David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
Well, of course it's a vicious circle. Most everything in Radio is. You
remember how tough it is to get hired until you have experience, but you
can't get experience until you get hired. Vicious circles in Radio aren't
news. But the fact remains.

That said, it's content that drives listening. If the content is of no
interest to the target, HD isn't going to help. What's not happening, is
there's no change in content to accompany HD implementation. WGN didn't
change content when HD was installed. And I'm sure that Ace will point out
that WBBM's content is the same as before HD was installed. So, HD is only
really benefitting those who are already using AM. And those younger demos
you wish to attract with audio quality, will be just as unintersted in the
content after HD, as the stations themselves are in those who listen
outside of the city grade contour.

But, until there are receivers out there... nobody is going to cange much in
a succesful (still) format. The changes will come in second tier formats, I
think... and in modifications of existing ones to broaden them. WGN has to
change, as it is in a revenue death spin, and is hurting the Trib's stock
price single handed.




So, WGN is waiting for receivers to fall into listeners' hands
before lowering their demo target? Once sampled, if the audio quality
is attractive but the content hasn't changed, there will likely not be a
resampling. Leaving HD to benefit those who already listen and enjoy.
But not providing anything more attractive than audio quality for those
who generally do not. If audio quality were the only selling point to
KEZK, it would still be Schulke. And WRTH would have never been
'Beautiful Music.' It's the content that attracted and held listeners to
each. Granted this is in an era when FM still had novelty listening, but
the point is, when the audience began to shift from AM to FM, it was the
content on the stations of either band that changed to create viable
audiences...audio quality was only a factor where content requiring
audio quality was concerned. Music went to FM, where off main music
formats and talk took over AM.

And this was also at a time when AM was still wideband. On my McKay,
an well done AM station could hold its own against an FM station without
breathing hard. Even doing music. This was Leonard Kahn's sacred
evangel: that AM is capable of the same, if not better audio, than
native FM. That is to say, without the pre/de-emphasis that gives FM
it's lower noise figure. Without that, audio quality of FM sux.

NRSC, in it's infinite wisdom, however, institutionalized what
receiver manufacturers had been doing by being cheap....cutting off the
top end of AM receivers and narrowing the audio bandwidth. As late as
1972, a stock Delco AM radio was capable of 8khz audio out that bottom
heavy dashboard speaker. With a different speaker installed, that same
Delco radio was capable of surprising fidelity. This was, of course
before AM Optimod and CRL brought new meaning to the term 'grunge'. What
NRSC did, was start the process of reducing skywave interference by
attacking audio bandwidth...and at the same time audio quality. The
10Khz brickwall plus the pre/de-emphasis of NRSC II helped create the
suckular AM quality we enjoy today.

Shortsighted stopgap measures often require additional shortsighted
stopgap measures to fix the side effects of other shortsighted stopgap
measures...and before you're two generations out, you've created a mess
that can be only remedied by starting over or giving up.

IBOC is the latest in shortsighted stopgap measures. Giving up is next.




That's exactly my point...it's a gamble. A crap shoot. Targeting the
superficiality and subjective perception of audio quality. While the real
attraction to listening is content.

No station today will do a youjnger A format. There is still time to adapt
as HD gets into user hands. This is a 5 year issue. Keep in mind that
satellite has talken 5 years to get to around 11 million subscribers. Of
course, this is a poor analogy as satellite seems to have hit a wall... and
may truly never be viable financially.


And yet, you yourself have admitted that AM may not have 5 years
to make it. The deathknell may sound before that. So, with time of the
essence, content change must begin quickly, or the losses due to IBOC
rash and stagnant content of sampled HD quality may be irretrievable.



You've noted growth at your AM's on the West Coast. Those are due to
content, not audio quality. And your growth has exceeded expectations.

But the growth is in existing older formats on stations that were not doing
well, like KLOK. Its a stop-gap until HD makes younger formats viable. Our
main Miami AM station has an average age of 72!


Hold on...let me sit down with THAT shocker.




Whether HD has been implemented or not, HD's 'improved' audio quality is
not a factor, since receiving hardware is both expensive and not widely
available.

$149 car radio this week. 6 others, from the Tivoli on down were announced.

Announced is one thing. Available is another. And the announcements
are for products a month and a half or more out. With IBOC rash trashing
listening in my area for more than a year, now listeners--the ones in my
neighborhood that I can directly observe the listening habits of--have
moved to other outlets. Most of them iPod. With a few to satellite. The
rest have moved to FM.

My own listening habits have been dramatically altered. I'm
listening, now, to stations I did bother with before. Offering
dramatically different programming than I previously could enjoy on AM.
Instead of talk, during the day, I listen to Jazz. Or Classical. Or
something eclectic on XM.

AM-HD has been trashing the bands here for quite awhile now. And
with local AMs being covered by IBOC rash listening has been difficult
at the very best. The announcement of a $149 solution soon to come is
way too little, way too late. No one that I know is going to wait for
solutions to problems that are ongoing, and when the problems first
appeared, there were no solutions in sight. The time to introduce those
radios was a year ago, when IBOC rash first started to smother parts of
the locally used spectrum.

A mere announcement now...well, if you wanted to turn over the
entire audience in a short time, this would be the way to do it.





In fact, your share increase would exceed the number of HD radios sold in
those markets were explosive growth has taken place. IF HD audio is not a
factor, it's the content that's attracting listeners. In under 45 demo's
at that.

Nope, It is all older, and we are talking about going form 0.4 to 0.6 in
some cases. Holding the water out of the fields by putting a finger in the
dike. Waiting for the chance that HD affords us.


Then, you're making my point for me. AM-HD is going to benefit only
existing listeners. IN the meantime, trashing the band audibly as any
potential listeners sample content only underscored that FM is a better
option for them. Younger, or older.



However, HD is putting that content off limits to potential listeners,
by trashing the bands in weak signal areas with other station's HD rash.
If noise and audio quality are, indeed, factors keeping AM from stable
growth, or at least stable levels of listenership, increasing noise found
in HD sidebands is not going to be a viable solution.

None of the stations I have studied gets any real listening outside of its 5
mv/m signal area (and what there is is suspect... probably done in the car,
etc) and most is inside the 10 mv/m. In LA, nearly all our listening is
inside the 15 mv/m due to the high noise levels in this market.

When I say that HD puts content off limits to potential listeners,
I'm not referring to those listeners outside of a market. I'm talking
about listeners inside the market who are not graced with a city grade
signal. WLS, the classic example here, does not put 15mv/m into Lake
County. But listenership is, or at least was, quite high in Lake County.
But with IBOC rash now sizzling up and down the dial, WLS has been very
difficult to capture cleanly. Or on some days, listen to at all. We're
not talking about DXing...we're talking about local listening. That's
been put off limits by IBOC rash, and yet, solutions have not been
widely available.

Cutting off two of the more populous counties in the Chicagoland area
is not a show of wisdom when you're goal is to save the AM band from
long term exodus. Especially when solutions are only 'announced' and not
widely available.



We don't lose anything. In fact, the AM HD is useable farther than analog
due to analog noise.


Which may be true. But only if the solutions are widely available.
Which, they are not. And haven't been for at least the last year as the
noise level has steadily grown to eventually cut off some the rated
areas of the metro from their favorite stations.



Then, again, if audio quality is really an issue, that same Tejano
format on HD2, since HD radios must resolve both AM and FM HD, will
present an attraction of listeners away from the AM station, even if
listening is done in AM HD.

The AM will probably go away eventually. It is one of the AMs that shoud
never have existed. As long as we keep the audience, and expand it, we
really don't care what the delivery method is.

It's a gamble... but doing nothing is not an alternative.


Doing nothing may not be an alternative, but it may be better than
doing something that produces more immediate harm than potential long
term good.

There has to be a better way. But it would take FCC reversing
themselves. And we all know how likely that would be.