What does Randy Michaels really think of “HD” radio?

[radioskeptic]

We all know about Eric Rhoads and his “Mighty Red” pocket-sized FM-only “HD” radio, which bears a striking resemblance to the Best Buy Insignia. Not surprisingly, Eric did a post on his blog about it, which you’ll find here:
http://ericrhoads.blogs.com/ink_tan...asting-and-the-biggest-sale-of-my-career.html

That post has elicited a lot of comments. Most of the more recent ones were from Mighty Red buyers complaining that they didn’t receive their radios in time for Christmas.

But the one that caught my eye was the eighth post (eighth from the end, now that they’re in reverse-chronological order), which was identified thus:
“Posted by: Randy Michaels, Tribune Company | November 26, 2009 at 3:23 PM”

That post was extremely critical of “HD” radio, and this raises a question: Was it really from Randy Michaels? If it was posted by an imposter, wouldn’t Michaels have heard about it by now? And if it didn’t reflect his own opinion, wouldn’t he have demanded it be taken down, or at least that it be acknowledged by Rhoads as a fraudulent post?

Another question: If Michaels himself did post it, and that really is his opinion, could it be that a disagreement between him and the Mays boys about “HD” had something to do with his leaving Clear Channel? And if so, could word about that, spread through the radio grapevine, be what has been making so many radio professionals hesitant to express their own misgivings about Iniquity’s technology, and in some cases, even defend a system that they themselves know is deeply flawed?

 

[davideduardo]

Another question: If Michaels himself did post it, and that really is his opinion, could it be that a disagreement between him and the Mays boys about “HD” had something to do with his leaving Clear Channel?

On the list of reasons why Randy Michaels left CC, HD is #17,687 from the top.

 

[Play Freebird]

I think the blog comment is legitimate. Randy/Ben is a native of upstate New York and has a very good understanding of the allotment situation in the eastern US and Canadian border zone.

Several years ago, Randy submitted an opinion piece to one of the radio trades (RBR?) in which he criticized IBOC for its mediocre performance and lack of real value. And in a 2002 Radio World interview, Bill Suffa (Clear Channel's VP for capital management under Randy's watch) also shared a concern that HD Radio's return on investment is inadequate to justify adoption. The RW article is no longer available online but summarized here:

http://www.xmfan.com/viewtopic.php?p=4327

I would agree with David that HD probably wasn't the main reason Randy (and Bill) parted company with Clear Channel, but it would interesting to know exactly how iBiquity was able to convince the Mays to change direction once those voices of reason (aka "troublemakers") left the building.

 

[radioskeptic]

Thanks for that link, Freebird.

It’s very significant that the title of that thread on www.xmfan.com was “Smoking gun: Clear Channel plans to use IBOC for datacasting” – and it’s interesting to note that the original post began, not with a complete sentence, but with an ellipsis period and a sentence fragment: “...if at all!”

Also note that the last comment posted on the thread, from someone identified only as a “Guest,” included this parenthetical aside:

"(BTW, whats up with that guy from Clear Channel? Doesn't he know they are a financial investor in Ibiquity, the company that makes HD Radio?)"

 

[davideduardo]

"(BTW, whats up with that guy from Clear Channel? Doesn't he know they are a financial investor in Ibiquity, the company that makes HD Radio?)"

Nearly every one of the top 10 or 12 broadcast companies made seed investments back when iBiquity was founded to take over the development of digital FM (AM being an afterthought) from folks like Lucent. I think most of the companies thought of it as a donation, not an investment to be paid back via appreciation in value or dividends.

We often back promising ideas that don't pan out or that don't end up being as useful as we imagined. Not doing so means we are not aboard for the few ideas that are truly significant.

As a sidebar comment, the poster apparently does not know that iBiquity does not "make" anything... not chips, not radios. And I am a bit unsure what other kind of inverstor there is in this context besides one who puts money in... so a "financial investor" is rather redundant and demonstrates that the poster is not really aware of how this thing was put together to begin with.

 

[radioskeptic]

Here’s a link to that interview with Bill Suffa, which appeared in TV Technology, not in Radio World: http://tvtechnology.com/article/2184

Now let’s turn to the always diverting pastime of replying to David Eduardo.

Quote from: radioskeptic on Today at 10:48:43 AM

"(BTW, whats up with that guy from Clear Channel? Doesn't he know they are a financial investor in Ibiquity, the company that makes HD Radio?)"

Nearly every one of the top 10 or 12 broadcast companies made seed investments back when iBiquity was founded to take over the development of digital FM (AM being an afterthought) from folks like Lucent. I think most of the companies thought of it as a donation, not an investment to be paid back via appreciation in value or dividends.

We often back promising ideas that don't pan out or that don't end up being as useful as we imagined. Not doing so means we are not aboard for the few ideas that are truly significant.

So now we’re admitting that digital AM was an afterthought, are we, David? And also offering a rather oblique intimation that this particular investment hasn’t really panned out? Maybe there’s hope for you yet.

As a sidebar comment, the poster apparently does not know that iBiquity does not "make" anything... not chips, not radios. And I am a bit unsure what other kind of investor there is in this context besides one who puts money in... so a "financial investor" is rather redundant and demonstrates that the poster is not really aware of how this thing was put together to begin with.

Well, David, I think everybody on this message already knows that Iniquity doesn’t make anything, even if that guy who posted on an XM fan site back in 2002 didn’t. (I took the liberty of correcting a couple of obvious typos in his comment, but didn’t change a word.) We all know that Iniquity only sells licenses under patents.

But the phrase “financial investor” isn’t necessarily an example of redundancy. Iniquity Digital owes its very existence to one investor that invested not money, but its own intellectual property.

Back in 1999, Digital Radio Express, Inc. (which some time in the last year or two changed its name to VuCast) was ready to throw in the towel, thinking they’d never get either the capital they needed or the support of the radio industry -- so they licensed their early patents, which they had inherited from a corporate forerunner, to Iniquity. Back in 1999, DRE granted Iniquity a blanket license to use their early patents, and to incorporate those patents into Iniquity technology without further payment — for a one-time fee which was paid to DRE in Iniquity stock, not in cash. Both “HD” radio and DRE’s later brainchild, FMeXtra, incorporate those earlier DRE patents.

Don’t believe me? Here are links to a 1999 Iniquity press release and a reprint of a Radio World Engineering Extra interview with Derek Kumar, the inventor of FMeXtra:
http://www.ibiquity.com/press_room/news_releases/1999/92
http://www.bext.com/RW/RWFMeXtraDec05.pdf (see page 2, column 1 of the PDF)


Now if I could just find that Randy Michaels opinion piece...

 

[Tom Wells]

Afterthought? It's not really fair to call something an afterthought when it's so evident that very little, if any, thought went into it.

" We thought it would work" is a lot like saying " We thought we could beat the train to the crossing. "

Really, the AM version is more like an afterbirth. Clearly of the same kind of flesh, but not viable as a life form.

Trying to prop the AM ibiquity system up by various sorts of phase modulation is a lot like putting a placenta on a heart-lung machine.
And just as gruesome a prospect.
Do you really expect it to survive? I don't watch this or listen. Please stop offending the laws of physics and decency.

 

[davideduardo]

So now we’re admitting that digital AM was an afterthought, are we, David? And also offering a rather oblique intimation that this particular investment hasn’t really panned out? Maybe there’s hope for you yet.

FM HD was under development before iBiquity existed. AM was considered necessary later because the thought was that an FM only system would not get through the FCC, and the solution had to be digital, too, as the FCC had digital on the mind due to TV.

So, yes, AM HD was put into the overall concept much later. That's and afterthought. And, given the issues that affect AM today, a bad idea.

Now if I could just find that Randy Michaels opinion piece...

If we were to identify things that Clear likely did not enjoy with Randy, start with differences in management style. Then, consider the amount poured into buying stations like 50 kw AMs in Wyoming and AMs in rural Ohio... to name a few. There was no synergy between them, and no economy of scale. And the idea of creating statewide markets also failed, although I think it was a noble experiment. But there was just not a fit... I'll bet HD never got mentioned when the parting of the ways happened.

 

[radioskeptic]

FM HD was under development before iBiquity existed...

Yes, David, I know. The early history of FM IBOC development is covered in the 2005 RWEE interview with Derek Kumar that I linked to in Reply #5 above. It's all in the first two pages of the PDF. Didn't you read it?

 

[davideduardo]

FM HD was under development before iBiquity existed...

Yes, David, I know. The early history of FM IBOC development is covered in the 2005 RWEE interview with Derek Kumar that I linked to in Reply #5 above. It's all in the first two pages of the PDF. Didn't you read it?

I am quite familiar with the history without reading the PDF. I did not ask for a timeline; I was simply clarifying the reason why AM was added on later... mostly for regulatory pleasing.