On Mar 1, 4:37�pm, Rfburns wrote:
Hey Eddie,
Is it true that iBiquity isn't going to support AM HD beyond it's
current miserable, useless state. �So is what we hear - what we get?

jw

Bob Savage on AM-HD

"So a Salt Lake AM-FM has flipped the order in which it does its legal
TOH breaks from AM-FM to FM-AM and that's supposed to make the case,
that the only thing which will save AM is IBOC? Pardon me, but B-F-D.
Neither this anecdote nor all the pedantic Arbitron and BIA number-
spinning anyone can concoct will obscure the obvious truth: that if
anything is on life support with no prospects but certain death the
instant the ventilator is switched off, it's IBOC, not AM radio."

"Hello? The entire AM IBOC universe consists of 241 US AM stations,
all of which are owned by iBiquity investors with the exception of
about two dozen, and only a third of which are operating HD at night -
that's less than TWO PERCENT of AM stations on the air. The
implementation trend is gradually downward. There is NO growth in HD-
AM on the broadcasting side. Accounts of unacceptable adjacent channel
skywave interference continue to accumulate. iBiquity has thrown up
its hands about the Citadel, Cox and CCU problems, saying there will
be no further development of HD-AM beyond the current state of the
art. When it comes to HD-AM, it is what it is, and that's the
unsatisfying end of the story. NOBODY is buying HD radios which
continue to dwindle in availability. Receiver sales are an embarassing
fraction of the most guarded projections and reportedly most of those
units have been returned as defective. iBiquity had to bribe most
receiver manufacturers to display ANY HD products at the most recent
CES. To this day I have never had a single listener or advertiser
comment or question about HD Radio. I do not know anyone who owns or
listens to an HD Radio, nor does anyone in my wide circle of friends,
relatives, associates or clients own an HD Radio - even the CE of a
local major group with several HD-operating outlets doesn't own an HD
Radio! In fact, I have met nobody outside the industry who even knows
(or cares) what HD Radio is. And this is the business I've been in for
almost 41 years!"

"If indeed, AM's only hope is to lure people to buy $200 cheesy HD
boxes and camp out on the ground screens of 50kw stations to listen to
the same progamming as the analog channel, in sparklingly artifact-
cobbled fake AM stereo, the future of the band appears bleak. It would
be depressing if I didn't know better, as do many others."

"My station is having another record year - and in analog, go figure.
Two good friends of mine, former Entercom executives, have bought and
resuscitated two small market AMs and are having a ball and making
money, doing what all of us have done throughout happier days in our
careers - serving an audience and advertisers with local radio
service."

"I am struck by the contemptuous gloom with which IBOC supporters view
not only AM radio, but radio in general. They continually preach
Kahoutek-style imminent demise and strain mightily to force the
defective IBOC-AM concept on a marketplace which couldn't care less.
All the stubborn pro-IBOC blogging in the world will not get the HD-AM
cadaver to respond to just one more application of the AED paddles."

"Given the choices for music consumers and the incredible failure of
corporate radio to respond meaningfully to current trends, I think
that - far from being the near-term casualty - AM radio may well be
the last man standing in broadcasting as music distribution choices
continue their proliferation."

Bob Savage, CEO, WYSL

http://tinyurl.com/yvwmrm

iBiquity is a fraud.