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Toyotas Getting HD et al.
- Thread starter dumber than a box of hair
- Start date
16 million is a pretty big audience for any one outlet these days. Our information and entertainment technologies have been greatly expanded and atomized in this digital era. The general specification as to what exactly constitutes 'mass media' should perhaps be downsized a bit.
The media culture we old-timers use as our benchmark was the product of a rogue wave of cultural, technological and demographic elements that probably reached its highest peak somewhere between 1970 and 1980. Most of us in the mainstream of that wave heard, watched or read pretty much the same things, because there weren't that many choices. Three big TV networks. A half-dozen radio stations in most towns. Ten or twenty major record labels. A handful of widely-distributed print periodicals. A few big movie studios.
That unique period of limited program selection and huge available audience was perfectly normal for those of us who lived through it, but is not likely to recur. The greatest irony of that 'golden age' is that the generally high level of product quality we all enjoyed back then, and remember so fondly today, was made possible only by the dense concentration of capital resources and collective production talent that was inherent in a primitive system of such limited choices.
These days, much of the available human energy devoted to composing great songs, mounting elaborate productions and telling unforgettable stories is diffused daily into millions of podcasts, Facebook walls, blogs, tweets and YouTube clips. Most of these creations never amount to anything more than a ripple on the ocean of the Web, but a few large waves do occasionally build up and splash around for a while.
Some of those big web waves even overflow into the traditional mass media like radio and TV, but the rest of us are still likely to miss them because our attention is so randomly focused within that vast realm of choices and channels. The critical mass of shared presentation and appreciation that necessarily defines mass culture is increasingly rare. Classic hits are only classic if lots of people got to hear them in the first place.
Unique sports or news events like the Super Bowl or the Tucson shooting are among the few mass media experiences that still happen the way they used to, with tens or even hundreds of millions of people witnessing the same thing at the same time. Almost everything else is ground up into billions of bits and set adrift on the worlds' internet servers, waiting to be browsed up by wandering web surfers.
So, who needs 'mass media' now that anyone with an iPhone can be their own worldwide gatekeeper, editor, reporter, performer, broadcaster or publisher?
Many of us old folks still do. It is pretty tiresome keeping up with all that new-fangled cellphone and computer stuff. Too many little buttons that are too hard to see. Too many choices that are too hard to make.
Enough of that. It's time for my nap. Later I guess I'll settle back in my old chair and rock away the evening to the sound of classic 70's hits on that nice HD-2 radio station. Can't seem to recall the name of the channel, but I do know the words to all the songs. No annoying commercials or deejays either.
The media culture we old-timers use as our benchmark was the product of a rogue wave of cultural, technological and demographic elements that probably reached its highest peak somewhere between 1970 and 1980. Most of us in the mainstream of that wave heard, watched or read pretty much the same things, because there weren't that many choices. Three big TV networks. A half-dozen radio stations in most towns. Ten or twenty major record labels. A handful of widely-distributed print periodicals. A few big movie studios.
That unique period of limited program selection and huge available audience was perfectly normal for those of us who lived through it, but is not likely to recur. The greatest irony of that 'golden age' is that the generally high level of product quality we all enjoyed back then, and remember so fondly today, was made possible only by the dense concentration of capital resources and collective production talent that was inherent in a primitive system of such limited choices.
These days, much of the available human energy devoted to composing great songs, mounting elaborate productions and telling unforgettable stories is diffused daily into millions of podcasts, Facebook walls, blogs, tweets and YouTube clips. Most of these creations never amount to anything more than a ripple on the ocean of the Web, but a few large waves do occasionally build up and splash around for a while.
Some of those big web waves even overflow into the traditional mass media like radio and TV, but the rest of us are still likely to miss them because our attention is so randomly focused within that vast realm of choices and channels. The critical mass of shared presentation and appreciation that necessarily defines mass culture is increasingly rare. Classic hits are only classic if lots of people got to hear them in the first place.
Unique sports or news events like the Super Bowl or the Tucson shooting are among the few mass media experiences that still happen the way they used to, with tens or even hundreds of millions of people witnessing the same thing at the same time. Almost everything else is ground up into billions of bits and set adrift on the worlds' internet servers, waiting to be browsed up by wandering web surfers.
So, who needs 'mass media' now that anyone with an iPhone can be their own worldwide gatekeeper, editor, reporter, performer, broadcaster or publisher?
Many of us old folks still do. It is pretty tiresome keeping up with all that new-fangled cellphone and computer stuff. Too many little buttons that are too hard to see. Too many choices that are too hard to make.
Enough of that. It's time for my nap. Later I guess I'll settle back in my old chair and rock away the evening to the sound of classic 70's hits on that nice HD-2 radio station. Can't seem to recall the name of the channel, but I do know the words to all the songs. No annoying commercials or deejays either.
Lee, you have it exactly right!! To sound older than I'd like to: I remember when I was a kid and everyone of my age pretty much watched the same shows on TV and listened to the same two or three stations on the radio. Actually, when I was a little kid, the SAME station on the radio. I recall walking along beaches in Rhode Island and on Cape Cod and hearing one radio after another tuned to WABC! Nobody does that now, as we now have Walkman-style radios, iPods and the like - all with headphones. But 35 years ago, people would just plop their battery powered radio on the blanket and crank it up. Most from any given age group tended to listen to the same thing.
Today, we have a universe of choices when it comes to video and audio entertainment. Yes, we have most certainly lost that sense of a "common" experience that we once had. After all, name even the most popular show on TV now and more than 2/3 of the people you'll ask have probably never seen it. A far cry from the likes of Happy Days or the Brady Bunch or Dallas.
To have a subscriber base of 16,000,000 for anything these days is pretty good, actually. It's tough for people to agree on anything and the business model for satellite does try to take advantage of that. No, it's not a raving success by any stretch - but lets compare it with Ibiquity's child from Hell:
The total number of HD radio listeners is hard to read, but there are only a couple million receivers out there right now - and most are probably being used to listen to the same radio stations that the rest of us do. Then there are some geeks, like me, who own 3 different HD receivers and who doesn't use them that often. So it's hard to gauge how HD listenership is doing. Probably not well, because HD streams don't make the ratings unless broadcast via an analog translator.
So, though satellite radio may not be the success that was touted 10 years ago, it is still a virtual gold mine when compared with the ROI for HD radio - which has no buzz and no interest. And that is in spite of millions of dollars worth of advertising.
Today, we have a universe of choices when it comes to video and audio entertainment. Yes, we have most certainly lost that sense of a "common" experience that we once had. After all, name even the most popular show on TV now and more than 2/3 of the people you'll ask have probably never seen it. A far cry from the likes of Happy Days or the Brady Bunch or Dallas.
To have a subscriber base of 16,000,000 for anything these days is pretty good, actually. It's tough for people to agree on anything and the business model for satellite does try to take advantage of that. No, it's not a raving success by any stretch - but lets compare it with Ibiquity's child from Hell:
The total number of HD radio listeners is hard to read, but there are only a couple million receivers out there right now - and most are probably being used to listen to the same radio stations that the rest of us do. Then there are some geeks, like me, who own 3 different HD receivers and who doesn't use them that often. So it's hard to gauge how HD listenership is doing. Probably not well, because HD streams don't make the ratings unless broadcast via an analog translator.
So, though satellite radio may not be the success that was touted 10 years ago, it is still a virtual gold mine when compared with the ROI for HD radio - which has no buzz and no interest. And that is in spite of millions of dollars worth of advertising.
It is radio's own fault that they are in the boat they are though. If they played more variety instead of only a small selection of songs, they would have more listeners. If they would have DJ's that are worth a crap, more people would listen. If they would have local, not syndicated crap, they would have more listeners. Sadly all three of these things are getting worse. Sound quality is not an element of success in my opinion.
The total amount of HD radio listeners is very small compared to analog. However, we have seen that others countries are in a similar situation for DAB/DAB+. Digital and radio are simply not meant to go together. That is not stopping them though. If you polled the amount of people who wanted the digital TV transition, it is safe to assume not many wanted it. More channels did not make much of an impact in consumers minds, similar to the HD radio situation. But the government's mandate did make an impact. If the radio industry continues to push they will eventually win and consumers will go HD. It has been rumored that HD Radio could be included in future Ipods/Iphones. If that happened, HD radio would suddenly be in nearly every house in a matter of a few years.
The total amount of HD radio listeners is very small compared to analog. However, we have seen that others countries are in a similar situation for DAB/DAB+. Digital and radio are simply not meant to go together. That is not stopping them though. If you polled the amount of people who wanted the digital TV transition, it is safe to assume not many wanted it. More channels did not make much of an impact in consumers minds, similar to the HD radio situation. But the government's mandate did make an impact. If the radio industry continues to push they will eventually win and consumers will go HD. It has been rumored that HD Radio could be included in future Ipods/Iphones. If that happened, HD radio would suddenly be in nearly every house in a matter of a few years.
Casey said:
Well, the receivers would be in every house. Whether they would work very well or not depends on many factors. The fact remains that HD doesn't work very well unless it transmits from a high-power FM. It's great in Texas where stations are 100KW at 2,000 feet. It doesn't work so well in parts of the country where ERP's are lower and stations are packed closer together. The fact remains that HD uses the adjacent channel. So besides causing interference, HD's range is limited by the presence of an adjacent-channel analog station.
Dave B.
Savage said:
20 million is the current subscriber base for the satellite channels, but many of the installs are used by more than one person so the cume might be around 45 to 50 million.
I'm betting the cume for CKLW was less than 2 million. At the time of its dominance of the Detroit market, most metros did not have as many counties as they do today... daytime 2 mv/m coverage of WJR today is 9.5 million and CKLW is 5.8 million. The US (and Canada) had 35% less population in 1970, so day coverage of CK might have been about 4.5 million... assuming a huge cume reach of 30%, that's still only about 1.4 milllion. And nights had even less effective population coverage as the pattern pulled in... also remember that Pulse and Hooper had no true weekly cume, as they did coincidental or 24 hour recall measurement, and arbitron was not in all markets, as they only started to roll out in 1965, coincidentally in Detroit.
Savage said:
I took that into consideration. CKLW at best only penetrated parts of Cleveland.
As I said, if they cumed 30% of the total people in the 2 mv/m coverage area, it would be about 1.3 to 1.4 million people total.
I think an element of hyperbole may have been at work in the CKLW sales department.
KB1OKL said:
The signal was not good enough and consistent enough and radio listening at night was not high enough for the station to even show in the ratings outside the immediate area. And the directionality of the station at night plus the interference (500 kw TWR and 150 kw XELO for starters) limited the signal towards most areas where there was high population density. It was even limited in Canada by station like CHAB, Moose Jaw, CJAD, Montreal, CJBQ, Belleville, ON, CFOB, Ft. Francis, ON, and CJLX Ft. William, ON. Keep in mind that 800 is a Mexican clear channel, and Canadian stations are severely limited towards Mexico.
Could very well have been some hype in the CKLW sales department, which was doing very, very well in those days. I don't know; it was a unionized station and at that stage of my career I had nothing to do with sales. All of us "talent" types hung out in the back half of the building and in the air studios, which were still called by the quaint moniker "Transcription."
As in: "Mr. Savage, you left your headphones in Transcription again. Please make it a practise (note Canadian spelling) to store them safely in your cubicle in the jock lounge."
As in: "Mr. Savage, you left your headphones in Transcription again. Please make it a practise (note Canadian spelling) to store them safely in your cubicle in the jock lounge."
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