What's missing from these "just introduced" tabletop radios?

[vsa]

From TWICE - This Week In Consumer Electronics

A tabletop home radio isn’t complete these days without an iPod dock, memory card slots, Wi-Fi access to Internet radio stations and services, or satellite radio reception, a growing number of suppliers believe.

Underscoring changes in the tabletop radio market, Sangean plans to expand its selection of tabletop Internet radios in the coming months. European supplier Sonoro will enter the U.S. market with a quartet of radios that include an iPod-docking model and an Internet radio. And Audiovox plans its first tabletop Internet radios under the RCA and Acoustics Research brands...(complete details at the link below).

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6527315.html

So, what's missing from these new tabletop radios? Clue: Check your alphabet.

The answer I'm looking for is not "AM", even though at least one new radio is missing it.

Sangean's new WFR-1...lacks an AM tuner, saying "AM tuning isn’t necessary in the new model...because the majority of AM stations are also available on the Internet at better sound quality than most over-the-air AM broadcasts."

This my friends is AM radio's future - freed from static, HD radio interference, the need for tall towers and limited market coverage. And you can multicast all the channels you want!

 

[Mike Walker]

The problem vsa, as I've pointed out many times, is STREAMING COSTS! A station can literally bankrupt itself from "success", because unlike traditional radio where economy of scale makes it less expensive to serve each additional listener, with internet radio the more listeners you have, THE MORE IT COSTS! So stations doing ok with, say, 1,000 online listeners could literally have to take out a loan to pay the bill for a month of 100,000! THAT is what limits the expansion of internet radio. Bandwidth costs can eat you alive. And there's no easy solution.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

The problem vsa, as I've pointed out many times, is STREAMING COSTS! A station can literally bankrupt itself from "success", because unlike traditional radio where economy of scale makes it less expensive to serve each additional listener, with internet radio the more listeners you have, THE MORE IT COSTS! So stations doing ok with, say, 1,000 online listeners could literally have to take out a loan to pay the bill for a month of 100,000! THAT is what limits the expansion of internet radio. Bandwidth costs can eat you alive. And there's no easy solution.

Not if you own/lease your own internet servers. Ads can pay all the freight. The more listeners, the higher the billing. Just as with "pay per click" ads. On the internet you can get instant stats. Try that with any other media.

This year internet advertising is scheduled to surpass broadcast radio advertising.

 

[LinoNYC]

The problem vsa, as I've pointed out many times, is STREAMING COSTS! A station can literally bankrupt itself from "success", because unlike traditional radio where economy of scale makes it less expensive to serve each additional listener, with internet radio the more listeners you have, THE MORE IT COSTS! So stations doing ok with, say, 1,000 online listeners could literally have to take out a loan to pay the bill for a month of 100,000! THAT is what limits the expansion of internet radio. Bandwidth costs can eat you alive. And there's no easy solution.

Not if you own/lease your own internet servers. Ads can pay all the freight. The more listeners, the higher the billing. Just as with "pay per click" ads. On the internet you can get instant stats. Try that with any other media.

This year internet advertising is scheduled to surpass broadcast radio advertising.

A bit misleading there ol'Sup? What you are trying to put over is comparing all internet advertising with just that of the radio sector. Bad boy.....

Go back to the cut-and-paste stuff we all know and love. Such as Number 2: HD Radio-much more harm then good.

Lino

 

[Mike Walker]

And who exactly has been successful at this, and made tons of money Supercaster? AOL and Yahoo, the biggest of the big, are threatening to stop streaming if costs increase.

And selling more ads doesn't stop the fact that more bandwidth costs more. It's not an issue of servers, but of BANDWIDTH COSTS! Those servers must connect to the 'net, and however you do that, you will incur TREMENDOUS costs if you serve thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously.

I'm not against streaming. I've been a netcaster (on a small scale) for more than a decade. But economy of scale actually works IN REVERSE. And before you can sell advertising, you first have to establish the large audience. Which means, if you're lucky (or skilled) enough to attract enough listeners, you incur the huge bandwidth costs UP FRONT, and for a long time, before you've collected a cent in advertising.

These obstacles MUST be overcome. They're not trivial. And "owning your own servers" has nothing to do with BANDWIDTH COSTS! To reduce those, you'd have to "own your own pipe"! (Excuse me Senator Stevens, your own TUBE...after all, the internet isn't a truck, it's a series of tubes....")

I wish the above wasn't true. If the same economy of scale that we're used to in terrestrial broadcasting applied to the internet, we would all benefit tremendously! It (plus a nationwide "wi-max" infrastructure, which doesn't exist!) would solve the problem of increasing audio quality, variety, AND COVERAGE for terrestrial stations, particularly AM! The problem is, it just ain't so, and no amount of wishful thinking can change that. Perhaps in time bandwidth costs will come down to the point where webcasting on a massive scale actually makes economic sense. I hope so.

 

[Chuck]

And who exactly has been successful at this, and made tons of money Supercaster? AOL and Yahoo, the biggest of the big, are threatening to stop streaming if costs increase.

On the other hand, they haven't stopped yet. It may be "saber rattling." If you were getting gouged by someone (RIAA) and you were one of their best customers, wouldn’t you say "If you don't stop this, then we'll cease being your customer. Then you'll have nothing." I sure would. I think it is a part of the negotiating process.

RIAA / Sound Exchange may be a lot of things, including "greedy," but "stupid." probably not...

 

[SUPERCASTER]

The problem vsa, as I've pointed out many times, is STREAMING COSTS! A station can literally bankrupt itself from "success", because unlike traditional radio where economy of scale makes it less expensive to serve each additional listener, with internet radio the more listeners you have, THE MORE IT COSTS! So stations doing ok with, say, 1,000 online listeners could literally have to take out a loan to pay the bill for a month of 100,000! THAT is what limits the expansion of internet radio. Bandwidth costs can eat you alive. And there's no easy solution.

Not if you own/lease your own internet servers. Ads can pay all the freight. The more listeners, the higher the billing. Just as with "pay per click" ads. On the internet you can get instant stats. Try that with any other media.

This year internet advertising is scheduled to surpass broadcast radio advertising.

A bit misleading there ol'Sup? What you are trying to put over is comparing all internet advertising with just that of the radio sector. Bad boy.....

Go back to the cut-and-paste stuff we all know and love. Such as Number 2: HD Radio-much more harm then good.

Lino

Stick owners should be welcoming convergence instead of fighting it, by becoming "content providers". Selling advertising is basically selling media exposure. When you have gone to all the trouble to get a potential client's time and attention, why not offer them a wide choice of media?

As Henry Ford found out "You can have it in any color you want as long as it's black" is a sure fire recipe for disaster.

Oh yes. I forgot. Quality compelling content costs, and requires new skills. Broadcasters would rather believe they can just turn on an HD radio signal and it will solve all their convergence problems, and "save radio".

 

[LinoNYC]

This year internet advertising is scheduled to surpass broadcast radio advertising.

A bit misleading there ol'Sup? What you are trying to put over is comparing all internet advertising with just that of the radio sector. Bad boy.....

Go back to the cut-and-paste stuff we all know and love. Such as Number 2: HD Radio-much more harm then good.

Lino
[/quote]

Stick owners should be welcoming convergence instead of fighting it, by becoming "content providers". Selling advertising is basically selling media exposure. When you have gone to all the trouble to get a potential client's time and attention, why not offer them a wide choice of media?

As Henry Ford found out "You can have it in any color you want as long as it's black" is a sure fire recipe for disaster.

Oh yes. I forgot. Quality compelling content costs, and requires new skills. Broadcasters would rather believe they can just turn on an HD radio signal and it will solve all their convergence problems, and "save radio".
[/quote]

-All very meritorious quotes. But you didn't account for your attempt at deception, now did you.

Lino

 

[Mike Walker]

Smart "stick owners" DO "welcome convergance", Supercaster. What they don't welcome is increased costs, at a time when the economy is in the toilet, there are more competitors for advertising dollars ever, and revenue is flat! The one thing stations can control is COSTS. Every expense must be justified, and must lead to a revenue stream. Thusfar streaming HASN'T! Business 101!

Now HD2 and HD3 "streams" can be put up at very little additional cost, once the equipment is paid for. And whether five people listen, or fifty thousand, the cost remains constant! I wish that was true of online streaming, but it just isn't.

 

[dbdigital]

Smart "stick owners" DO "welcome convergance", Supercaster. What they don't welcome is increased costs, at a time when the economy is in the toilet, there are more competitors for advertising dollars ever, and revenue is flat! The one thing stations can control is COSTS. Every expense must be justified, and must lead to a revenue stream. Thusfar streaming HASN'T! Business 101!

Now HD2 and HD3 "streams" can be put up at very little additional cost, once the equipment is paid for. And whether five people listen, or fifty thousand, the cost remains constant! I wish that was true of online streaming, but it just isn't.

It will be interesting to see what the auction winners for the 700 Mhz spectrum finally decide to do with it (so far, the auction, at round 17, has raised 12 billion and counting). The hope is that internet bandwidth will be plentiful and cheap. Unfortunately, we won't know until long after the DTV transition has been completed if that will be true.

I firmly believe that an AM station's best shot at survival (besides the obvious: content) is not HD, not an FM translator but on the web in conjunction with it's terrestrial signal.

db

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Smart "stick owners" DO "welcome convergance", Supercaster. What they don't welcome is increased costs, at a time when the economy is in the toilet, there are more competitors for advertising dollars ever, and revenue is flat! The one thing stations can control is COSTS. Every expense must be justified, and must lead to a revenue stream. Thusfar streaming HASN'T! Business 101!

Now HD2 and HD3 "streams" can be put up at very little additional cost, once the equipment is paid for. And whether five people listen, or fifty thousand, the cost remains constant! I wish that was true of online streaming, but it just isn't.

Please provide the Arbitron PPM data to show that fifty thousand are listening to any single HD radio station's stream. Your cost benefit analysis is deceptive.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

This year internet advertising is scheduled to surpass broadcast radio advertising.

A bit misleading there ol'Sup? What you are trying to put over is comparing all internet advertising with just that of the radio sector. Bad boy.....

Go back to the cut-and-paste stuff we all know and love. Such as Number 2: HD Radio-much more harm then good.

Lino

Stick owners should be welcoming convergence instead of fighting it, by becoming "content providers". Selling advertising is basically selling media exposure. When you have gone to all the trouble to get a potential client's time and attention, why not offer them a wide choice of media?

As Henry Ford found out "You can have it in any color you want as long as it's black" is a sure fire recipe for disaster.

Oh yes. I forgot. Quality compelling content costs, and requires new skills. Broadcasters would rather believe they can just turn on an HD radio signal and it will solve all their convergence problems, and "save radio".
[/quote]

-All very meritorious quotes. But you didn't account for your attempt at deception, now did you.

Lino

[/quote]

Deceptive about what?

I said new media internet competition for advertising dollars is surpassing old media radio advertising.

There is no deception. That's the competition.

Both also compete for advertising dollars with TV, billboards, direct mail, newspapers, etc.

 

[vsa]

The problem vsa, as I've pointed out many times, is STREAMING COSTS! A station can literally bankrupt itself from "success", because unlike traditional radio where economy of scale makes it less expensive to serve each additional listener, with internet radio the more listeners you have, THE MORE IT COSTS! So stations doing ok with, say, 1,000 online listeners could literally have to take out a loan to pay the bill for a month of 100,000! THAT is what limits the expansion of internet radio. Bandwidth costs can eat you alive. And there's no easy solution.

Bandwidth costs are not prohibitive if you've done your homework. I've previously mentioned technologies that are currently available and others that will be available in the future that make bandwidth cost a non-issue. Using these technologies, it is possible to reduce bandwidth costs by as much as 98%. Now, if you're a small fry, you're probably paying through the nose for bandwidth. You can transition to these technologies as you grow your online audience. Here is a sampling of what's avalable:

http://www.abacast.com/technology/distributedstreaming.php

http://www.octoshape.com/technology/benefits.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast

Now, back to the real issue. "Internet radios" are becoming more common by the month. Wi-fi radio costs plunged last year and it appears the trickle of new products is beginning to snowball. Ignore what's going on at your peril. Think just a little bit outside the traditional radio box and learn for yourself how you can take advantage of a golden opportunity. Hey, changing my way of thinking wasn't easy for me. Sometimes you've just gotta get out of your comfort zone or die a slow death.

 

[clouseau]

... And whether five people listen, or fifty thousand, the cost remains constant! I wish that was true of online streaming, but it just isn't.

Please provide the Arbitron PPM data to show that fifty thousand are listening to any single HD radio station's stream. Your cost benefit analysis is deceptive.

Whine and cry "deception". Great take.

There was no assertion made with regards to actual listenership of a specific station at all. NONE.

Now either you can't read and uinderstand what's being said, or you're deliberately trying to make a crazy point... - BADLY.

Is your position SO WEAK, you have to resort to this kind of silliness? You're arguing that with a increase in listenership there is not a corresponding increase in transmission cost in internet radio. That's just wrong unless MORE bandwidth costs less than LESS bandwidth. In which case you could just run a single stream down an OCX3 and they would cost THE SAME.

Bandwidth costs money. No amount of claiming it doesn't by you changes that. Yes you can use one of the retransmission sustems like Octoshape and the like, but that doesn't make it cost less, it just pushes the cost on to OTHER internet users. Then YOUR bandwidth (as a listener) is used to serve ME(as a listener).

How about little rationality here?

Clouseau

 

[vsa]

... And whether five people listen, or fifty thousand, the cost remains constant! I wish that was true of online streaming, but it just isn't.

Please provide the Arbitron PPM data to show that fifty thousand are listening to any single HD radio station's stream. Your cost benefit analysis is deceptive.

Whine and cry "deception".  Great take. 

There was no assertion made with regards to actual listenership of a specific station at all.  NONE. 

Now either you can't read and uinderstand what's being said, or you're deliberately trying to make a crazy point... - BADLY.

Is your position SO WEAK, you have to resort to this kind of silliness?  You're arguing that with a increase in listenership there is not a corresponding increase in transmission cost in internet radio.  That's just wrong unless MORE bandwidth costs less than LESS bandwidth.  In which case you could just run a single stream down an OCX3 and they would cost THE SAME.

Bandwidth costs money.  No amount of claiming it doesn't by you changes that.  Yes you can use one of the retransmission sustems like Octoshape and the like,  but that doesn't make it cost less,  it just pushes the cost on to OTHER internet users.  Then YOUR bandwidth (as a listener) is used to serve ME(as a listener). 

How about little rationality here? 

Clouseau

Yes, these systems will use some of the listener's unused bandwidth to pass along the stream or a portion of it to another listener. However, the instant that your system puts a demand on that unused bandwidth, it goes back to you. This only costs you extra money if you are paying per the amount of data you use. This is only a concern in limited cell phone/wireless data situations or in some foreign countries. Of course, listeners should always be advised of this. On the other hand, if more than one device tries to listen to the same stream on the same network, the space of only a single stream is required for the entire network. So there can also be a bandwidth savings in these situations.

 

[clouseau]

Yes, these systems will use some of the listener's unused bandwidth to pass along the stream or a portion of it to another listener. However, the instant that your system puts a demand on that unused bandwidth, it goes back to you. This only costs you extra money if you are paying per the amount of data you use. This is only a concern in limited cell phone/wireless data situations or in some foreign countries. Of course, listeners should always be advised of this. On the other hand, if more than one device tries to listen to the same stream on the same network, the space of only a single stream is required for the entire network. So there can also be a bandwidth savings in these situations.

It's intersting technology. I've noticed the latency is real high. often well into minutes, especially if a busy stream.

I also have a concern about the whole "Overhad" thing with regards to bandwidth. That's why I hve a lot of issues with internet radio overall. The ability of the net to handle all this additional traffic has yet to be tested. I think it works overall. However I have concerns that we are really becoming too reliant on "The Net".

Maybe I'm getting to be like Leonard Kahn.

Clouseau

 

[Mike Walker]

Bandwith isn't unlimited. If tomorrow the quarter of a billion Americans who listen to terrestrial radio instead did their listening to internet radio, the 'net would crash HARD. It couldn't support that kind of drain. The capacity for millions, or hundreds of millions of simultaneous streams just doesn't exist. Yet. That equation is, of course, changing all the time.

And Supercaster, talk about nitpicking, I didn't say that 50,000 people were listening to any HD stream. I said that the cost to serve listeners is the same, whether they number 5, or 50,000. Geez, Dude! In that way, it's the same as any terrestrial broadcast...costs are fixed, no matter how many (or few) people listen. So economy of scale GREATLY increases with increased audience size. My point was, and is, that this just isn't true with internet radio. And it needs to be. In fact if the same economy of scale existed with internet radio, and a true nationwide wi-max infrastructure existed (plus the bandwidth to support it), then logically it would, and SHOULD be 'lights out' to terrestrial AM and FM. We ain't there. Not even close.

 

[vsa]

Bandwith isn't unlimited. If tomorrow the quarter of a billion Americans who listen to terrestrial radio instead did their listening to internet radio, the 'net would crash HARD. It couldn't support that kind of drain. The capacity for millions, or hundreds of millions of simultaneous streams just doesn't exist. Yet. That equation is, of course, changing all the time.

And Supercaster, talk about nitpicking, I didn't say that 50,000 people were listening to any HD stream. I said that the cost to serve listeners is the same, whether they number 5, or 50,000. Geez, Dude! In that way, it's the same as any terrestrial broadcast...costs are fixed, no matter how many (or few) people listen. So economy of scale GREATLY increases with increased audience size. My point was, and is, that this just isn't true with internet radio. And it needs to be. In fact if the same economy of scale existed with internet radio, and a true nationwide wi-max infrastructure existed (plus the bandwidth to support it), then logically it would, and SHOULD be 'lights out' to terrestrial AM and FM. We ain't there. Not even close.

I've never said Internet radio could dominate tomorrow or overnight. However, I've seen figures ranging from 50 to 80 million people who listen to streaming audio every month. The growth has been relentless and shows no signs of slowing down. It dwarfs satellite radio and leaves HD radio eating dust. The problem for terrestrial radio is that it will have a tough time surviving financially as its share of the pie shrinks. We must respond with something other than budget cuts. Let's quit acting like there is a law that says traditional radio is not allowed to be a dominating factor on the Internet. It requires a restructuring of the business model, but we are missing a great opportunity.

 

[Mike Walker]

I believe internet radio, in some evolved form, more efficient than today's "point to point" system, will eventually dominate...when the infrastructure exists for it to do so. But it has to offer more than just quality and variety of programming. That frankly doesn't matter, when your "radio" is tethered to your desktop, laptop, or even cell phone within a limited geographical area. It has to be FULLY accessible, with little or no additional cost, WHERE AND HOW PEOPLE LISTEN...i.e. in cars, on headphone-portables, on battery-operated devices in the backyard, or on a hiking trip to the mountains. And it has to be able to support hundreds of millions of SIMULTANEOUS listeners, not 50-80 million a month in order to ever "win".

These are likely achievable goals. But they're in the FAR distant future. And frankly, one of the biggest advantages of analog terrestrial radio, and why I believe it's not going to completely go away anytime soon, is that it's uniquely suited to reaching people on dirt-cheap, universally available radios in emergency situations. NO digital system is capable of this. And we'd be in a heap of trouble with out emergency information tied to internet delivery when something like Katrina (or Hugo...the hurricane that wreaked havoc here in NC in '89) hits!

 

[vsa]

I believe internet radio, in some evolved form, more efficient than today's "point to point" system, will eventually dominate...when the infrastructure exists for it to do so. But it has to offer more than just quality and variety of programming. That frankly doesn't matter, when your "radio" is tethered to your desktop, laptop, or even cell phone within a limited geographical area. It has to be FULLY accessible, with little or no additional cost, WHERE AND HOW PEOPLE LISTEN...i.e. in cars, on headphone-portables, on battery-operated devices in the backyard, or on a hiking trip to the mountains. And it has to be able to support hundreds of millions of SIMULTANEOUS listeners, not 50-80 million a month in order to ever "win".

These are likely achievable goals. But they're in the FAR distant future. And frankly, one of the biggest advantages of analog terrestrial radio, and why I believe it's not going to completely go away anytime soon, is that it's uniquely suited to reaching people on dirt-cheap, universally available radios in emergency situations. NO digital system is capable of this. And we'd be in a heap of trouble with out emergency information tied to internet delivery when something like Katrina (or Hugo...the hurricane that wreaked havoc here in NC in '89) hits!

We don't disagree a whole lot here. Plus, I also don't think terrestrial radio will completely go away either - nor do I want it to. And I'm not against traditional radio going digital either. The problem is that iBiquity's "solution" is 180 degrees nothing like what was promised. What's needed - over the very long term - is a digital solution that is ROBUST, INEXPENSIVE, and DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH ITS NEIGHBORS. Even this kind of solution will take a loooong time to become commonly available - and ONLY if it offers UNIQUELY LOCAL information.