Tyler CC stations scrolling song/title info

[average_joe]

I drove my wife's car over the weekend and noticed the CC group scrolling the title and artist info across the display. How long have they been doing that?

Anyone know why it's taken so long to reach the Tyler/Longview market? Is it expensive to do, or do you think that operators just don't feel it's important enought to worry about?

 

[nuzguy]

Don't know about the cost factor. But given the apathy that prevails in the market, it's most likely the later factor accounting for the delay in implementing the technology here.

 

[johnqdoe]

Don't know about the cost factor. But given the apathy that prevails in the market, it's most likely the later factor accounting for the delay in implementing the technology here.

Apathy is a good word to describe this market. I just wonder what will happen if someone FINALLY decides to put another rock station on. People were scared of Urban for years...then the Blaze kicked everyone's butt....now there are several versions of Urban leaning stations.

 

[Garrett]

Yeah, a lot of stations around the country are doing it. Wish they did that here in Lubbock, I'd love to see that in my Ford, but lately, we're lucky that some stations can even get their station name on the RDS around here.... :-\

I drove my wife's car over the weekend and noticed the CC group scrolling the title and artist info across the display. How long have they been doing that?

Anyone know why it's taken so long to reach the Tyler/Longview market? Is it expensive to do, or do you think that operators just don't feel it's important enought to worry about?

 

[musicsweep]

It's kind of dangerous. I find myself watching the scrolling song titles and not the road.

What all is involved in making that work?

 

[freqgeek]

It's a multipart system. Your automation software must export your data first usually xml or flattext. Than you have to transport that data to your transmitter. Then with an RDS encoder the data itself is placed on a specific subcarrier. In our market, the necessary subcarrier is being leased to another provider so we can't use RDS. Cost wise, it's an investment of about $10,000 if you don't already have some of the parts.

 

[Garrett]

It's a multipart system. Your automation software must export your data first usually xml or flattext. Than you have to transport that data to your transmitter. Then with an RDS encoder the data itself is placed on a specific subcarrier. In our market, the necessary subcarrier is being leased to another provider so we can't use RDS. Cost wise, it's an investment of about $10,000 if you don't already have some of the parts.

Leased? $10,000 investment? Now I KNOW Lubbock will never see this...

 

[musicsweep]

Thanks Freqgeek, that answered my question.


My Pontiac Montana minivan has this feature. In all honesty, though, most cars in the Tyler market still do not have this feature. (It takes a while for receiver technology to catch up with transmitter technology sometimes.)

I remember when the AM band was extended, and you could have a 10 kw station in the 1600s. A station owner I knew said it would take a while to make the new frequencies viable, as we had to wait for people to get new radios.


One interesting note to this. My wife and I were traveling north of Wichita Falls on 287, and there was one station that, instead of song titles and artists, scrolled sponsors names and phone numbers. Salespeople will sell anything. LOL.

 

[average_joe]

HAHA...too funny! I've been waiting to hear a station sponsor the weekly EAS tests

 

[nuzguy]

In earlier days, surprised enterprising sales people didn't try to line up sponsors for sign on/sign off.

"As we begin another broadcast day, remember Honest John's Used Cars on Main Street sells......................."

"We're leaving the air for the night but Hole in the Wall Doughnuts will be open before we sign back on in the morning."

And if the regulation-crazy legislature gets wind of people looking at their RDS displays, the practice may fall victim to the same attempts at lawmaking as did cellular phones.

 

[johnqdoe]

I know a station in south Texas that has "This hour of music brought to you by _____"

 

[nuzguy]

Coming up--sponsors for each piece of music played.

 

[musicsweep]

"Live from the Coca Cola KRUD studios, its time for the morning news break brought to you buy billy bobs dollar store. Now, from the Chevrolet Newsdesk...Here's Sprint Jones."

 

[ElCheapo]

Most even semi-modern automation systems already have the capability to output the title and artist info. Inovonics offers a few different RDS encoders for under $2,000.

Depending on what type of STL a particular station uses, the encoder may be all they need.

As far as implementation goes, it all comes down to whether they can monetize it or not and whether they can afford to be without it or not. In the major markets, I assume most stations are now RDS. In many smaller markets, they're not. In larger markets, the additional Arbitron recall they might get from RDS makes it worthwhile - in these markets a 10th of a share can mean substantial revenue.

In smaller markets, I can think of many stations that would gladly GIVE UP more than a 10th of a share FOREVER if it meant saving $2,000 TODAY.

 

[johnqdoe]

"Live from the Coca Cola KRUD studios, its time for the morning news break brought to you buy billy bobs dollar store. Now, from the Chevrolet Newsdesk...Here's Sprint Jones."

If they can make $$$$ form it, they will. Your post realllly isn't THAT far off!

 

[Garrett]

Every thing you just wrote is already being done by various stations. XXsportsradio in San Diego sold the naming rights to their radio studio as "the SAIC studios." KAMC 28, KCBD 11 and KLBK 13 here in Lubbock all have sold naming rights to thier weather casts, tower-cams, the news that scrolls on the bottom, the sports scores and even the legal ID's.

It's also nothing new for radio stations to have their bumper stickers sponsored by food and beverage companies (like Pepsi, Coke, McDonalds, Gas Stations, etc).

"Live from the Coca Cola KRUD studios, its time for the morning news break brought to you buy billy bobs dollar store. Now, from the Chevrolet Newsdesk...Here's Sprint Jones."

If they can make $$$$ form it, they will. Your post realllly isn't THAT far off!

 

[CW]

It's a multipart system. Your automation software must export your data first usually xml or flattext. Than you have to transport that data to your transmitter. Then with an RDS encoder the data itself is placed on a specific subcarrier. In our market, the necessary subcarrier is being leased to another provider so we can't use RDS. Cost wise, it's an investment of about $10,000 if you don't already have some of the parts.

RDS on the 57 kHz subcarrier has been around for decades...but noone used it until recently because of the need for serial data to the encoder (and before, that meant encoding it manually or via some file made up by programming people)..now with automation gear being able to export the song title, etc while it plays the song, its easy to do..and it doesnt cost $10K to put a RDS system online. You CAN encode at the studio using a RF STL path if the xmtr can handle it...otherwise, a simple RS232 data stream can be done on 450 or other freqs.
Some other uses of the 57 subcarrier had been paging (CUE Paging) but they died a while back...used pagers with SLOW scanning FM rcvrs looking for data on the 57kHz subcarrier....problem was if it lost lock for more than 2-3 secs, it took off scanning again....in some areas, you would NEVER get the pages even though there were signals..yuk! (I owned one for a while...what a waste)