"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
wrote in message This is a test by a
public station, and there is so far no interest on the part of commercial
stations... the other issue is that there is absolutely no economic model
for charging for single channels at the local level.


The fact that this matter is being openly discussed in the industry, and
the personalities who are doing the discussing, begs to differ with you.
There IS interest. Because there's money in it.

There is no money in it because the economics of offering paid HD would be
limited to the couple of stations any owner has in a market, and the cost
would have to be so low to compete with the cost per channel of satellite.

Every examination of this shows that radio neither has the business model
nor the ability to do the billing and such to generate a profit.

This has been discussed since before the formation of iBiquity, when
digital radio was first being discussed as a possible replacement for AM,
back in the late 70's.

And discarded sort of like On TV.

That no one you speak to is interested may be one thing. But that
iBiquity are themselves pursuing the technology and the business model is
quite another.

I can see it being useful if any station wants to degrade the digital stream
to permit an HD3 channel for narrowcasting, just like we have Farsi "Radio
Teran" on KLVE's SCA. But the subscription requires rental of a special
receiver and it is only marginally profitable... although they send
engineering a big basket of pistachios and dates every year.

And, for the record, saying 'There's no interest, so far....' is like a
hostess saying, 'Would you like to sit in the smoking section? There's no
one smoking right now." The situation could and will change in a
heartbeat.

The problem is economics, based on cost per channel and having enough people
in each market to support 1 to 5 channel mini-assortments of formats. I
believe NPR has the idea of doing this for significant donations, not as a
self-sustaining model.

There's money in subscription radio. It's been the holy grail of
broadcasting since Sarnoff. There's always been interest. Always. Because
there's money in it. And radio in the US is, has been and always will be,
about the money.

There is not the economy of scale, even at Clear Channel, to establish a
billing department and subscription administration for this. In other cases,
you can not build a viable model based on, let's take my case, 50 FMs in 17
markets when we already have commercial models in development.

Sure, it is interesting. But not practical. Even using a fulfillment center
would not create a break-even as the subscription base and variety of
formats is tooooooo low.