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Time to reconsider AM stereo?
- Thread starter audioguy
- Start date
Already widely available. It's called podcasting and internet radio. Most already have hundreds of thousands of listening choices available on their computers and can add wireless capability by WiFi, iPhone, or soon WiMax. The wireless internet radios are selling briskly with more and more new models being introduced. Strongly trending upward, frequent listeners are projected to soon be over 100 million. Wireless phones are adding high quality digital streaming, podcasting and on-demand stations. Corporations, AM and FM broadcasters as well as individual entrepreneurs can all join the party at minimal expense. What could be better!
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Actually I'm talking about a mobile device that functions like an IPod with the same portability, but there is no cost to the consumer other than purchase of the device. No music to download, no Wi-fi connection required except to upload your song/content list (which can be a small text file sent via a cell transmitter in the device). This way one could use the current MW spectrum currently allocated to Antique Modulation stations within a market, to send content to the portable device. The content is erased after it's played, so the amount of on-device storage is minimal.
Live Internet streaming radio is fine, provided you are sitting at a computer or have one of those Net radios plugged into a broadband connection. To most of the youth today don't consider Internet radio very interesting, mainly because it's not portable (nor small). Mainly us oldsters find that amusing, but if the Tax Man and ASCAP, BMI, ect. keep flogging away for royalties and taxes, these Internet radio stations will come and go (quickly). Most independant Internet radio stations without a terrestrial signal behind it, find it difficult to stay in business very long.
Mike Walker said:
Right now, that is correct, but the article failed to mention the idea of a "mesh technology." Instead, it assumes that Internet access must be transmitted from tower to user, just like radio, which is more or less how it is currently distributed. It doesn't have to be that way.
Using a mesh repeater system, every Internet user is an access point of another user (think of peer-to-peer file sharing). You end up with a grid that looks something like a piece of chicken wire with signals relaying from user to user as well as to towers. That greatly increases the mathematical probability of accommodating huge numbers of users. The technology exists right now. Most likely it isn't in wide-spread use, because it is easier to bill each user, when you (the service provider) have absolute control of the signal. With a mesh system, the user actually becomes the provider.
I'm pretty sure that if there is enough demand for Internet service, someone will figure out how to provide it and make money in the process.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
You may be right Chuck, but "pretty sure" someone will overcome the problem doesn't change the fact the problem exists now. There simply isn't enough bandwidth, particularly mobile bandwidth, for internet radio to replace terrestrial radio.
These articles explain how cellular network bandwidth constraints may be overcome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Broadcast_Multicast_Service
http://alturl.com/26i3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Broadcast_Multicast_Service
http://alturl.com/26i3
Mike Walker said:
I doubt that anything will replace terrestrial radio in my lifetime, and probably not in yours either. I hope not, since I'm currently in the process of purchasing a small Class A FM. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is.
On the other hand, I see no problem with the technologies coexisting. We should embrace the Internet.
"Broadcasters" are really just content providers. How their programming gets to the end user is really irrelevant, as long as the ability to receive the "broadcast" is not compromised. The problem with HD is, in many cases, it compromises that process.
As I've said many times, I'm not at all opposed to digital radio, multicasting, itunes tagging, displaying the song playing, or any of the features we'd all like. I just think there is a better way to do these things than what we currently have on the table.
As we say here in "the land of selling advertising to local car dealers, restaurants, home repair contractors and the like:"
Get a major credit card number. Or certified funds. Or cash. UP FRONT. (On the rare occasions when a check hits the ceiling, we have a "make it good or we file a protest in 5 business days" policy. New York has a very harsh "presumption of intent to defraud" with bad checks written on business accounts.)
If there's anything worse than being out of work - it's working for somebody else and not getting paid for it.
Get a major credit card number. Or certified funds. Or cash. UP FRONT. (On the rare occasions when a check hits the ceiling, we have a "make it good or we file a protest in 5 business days" policy. New York has a very harsh "presumption of intent to defraud" with bad checks written on business accounts.)
If there's anything worse than being out of work - it's working for somebody else and not getting paid for it.
TheBigA said:
IF you Build IT, THEY Will Come . . .
Someone that does this will do it for the passion of sharing the Music in a Cummunity setting, and do it on a shoestring.
A GOOD thing gets arounf by word of mouth.
Drones, on the other hand, will listen to a station, just because.... their buddies do...For that reason alone. And their buddies listen because they don't have a clue.
I think we will call that, the Blind LEADING the BLIND. Or, in other words.... what Consultants REALLY Do
TheRover said:
This is what my Part 15 AM is all about. It cost me a few dollars, but I live in one of the very highest density areas in Chicago, and can be heard by thousands.
Metrics are the death of art, attempting to measure and quantify it makes it shy, feeble, and/or squashes it entirely.
I understand well the whole business vs. art aspect of radio, which is why I made a conscious decision to stay out of the radio business.
That does not set well with my radio engineering education and love for radio, but it has at least kept me in stable employment,
while I have watched the bottom-line mentality destroy the most valuable ( to me, at least ) aspects of radio.
On a brighter note, WGN just played a cut from a 1939 Fred Waring radio show with Les Paul and DJango Reinhardt together on guitars.
Now there's some good radio.
Bravo WGN for playing music AND dropping ibiquity's hiss box into the Chicago River (figuratively speaking).
Tom Wells said:
Was that Les Paul cut on the Steve & Johnny overnight show? They love Les Paul and rightly so IMO.
Back in 1995 we decided to go Classic Hits with our Class A FM. We could have hired a consultant for five figures and done auditorium testing, but decided instead on "old school programming." That consisted of three veteran radio guys together in a conference room where we plunked a photocopied song list from a CD service in front of each one. We did the "round robin" approach, poring over 2000 titles one by one. We tossed a football around, sent out for pizza and soft drinks, sang hooks to jog each others' memories and didn't come out til we were done.
By 4pm we had a playlist of about 700 titles including "lunar orbiters." The concept was simple: rock anthems from name groups, starting right after the British Invasion around 1965, and ending with the debut of drum machines about 1982. So: Stones, yes. Duran Duran, no.
We went into the studio and cranked out some cool liners and promos with some swagger and attitude, pumped it all into Selector, and put it on. It was a phenomenal, instant success. We sold the station within a year for $2 million. The station consisted of a 486 computer and 24 CD changers on the old BE Sentry System, plus a transmitter site atop an old microwave relay tower. 2 mil.
To this day, people fondly remember "The River 93.3" (the new owners brought in consultants who clucked their tongues at us, smugly informed us how many listeners we were missing with our seat-of-the-pants programming, hauled out the research and told us they'd show us "how it's done." I knew it was over for The River the day I drove in to work and heard Seals and Crofts in morning drive. Within six months they had totally screwed up the concept and the station lost half its audience. Shortly thereafter they flipped it to oldies.)
If you want a job done right - do it yourself. The Beatles and Ford's Mustang were not developed by focus groups. They were conceived by inspired individuals with a vision. VISION: what's lacking in radio management in epidemic degree.
By 4pm we had a playlist of about 700 titles including "lunar orbiters." The concept was simple: rock anthems from name groups, starting right after the British Invasion around 1965, and ending with the debut of drum machines about 1982. So: Stones, yes. Duran Duran, no.
We went into the studio and cranked out some cool liners and promos with some swagger and attitude, pumped it all into Selector, and put it on. It was a phenomenal, instant success. We sold the station within a year for $2 million. The station consisted of a 486 computer and 24 CD changers on the old BE Sentry System, plus a transmitter site atop an old microwave relay tower. 2 mil.
To this day, people fondly remember "The River 93.3" (the new owners brought in consultants who clucked their tongues at us, smugly informed us how many listeners we were missing with our seat-of-the-pants programming, hauled out the research and told us they'd show us "how it's done." I knew it was over for The River the day I drove in to work and heard Seals and Crofts in morning drive. Within six months they had totally screwed up the concept and the station lost half its audience. Shortly thereafter they flipped it to oldies.)
If you want a job done right - do it yourself. The Beatles and Ford's Mustang were not developed by focus groups. They were conceived by inspired individuals with a vision. VISION: what's lacking in radio management in epidemic degree.
Savage said:
All that's fine when you're a small business. I've done both, large and small, and here's what I've learned:
It's hard to run a small business like a big business. It's hard to run a big business like a small one. They're each unique and different, with their own advantages and disadvantages. A big business run with vision is a dictatorship. I've worked at those too. The best is to be in a small business with the resources of a big business. Right now, some radio companies are big businesses with the resources of small businesses. That's not good.
People are looking for answers. It's easier to take risks and chances when you have some success and some resources to draw on. It's harder when everything you try seems to flop, and when there are lots of people just waiting for you to fall on your face so they can laugh. That's the situation radio's in. That's not a creative environment. No one had any expectations of the Beatles. Even their own record label expected them to fail. When they didn't everyone wanted to copy what they did, and no one could. There are lots of lessons to be learned. But there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
TheBigA said:
Pay? Donations require no payments. I breathe radio, it just happens. My trainwreck of music is audible to +/- 10,000 in my dense neighorhood.
It is a legal 100 mw pt 15, but I live in what's just about the densest place in the city for population.
I suppose I should send bills to the companies (that still exist) for the commercials I run. I run old commercials that I ENJOY.
No, I won't say which products or companies. I don't promote the station in any way. If someone tunes in, it's their choice to listen or not.
Teddy Lewis is now on with "Where'd you get those eyes?' (1933)
I run a drop-in where a 14 year old snotty-nose punk band member (from a 1983 aircheck) says " And whoever doesn't like us can die. "
It's snotty and fun at the same time. So it's part of the mix.
Now I'm playing King Khan's "Little Girl in the Woods". So if you don't like everything from Louie Prima to the Ramones, with a lot of
1960's grunge, some hits, some groaners, and more ephemera and lost 45's than you can shake a stick at, it's not the station for you.
But in my neighborhood I'm sure there are people who "get it".
Artists are at their best when they follow their own vision. As Bob points out, the music is the sweetest on a station you build yourself.
Now old blue eyes is singing "Summer Wind".
I built it, and run the whole thing as a donation to my community. I take no payments and make no payments.
If someone hears something they like, they may search it out and buy a copy somewhere for their own collection.
And the artist makes more money. That IS how radio traditionally works.
Now on is Cheech and Chong with "Don't Bug Me", into Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood's "Ladybird".
No business at all here, just pure unadulterated radio, and it sure is fun.
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