Last night on Extension 720 (Tuesday, January 16th) on WGN 720 AM out of
Chicago, host Milt Rosenberg had on a couple of guests to discuss "The
Future of Media in America:"

http://www.wgnradio.com/weblog/miltsfile/

Both guests talked up some of what they felt was the coming digital
utopia, including the potential for greater local content and control.
They even briefly touched on digital radio broadcasting, with the guests
and Milt discussing the possibility for multiple channels of
programming.

During the call-in period, one caller (not me) started to point out the
implementation problems of IBOC/HD, including adjacent channel
interference to other AM stations. Milt abruptly (though politely) cut
him off, saying that it was a topic to be adjudicated for another day,
and implied that he was running out of time, though he had time for at
least one more caller before the end of the show. Milt usually can
steer callers with confrontational topics not only politely, but in ways
that the guest or guests can answer. For example, he had a caller on a
recent show about gourmet cuisine and cooking who was an animal rights
activist and was complaining about pate foie gras (made by force feeding
geese to overfatten their livers). Not only was Milt able to politely
steer and scope the conversation, he was able to get the guests to answer
the questions offered by the caller. And doesn't such a show try to
screen callers, such that the IBOC/HD questions were not a surprise,
anyway?

I wonder if Milt cut the caller off because he felt that the guests
could not directly address the IBOC/HD problems, that the caller had
violated the customary "no last named/no brand names" rule by mentioning
another radio station (WLW 700 in Cincinatti), or even that he was
running afoul of corporate editorial policy not to allow on-air
criticism of IBOC/HD, especially anything that implies that the "Emperor
Has No Clothes." I posted to Milt's Blog above, asking if, given the
dearth of good radio content lately (his show excepted, of course), if
multiple channels would just dilute programming and audio quality to an
unacceptable degree. Two or three times as much junk is still junk.

--
Paul W. Schleck

http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
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