Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:
Frank Dresser wrote:
[...]

Well, maybe, but I don't see the entire broadcast industry rushing to
IBOC. The night time ban puts a big crimp on IBOC. IBOC reduces the
bandwidth and fidelity of the main channel. Also, putting all that
power into sideband noise reduces the power and signal to noise ratio of
the main channel. People who are annoyed by bad sounding AM radio and
have yet to buy an IBOC radio are more likely to tune out.

People who don't much care about fidelity, and I think that's the
majority of casual listeners, won't much care for IBOC, either.

Frank Dresser




All very true. But the owners of the media monopolies don't care a
great deal about the success of IBOC or even its widespread
implementation. Their main concern is to _prevent_ the creation of a
new digital band wherein all existing broadcasters would have an
even playing field. IBOC does that -- at least so far.


With every good wish,


Kevin.




It's actually more insidious than that.

A little background.

Meetings I attended when I worked at CBS discussed the future of
radio, and for that matter, TV broadcasting revenues, and it was
clear that advertising revenue streams were not the future.
Technological innovations, at that time limited to VCR's with black
sensing self editing capability which allowed automatic deletion of
commercials, and later the first generation of TiVo which openly
promoted commercial free TV viewing, made it clear that advertising
revenues were under extreme fire. Though Radio lagged behind TV in
this capability, it was only a matter of time before radio caught
up, and radio advertising revenues, too, were threatened.

Karmazin said at one staff breakfast that I atteneded, that the
only way to insure the long term viability of broadcast media was
through the generation of multiple revenue streams for each freqency
allocation. He described several ways that advertising could be
sold, and incorporated into the programming so that additional
non-traditional revenue could be harvested outside of spot sales.
Other products could be tied to each broadcast facility generating
further non-traditional revenue. This is where the ubiquitous
"Dateline" your favorite radio station promotes. That software was
invented by three guys at Northwestern in Evanston. We turned into
the Dateline at US99, and my GM created the company, DMI, which was
later spun off into Spark International, which installs, maintains
and operates the datelines worldwide.

But non traditional revenue sources all require some form of
advertising to work.

Karmazin was looking for more direct revenue streams, not based
in advertising. And when he got to digital broadcasting, he outlined
several future scenarios...all of which involve stealing small
amounts of bandwidth from the digital stream, which would be
converted to alternative programming, or informational streams. He
actually said the words....that we will not be broadcasting full
bandwidth digital programming beyond the resolution we currently
enjoy in analog, in fact, maybe even a little less, so that
alternative revenue producing streams can be incorporated onto each
frequency. Not unlike SAP channels do now for television. These
would also be subscription based, further generating addtional revenue.

This would be necessary because of the erosion of advertising
revenue caused by both technological innovation, and the public's
growing distaste for the spot load.

He then cited cable tv and it's subscription based business model
as an example of how the future of broadcasting may be shaped.
Noting the pervasive nature of cable, and the spread of subscription
based dish networks, he said there is clearly no major objection to
subscription based broadcasting among the population. And as the XM
and Sirius models clearly demonstrate, subscription based reception
for radio is a viable business model.

Karmazin said that the real benefit of digital broadcasting,
whether DAB, or IBOC, because of the interactive potential of
digital distribution, as currently demonstrated with digital cable,
will be the capture of the holy grail of broadcasting since the
media were first blown into the air--absolutely accurate counts of
who's listening, and when.

It will also mean the ultimate in usage sensitive pricing....

Subscription radio.

When asked if this was his goal, he said not at first. But
eventually, yes.

There followed a lot of mumbling in the room.

Now, whether IBOC, especially on AM, proves itself as a
practicality before something else comes along to obsolete it will
be determined in the next few years. XM growth, and expansion of
accessibility, demonstrates it to be a viable contender on the
horizon. And the availability of internet radio through cell phones
and PDA's is proving to be a surprise, although certainly not a
current threat. In the meantime, the larger broadcasters retain
their investment, their profitability, and their competitive
advantages of both scale and strategy over smaller operators. While
preparing to take full advantage of all the media at their disposal.

Something that smaller operators will have to struggle to achieve.

But the ultimate losers with IBOC will not be the smaller
operators.

The ultimate loss will be on our side of the grille cloth.