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WRTH Book for 2023

J

JoeLouis

Guest
I was looking forward to getting the 2023 of the WRTH (World Radio & Television Handbook) I heard it was coming out in late December, and I've also heard that the 2022 will be the last print version, Amazon wants $50 for the 2022 version and probably in short supply, if anyone has any knowledge about the 2023 book it would be appreciated.
 
JoeLouis said:
I was looking forward to getting the 2023 of the WRTH (World Radio & Television Handbook) I heard it was coming out in late December, and I've also heard that the 2022 will be the last print version, Amazon wants $50 for the 2022 version and probably in short supply, if anyone has any knowledge about the 2023 book it would be appreciated.
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A German company has taken over WRTH and is emailing to its list about the "soon" to be published 2023 edition. It will be available online, too, for the first time.

You can be added to the list at https://wrth.org/newsletter_registration.html

They say,
The next edition of the "world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to broadcasting" will be published in December 2022 in a printed and a digital version
 
DavidEduardo said:
A German company has taken over WRTH and is emailing to its list about the "soon" to be published 2023 edition. It will be available online, too, for the first time.

You can be added to the list at https://wrth.org/newsletter_registration.html

They say,
The next edition of the "world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to broadcasting" will be published in December 2022 in a printed and a digital version
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That's great news, I will wait for the 2023 edition, thanks (again)
 
The new WRTH will contain data from the existing sites at https://fmscan.org/ and https://www.mwlist.org/ - it remains to be seen what the book will offer over and above the site, which I've used many times in the past on my cellphone while DXing in remote locations.

It also seems slightly "off" for the publishers to be using data provided for free by community contributors in a commercial, paid-for product which they will presumably make a profit from. It's a bit like printing a bunch of Wikipedia articles and selling them.
 
Miss Tuned said:
The new WRTH will contain data from the existing site at https://fmscan.org/ - it remains to be seen what the book will offer over and above the site, which I've used many times in the past on my cellphone while DXing in remote locations.

It also seems slightly "off" for the publishers to be using data provided for free by community contributors in a commercial, paid-for product which they will presumably make a profit from. It's a bit like printing a bunch of Wikipedia articles and selling them.
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Well my two choices are the 2022 book from Amazon for $50.00 or this new 2023 version for ($39.95) what's the better choice?
 
JoeLouis said:
Well my two choices are the 2022 book from Amazon for $50.00 or this new 2023 version for ($39.95) what's the better choice?
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I own the 2022 edition, but these books fairly quickly go out of date. I wouldn't recommend pre-ordering the 2023 book until its format and content is better known. If it's just a print version of an existing website, it doesn't feel worth the $40.
 
I kind of agree, I'll wait, I used to get these books for like $15, I'm sure a lot of info from that book can be found somewhere on this great big internet.
 
Miss Tuned said:
The new WRTH will contain data from the existing sites at https://fmscan.org/ and https://www.mwlist.org/ - it remains to be seen what the book will offer over and above the site, which I've used many times in the past on my cellphone while DXing in remote locations.

It also seems slightly "off" for the publishers to be using data provided for free by community contributors in a commercial, paid-for product which they will presumably make a profit from. It's a bit like printing a bunch of Wikipedia articles and selling them.
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It's not as simple as that. WRTH communicates with the licensing bureau or authority of each nation to get updated lists, and they also get information on things like the contact names, correct addresses and even schedules from the country's broadcaster association(s) for both commercial and community radio. They put this into an easy to use format for each country, and then do regional lists by frequency. In nations with multiple languages, they show the language(s) of each station, too.

The data is vastly more complete than the site you exist.
 
DavidEduardo said:
It's not as simple as that. WRTH communicates with the licensing bureau or authority of each nation to get updated lists, and they also get information on things like the contact names, correct addresses and even schedules from the country's broadcaster association(s) for both commercial and community radio. They put this into an easy to use format for each country, and then do regional lists by frequency. In nations with multiple languages, they show the language(s) of each station, too.

The data is vastly more complete than the site you exist.
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This is why I'm waiting to see what the new book looks like before ordering it (I've bought the last ten years' editions). There are quite a lot of errors in the community contributed data on the existing FMScan and MWList sites, especially as you get down to the smaller commercial and community radio stations, and the data is nowhere near as complete as the quality research done by the former WRTH. If they do the proper research, like WRTH did, it'll be worth it. If they just print the website data in a nice format, it'll be less of an essential purchase.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The 2023 WRTH is reported to have 550 pages, down from 672 in 2022. Apparently the new edition will also use a sonewhat bigger typeface. Will be interesting to see what the new publishers have cut.
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Update: The new WRTH is at the printers, and according to the new publisher the 2023 edition will have (deep breath)...848 pages.:eek:
 
Update: There's now a link online direct to purchase:

wrth.info

Then click "Buy WRTH here"

At present, they're just selling the book (price quoted is $39.90 US); digital and combined book/digital are coming in the future.
 
There are some content samples of the WRTH on their site now: Content - WRTH

Luckily, they've chosen a country I'm pretty familiar with, Ireland, so I can check the quality of the data. They do indeed just appear to be using the community-sourced data from their FMList etc sites, as there is an erroneous "Today FM" in "Dublin area" listed on 97.3 in both the book and the website - no such transmission exists. (The Dublin transmission for the Today FM network comes from Three Rock Mountain on 101.8.) There are also errors in the listings for Highland Radio and KCLR 96FM.

If those are errors I can spot because I know the market well, and there are that many errors in one small market, how many errors are in there that I can't spot because they're in unfamiliar markets? The data is shaky, the radio equivalent of Wikipedia, anyone can register and add and edit stations and they will end up in next year's WRTH.
 
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Miss Tuned said:
There are some content samples of the WRTH on their site now: Content - WRTH
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I got mine last week. It has 848 pages, and seems very complete.
Miss Tuned said:
Luckily, they've chosen a country I'm pretty familiar with, Ireland, so I can check the quality of the data. They do indeed just appear to be using the community-sourced data from their FMList etc sites, as there is an erroneous "Today FM" in "Dublin area" listed on 97.3 in both the book and the website - no such transmission exists. (The Dublin transmission for the Today FM network comes from Three Rock Mountain on 101.8.) There are also errors in the listings for Highland Radio and KCLR 96FM.
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This is typical of WRH and WRTH going back to the 50's. It has always been close, but not precise.
Miss Tuned said:
If those are errors I can spot because I know the market well, and there are that many errors in one small market, how many errors are in there that I can't spot because they're in unfamiliar markets? The data is shaky, the radio equivalent of Wikipedia, anyone can register and add and edit stations and they will end up in next year's WRTH.
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I checked markets I work in, from Buenos Aires to Quito to San Juan and found it to be better than prior years. Again, not perfect, but as close to such as you can get with something that has to be ready for the printer at least 90 days before getting to the first buyer.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Again, not perfect, but as close to such as you can get with something that has to be ready for the printer at least 90 days before getting to the first buyer.
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The new owners had only three months to throw everything together for the 2023 WRTH, not the usual 12 months. There have been numerous reviews pointing out publishing format errors. (I don't have the new edition yet.)

I'll cut them some slack; they should be okay for the 2024 edition. Of course, that assumes the 2023 version is a financial success; if it does poorly I could see them trying one more edition, and if that tanks, the plug could be pulled for the last time.
 
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I think that the sample data presented on the website for Ireland is a downgrade from the data in the previous WRTH. I've compared it with the 2022 WRTH listings for the same country, which are more accurate - transmitter powers that are missing are listed in the 2022 edition, and the frequencies for the networks where there are errors in 2023 are correct in 2022.

I haven't bought this year's edition because I was reserving judgement, but probably won't. The data given in the new WRTH appears to be a copy of the user-edited data available freely online at FMList/FMScan etc. I am rarely in a place without 5G or 4G reception when DXing, so I may as well just use the listings online rather than spend money on the book. The selling point of WRTH was always that it was better than the websites.
 
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