Using HD2's for sports coverage?

[Chad-Stevens]

I'm undecided myself on the longterm future of HD on FM, but the multicasting does intrigue me enough to plan to one day purchase an HD radio.

Admittedly it wouldn't make the most of the alleged sound quality, but there are a lot of sports from high school level all the way up to niche professional sports like MLS and lacrosse that do not currently have all their games covered on radio. An HD-2 could be used to fill in that gap and at the same time stimulate interest in HD in people that might not ordinarily take interest.

 

[Chuck]

I'm undecided myself on the longterm future of HD on FM, but the multicasting does intrigue me enough to plan to one day purchase an HD radio.

Admittedly it wouldn't make the most of the alleged sound quality, but there are a lot of sports from high school level all the way up to niche professional sports like MLS and lacrosse that do not currently have all their games covered on radio. An HD-2 could be used to fill in that gap and at the same time stimulate interest in HD in people that might not ordinarily take interest.

I don't think anyone has ever denied that the multicasting aspect of HD is attractive. Local sports-casting is an obvious choice, since every high school football game is at the same time on Friday evening. Even at very reduced bit rates, the quality would be adequate. Many small town sports broadcasts use a simple POTS connection or worse yet, a cell phone, and nobody seems bothered by it.

The funny thing is nobody seems to be really exploiting this obvious idea. Most hard core sports fans will pay whatever it costs to see or hear a game. Getting sponsorship for local sports is about like shooting fish in a barrel.

What many people do object to about HD is the technical way it accomplishes this. So far, on FM, it does not seem to be much of a problem for the majority of stations. Of course, only a small percentage of stations are actually running IBOC (except in major markets) so the full impact has yet to be felt. With the possibility of a 10 db power increase on the sidebands, it may be problematic, especially in short spaced situations.

Oh, I’m sorry, those never happen, and if they do, you aren’t really entitled to listen to those “distant” stations. Sarcastic mode off.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The first thing iBiquity needs to do is cancel their fees for second and third HD channels. That would encourage more of this kind of activity. Corporate America won't put a dime into something that they can't get money back out of, except it seems HD radio itself for the primary channel. LOL (pointless) It would be a great public service to be able to kick on a 2nd and 3rd channel for H.S. sports. Just give some semi-pro anouncer types a cellcast-type setup at their end and a autocoupler on the station's end then let them have fun on HD-3 at a low bitrate. Let them insert their own sports in the field so all the staiton has to do is collect rent for the channel. Simple and it can MAKE MONEY off an otherwise bunk technology.

Another fine idea is brokering HD-2 and HD-3 channels to preachers and ethnic groups. Why not give others the opportunity to do something with technology that Corporate America broadcasters won't produce programming for. Wouldn't it make more sense to let people use some of the expensive technology and recoop some of it's expenses?

Instead we have boring jukeboxes that no one cares about and no one listens to. They stay off the air for days at many stations and no one cares enough to even figure out why. Some hickup, some have dead-air, some just plain suck as a format. But the one thing in common is they are as far from a public SERVICE (for the most part) as they get. At least non-comms get the concept in many cases of putting some DIVERSITY out there on their second and third channels. Corporate radio had nationwide "format labs" and the Radio Alliance. Woopie! How exciting.

 

[Chad-Stevens]

The first thing iBiquity needs to do is cancel their fees for second and third HD channels. That would encourage more of this kind of activity. Corporate America won't put a dime into something that they can't get money back out of, except it seems HD radio itself for the primary channel. LOL (pointless) It would be a great public service to be able to kick on a 2nd and 3rd channel for H.S. sports. Just give some semi-pro anouncer types a cellcast-type setup at their end and a autocoupler on the station's end then let them have fun on HD-3 at a low bitrate. Let them insert their own sports in the field so all the station has to do is collect rent for the channel. Simple and it can MAKE MONEY off an otherwise bunk technology.

snip

Amen brother.

If you're in Oklahoma City (as your nic would imply) you already know how big HS football is, and that the biggest schools can draw crowd sizes into the thousands. Then there's college and minor league sports. All the way up to the MLS level, several teams do not have all their games aired and others have no radio at all. The point is that since the stations are unwilling to promote or even mention their own HD2/3's, let the schools/teams do the promoting of the HD2/3 to their fans. Maybe some will even stay tuned after the postgame show.

Obviously it's not a long term solution, and would only fill a few hours on weekends in place of the automated jukebox, but it would get a lot of people who haven't even heard of the technology (i.e. nearly everyone) to consider investing (even if some schools are already webcasting now). Even if it gets only a little bit of ad revenue, it's more than the automated format lab jukeboxes can get now. Oh yeah, and something about localism...

As for the preachers/infomercials, maybe as a last resort. They have to make their money through "love offerings" and sales respectively, and I don't see their audience (heavily leaning toward seniors) investing. Of course, if the technology ever catches on, it might become an inevitability that there'll be a space for snake oil salesmen on a HD-3, 4, 5...

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I know of several small market stations that would lock up and turn off the transmitter if they didn't have H.S. sports to go sell. It seems to be that the big guys are missing one hell of a opportunity to pick up SOME money off HD. In Oklahoma, Texas and I bet Alabama it would most definately bring many more new radios to the market as many freinds and family would go spend 99 bucks just to hear their kids name on the radio. I've been involved with a local H.S. football team brodcast crew for 15 years and have seen first hand how well it can work. Granted we're on a 50kw blowtorch, but if we weren't and had no opportunity to be on normal radio we'd jump at the idea of having the HD opportunity.

Chad Stevens.... Here's something irronic. Here in the OKC market we have a rather funny Honda pitchman by the name of Chad Stevens. The guy is a riot. One time he came up with a total mockery of our local TV news and weather geeks during a snow event that really amounted to nearly nothing they blew out of proportion. He had them down to even the same goofy mannerisms. Hillarous!

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I'm undecided myself on the longterm future of HD on FM, but the multicasting does intrigue me enough to plan to one day purchase an HD radio.

Admittedly it wouldn't make the most of the alleged sound quality, but there are a lot of sports from high school level all the way up to niche professional sports like MLS and lacrosse that do not currently have all their games covered on radio. An HD-2 could be used to fill in that gap and at the same time stimulate interest in HD in people that might not ordinarily take interest.

It won't happen. The sports cartels are very crafty at separating people from their money - I wouldn't be a bit suprised if the teams ran the ticket scalper web sites. There is too much revenue to be made from a sports broadcast - they wouldn't risk it on something like HD-2 that practically nobody can hear. They want their games on the number one rated and coverage signal in each region, to maximize profits.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

For larger teams I'd agree with you. H.S. sports are another thing entirely.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

For larger teams I'd agree with you. H.S. sports are another thing entirely.

High school sports - as they do it in our area, are over cell phones, sometimes having hum and noise / garbled distorted sound. NOBODY listens unless they want a headache afterwards or are a fanatic that is borderline insane.

Of course, put that tyle of cr@ppy sound on an HD-2, you might not even hear HD compression artifacts!

 

[Chuck]

For larger teams I'd agree with you. H.S. sports are another thing entirely.

High school sports - as they do it in our area, are over cell phones, sometimes having hum and noise / garbled distorted sound. NOBODY listens unless they want a headache afterwards or are a fanatic that is borderline insane.

Of course, put that tyle of cr@ppy sound on an HD-2, you might not even hear HD compression artifacts!

The funny thing is advertisers will line up to be sponsors of local high school or college sports. Evidentally, they don't seem to be audiophiles....