In article 4746935f@kcnews01, K Isham wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:
IBOCcrock wrote:
On Nov 21, 10:52 pm, D Peter Maus wrote:
IBOCcrock wrote:
On Nov 21, 2:07?pm, "David Eduardo" wrote:
"IBOCcrock" wrote in message
...


On Nov 21, 2:00 pm, "David Eduardo" wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in
..
.

? ?About 90% of the population still listens to the radio.
?Even those with access to, and regular use of, other
technologies.
Actually, it is over 95%. Roughly the same as it was in 1965.
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2015 2020
Ah, you called Miss Cleo. Ask what Google stock will be at,
will you? In the mid-60's, pundits said FM would never make it
and radio would die due to TV. Those predictions are as
accurate as yours. The satellite numbers are totally bogus, as
sat radio has hit a brick wall on new subscriptions and the
churn rate is huge after the free trial offers expire.
Poor argument - the 1960's didn't have cell phone/streaming,
Satellite Radio, the Internet, Internet Radio, etc...no nearly
the same situation Bud!
What's not acknowledged is that FM failed. Twice.

Before it didn't. FCC mandates were in part responsible.

Don't underestimate the power of commitment.

There's been a huge investment in this technology. There's been
an FCC mandate that all new modulation schemes be digital. And
there's been a half a billion dollars spent in promotion. The
point is not that HD's success is assured, but rather that HD's
demise is not assured either. This is not going away anytime
soon. It may go away, but it's far from over.

And the forces that have sway are in a good position to make it a
full-on madated conversion.

If you really want to fight this, you'll not be successful by
reporting it's premature demise.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You keep repeating the same rhetoric over and over again.



I keep repeating the same points because you keep ignoring the most
important parts of the argument....1) regardless of the market
uptake of this technology, the investors, the FCC and the stations
involved are committed to it. They may not be able to make it
successful, but they will not let it go easily. Even if IBOC goes
no further than AM stereo, they're simply NOT going to let it go.
Not after all the money that's been spent.

If IBOC is to die, it will die slowly, and over a long period of
time.


Stations
will tire of the internal costs associated with running HD/IBOC,
and with no ROI ever possible from total consumer apathy, stations
will tire of paying the on-going fees to iBiquty. Stations refuse
to invest in it, Gen Y thinks the concept is lauable, old
consumers don't want it, and retailers can't sell it.


All of which is true. But the boat is in the water. They're not
going to just abandon ship. Not after all the costs of launch.
Radio, iBiquity, and yes, FCC, will hang onto this for as long as
they think they can turn it around. Remember, AM stereo was a dud,
too. With international uptake. And it took 20 years to die.

FM failed. Twice. The public didn't care. There was virtually no
uptake.

Look at it now.

Color TV took 15 years to catch on.

Look at it now.

We're only at the very beginning of the process marketing IBOC
technology. If it's not working, but there are enough people
driving this who think that it can be made successful, they'll keep
flaying the horse until there's nothing left before they give up.
And then blame DXers for the failure.

Even if it cannot be made successful, IBOC will take years to die.
iBiquity has laid out a 5 to 8 year plan...near to a decade, just
to break even. Even if they hit the target, that's only the break
even point. From there, it will take years to build real growth.
Or, if not successful, it will take years for stations, and
investors to give up on the money they've thrown at this issue and
finally give up and go away.

FM failed twice. And once it caught on, took nearly two decades to
become what it is. 40 years is a long time to keep swinging....and
yet FM, backed with a lot of creative thinking, and two FCC
mandates became successful 4 decades after launch.

And the only one driving FM for the first 10 years was Edwin
Armstrong. There was no public interest. No industry interest. And
no FCC support.

IBOC has corporate involvement, industry support, and the FCC's
mandate that all new modulation schemes be digital.

It's not going to simply go away.


The FCC learned from the AM Stereo
debacle and will not mandate a shutoff of analog radio.


Don't count on that, either. They didn't learn anything from AM
Stereo. HDTV was supposed to be a market choice, too. Totally
voluntary uptake. And no talk of turning off the NTSC broadcast
until and unless 85% of each market had moved to digital TV. And
this was to be done market by market, allowing market forces to
make the decisions.

Well, that didn't work. Public interest was low. And new digital
services wanted the spectrum. And they were willing to pay huge
dollars for it.

So, there was an FCC mandate. And now digital TV uptake is
strong. I
just added an ATSC tuner to my own system. I now have digital
over-the-air TV. 30 channels of it. (without an HDTV--btw.) NTSC TV
is going away in a little over a year, and the uptake of digital TV
technology is brisk. Resulting in a faster conversion, improved
technology, and much lower prices.

IBOC offers the opportunity for more stations, conditional
access...read that 'subscription radio,'... FCC benefits with more
licensing and process fees...stations see an end to dictatorial
advertisers...they're highly motivated to make IBOC work. No matter
what it takes. And what it may take is an FCC mandate.

Again, HDTV was to be market driven. FCC specifically said there
woudl be no HDTV mandate. Now, there's a mandate. Don't think it
can't happen with Radio. There are too many salivating to get it
done for that not to be an option.

IBOC. It certainly doesn't look good now. You and I agree there.
The public is not interested. Costs of implementation are a sore
point for broadcasters. iBiquity fees are absurd. We agree here.

And nobody is liking where this is going. Not the public. Not the
industry. We agree here, as well.

But there are too many historic examples of new technology
implemetation...even implementation badly executed...that have been
turned around by changing the rules.

FM benefitted from two FCC mandates. HDTV was mandated into life.

History has shown us that FCC can and will mandate what they
believe needs to be mandated. Even if reversing previous decisions
to do it.

And as far as the spectrum issue is concerned...digital
broadcasting frees up more local spectra. More stations, more FCC
revenues. They've got a financial interest in this too.

And the MW broadcast band is being eyed for low bitrate digital
services. There is spectrum pressure in favor of IBOC, just as
there is HDTV.

An FCC mandate is not out of the question.

So, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. IBOC isn't
working. You're right about that. We agree. This is a boondoggle.
And it's an expensive boondoggle.

But that's only the picture right now.

There is too much history to suggest that with this much support in
the industry, with this much money spent, with this much motivation
on the part of broadcasters AND FCC....there is just too much
historic evidence to make the claim that IBOC will just go away.

It may fail. But it will not just go away. It will peter out, and
peter out and peter out....just like AM Stereo...and it will take
more than a decade to do it.




Mr Maus:

I sincerely hope you are wrong about the FCC mandate. I recently
purchased a Sangean HD1-X to replace my worn out tuner for my
stereo system and now wish that it had a IBOC stop switch.
I grate my teeth every time it goes digital. It truncates the high
end and over emphasis es the low (ie. Bass). The one AM station that
I can receive in IBOC out of two currently is the worst of the bunch.
The drop- outs at home some fifteen miles from the antenna are worse
than my DRM reception from Radio New Zealand 6000 miles away. The DRM
sounds better also. I use a Ten Tec 320D plus DREAM . FM IBOC sounds
worse than CD quality, especially if they are broadcasting another
channel. It sounds worse than a highly compressed MP4 or MP3 stream,
and drops out worse than my dial up streaming channels. To sell it
they are going to have to make improvements both on AM and FM. The
subscription service won't sell if you cannot reliably pick it up. I
think I'm going to subscribe to Satellite once the merger is through.
At least they have a reliable portable unit. I was hoping that
Sangean would have released the DRM-40 here in the states, but the
FCC is dragging their feet in approving it. What a surprise. God help
us if the FCC tries to make all the domestic short-wave stations
switch to IBOC, at least the DRM signal is only 12kHz wide, not
30kHz. Drm sounds better than IBOC if we should mandated to digital,
plus it is open technology and most receivers could be modified to a
12KHZ filter and run on most newer computers without having to
replace the receiver. Later on the manufactures could show how to
improve reception by purchasing a dedicated DRM set. As it is I not
going to be spending any more money on IBOC equipment until they
improve the sound. Ken I.

There are people that will continue to argue that you can get something
for nothing. This never works in engineering solutions to a problem.
These people think that if you don't have enough bandwidth for a good
level of reliable service and high quality sound you can just compress
the hell out of it and use some kind of magic modulation scheme to get
around laws of physics. Well the magic tricks have failed and they will
continue to fail. Call it HD, DRM or something else will not change the
outcome.

If you want both a higher level of service and better sound quality than
what you now get on analog AMBCB or SW you are going to have to do way
better than HD and DRM. HD and DRM both suck. I said so before either
got trials going and nothings changed since.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California