM) radio signals?
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To say it's legal isn't exactly correct. One needs to apply to the FCC for permission to do it for TV, and usually it's only for a few hours a day.

As for the use of digital audio on the analog AM band, that too has to be applied for. I'm aware of two stations operating with digital audio on AM. One in DC and the other in NY. I'm told their signals can be received on HD radios. They are not subscription based.
 
TheBigA said:
To say it's legal isn't exactly correct. One needs to apply to the FCC for permission to do it for TV, and usually it's only for a few hours a day.
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The best example was the subscription TV back in the earlier 80's where a few UHFs rented decoders for the viewing of movies on encoded stations. I had a subscription for a while in Miami around 1984, but most of the movies were not prime quality. They rand movies in the evening, and paid un-encoded shows in the daytime.
 
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