On Dec 20, 7:23*pm, "David Eduardo" wrote:
wrote in message

...

What about iBiquity? *Are they not deeply in dept? *It's one thing for
stations to see a return (if that's really happening as a "national
Hindi network" has very limited appeal) it's another for investors to
receive a return on their huge investment.

You have to separate iBiquity from the stations. iBiquity has relatively
little debt, and is financed with burn capital like most startups.

The radio stations are willing to continue HD programming, as they did for 3
decades with FM, in the hope the system will be more valuable.

It's hard to believe that
HD radio is holding on by anything but a thread. *With less than 1
million radios sold after 6 or 7 years, and nothing new on the
horizon, how could anyone be persuaded by iBiquitys description of HD
radio as "Exciting"?

The low power chipsets are shipping, so 2009 should see both more varied
programming and new radios.

Realistically, to compare the iBiquity HD radio start-up to a
biomedical firm start-up doesn't make sense either. *There’s lots of
discretionary money available for biomedical start-ups (I know because
I work for a pharmaceutical company) but broadcasting is another thing
altogether. *Based on what I now about iBiquity they were convinced
that HD radio would be ubiquitous by now. *I believe Bob Struble
boldly said that by 2009 / 2010 HD radio would be the norm. That
hardly seems likely to happen.

New FMs are still going on with HD, showing the interest. There was a lot of
HD enthusiasm at the NAB in Austin. And much of the startup money came from
radio itself... and technologt vc firms.

Trust me, I’m not trying to corner you but finding the truth is
difficult. *Ibiquity is not a reliable source and most other sources
are very guarded on the subject.

Having seen a number of profitable HD channels, I think that as the
offerings mature, radios gradually come out, and channels are split to do
sub-let niche programming like the Hindi thing, there will be lots of
reasons to be happy with HD.

Having seen a number of profitable HD channels, I think that as the
offerings mature, radios gradually come out, and channels are split to do
sub-let niche programming like the Hindi thing, there will be lots of
reasons to be happy with HD.

"Addressing The Long Tail: HD2s and HD3s for Fun and Profit"

"Analog radio cannot effectively serve The Long Tail. Broadcasters
have had huge success addressing the 80% with widely popular mass
market content pushed through our loud speakers. But our economic
structure won’t let us take advantage of the few consumers who like
reggae or death metal or comedy or mommy talk. You simply cannot
program niche formats on analog stations and make the numbers work –
listenership and revenue potential are too low to cover capital and
operating costs... So go ahead, grab that Long Tail. It will help your
station, and help the industry."

http://tinyurl.com/66jb9s

"Harvard Business Review: Should You Invest in the Long Tail?"

"Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, argues that the sudden
availability of niche offerings more closely tailored to their tastes
will lure consumers away from homogenized hits. The 'tail' of the
sales distribution curve, he says, will become longer, fatter, and
more profitable. Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School, set
out to investigate whether Anderson's long-tail theory is actually
playing out in today's markets. She focused on the music and home-
video industries -- two markets that Anderson and others frequently
hold up as examples of the long tail in action -- reviewing sales data
from Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen VideoScan, the online music service
Rhapsody, and the Australian DVD-by-mail service Quickflix. What she
found may surprise you: Blockbusters are capturing even more of the
market than they used to, and consumers in the tail don't really like
niche products much."

http://www.citeulike.org/user/mmkurth/article/2984768

Oh, really?