IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the fake Hispanic wrote:

"RHF" wrote in message
ups.com...
DE - "two HD FM channels" = FM Stereo ?
-or- Two separate Channels of Programming ?

The digital channel can be sliced into one, two or more channels, and
receivers see these as HD 1, HD 2, etc for each station. There are
several
hundred of these HD 2 channels already launched.

And they all add up to one thing: QRM

You said. that. You are wrong. you are boring and tedious.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

David Eduardo wrote:
"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

So does HD... at the transmission end.
Although I sitll figure ibiquity has the pay radio card up it's sleeve.

I tis never mentioned, The license fees are ad-billing based, in fact. The
contracts have no provisions for pay radio.



When I was with CBS, and Mel Karmazin was running the radio division,
he used to come to us from time to time, for a staff breakfast and a chat.

He would do most of the chatting.

The subject of IBOC came up at one such, and at the time IBOC was
still quite a ways off. But he did pointedly say that the future of any
successful business long term will include multiple revenue streams, and
that IBOC, much in the same manner as SCA, will offer the opportunity
for alternative programming streams, and the digital nature of the
stream will permit technology to be implemented for make alternate
streams both advertising and subscription based.

He said he was quite excited about this.

Similar pronouncements have been utterred about HD TV. But that's
another topic for another time.

The conversation became quite active with the rest of the staff, and
you could see exactly who was really getting it, and who wasn't. One
side was clearly excited about the digital medium for its quality
improvement, and the other, excited about the digital medium for it's
ability to be broken up into salable chunks to add to the company's
bottom line. Quality for that side was only an opportunity to steal
bandwidth from the higher quality transmission, and use it for other,
salable commodity. At one point, Karmazin said that users of radio are
not significantly driven by audiphile quality, and that the extra
bandwidth will be used for revenue enhancement, and that audio quality
will be about what it is now.

And what came out of that particular chat session was that the idea
that IBOC's implementation would create opportunities for new business.
And eventually, as a salable listener base becomes measured,
subscription radio.

This for FM. AM IBOC was not going to be as versatile, but would
present the opportunities for marketing AM radio, again, but with,
again, the possibility for subscription based listening.

A few years later Karmazin was 'out-Karmazin'd' By Sumner Redstone,
and he found that the best way to improve his station was to gt out.
Interesting that, now, he's at subscription radio and the discussion is
about increasing the subscription base, and debate about advertising.

iBiquity may not have mentioned subscription implementation, but its
licensees certainly have.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...

A few years later Karmazin was 'out-Karmazin'd' By Sumner Redstone, and
he found that the best way to improve his station was to gt out.
Interesting that, now, he's at subscription radio and the discussion is
about increasing the subscription base, and debate about advertising.

iBiquity may not have mentioned subscription implementation, but its
licensees certainly have.

Nice post, with an interesting insigt from one company's point of view. Mel
is definitely one of the most interesting people we have seen in radio, and
his statements are well worth considering.

Mel, despite his rather edgy manner, did think out of the box as he looked
at future revenue opportunities. I was once offered a job with him for the
NY Spanish station, but was so putt off by either him or the native New
Yorker he represented that I did not take the opportunity. It would have
been an interesting ride, though, until one of us screamed at the other.

I have never had any discussion either in-house or with members of the
industry committee, about pay channels. I think nearly all of us see that
associating "pay" with terrestrial radio is a mistake. While the discussion
may have come up, I never saw it progress. Most of us believe that splitting
the HD digital FM in two offers great quality (absolutely marvelous, in
fact, compared to iPod and satellite channels) and the ability to market new
free channels.

Since there are only 100 shares in any market, there will be no expansion of
radio listening, but there may be a slowing of any erosion. At the same
time, selling today is about clusters and combos, not single stations for
the most part... so having more specifically targeted stations will
definitely help. Low spillage and finely honed targets get better rates than
broad, vague targets, as sports AMs demonstrate.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

David Eduardo wrote:
"Brenda Ann" wrote in message
...

"David Eduardo" wrote in message
. ..
AM analog has to be backed off to a 5 kHz to 7 kHz upper limit, but since
most analog radios don't go that far even, there is no loss and actually
the more limited bandwidth sounds better on many of today's radios. It
certainly sounds no worse.

MOST.. not ALL. How many millions of GE Superadio III's are out there that
will no longer be able to take advantage of the wide AM setting?

Given the CEA estimate of the lifespan of such devices, probalby less than
100 thousand are in operation. Less than 400,000 were sold int otal. I have
been through 4 of them, and none are among the living today.

And these are still in production, not 40+ year old tube radios with dual
bandwidths.

They are a specialty device, of not much appeal to most listeners as they
are not stereo. And, as I said, all the models have sold well under a
half-million.

AM IBOC destroys the usability of those radios on the wide setting.

No, it does not. It just does not sound any better on wide than regular,
because the analgo is limited to 5 to 7 kHz. Considering that there are 1
billion radios in the Us, a few tens of thousands of hi-fi AM radios is
rather insignificant. Since NRSC has limited AM bandwidth to 10 kHz anyway,
the net loss is trifling.

There are some crappy radios that are naturally in wide mode all the
time. They will hear the splatter. What is worse, it will be heard as
high frequency noise.

You keep talking about no loss, nobody's listening, nobody matters.

The fact is that there is very little daytime listening to AM outside the
city grade contours. There is essentially no measurable night listening
except to a handful of clear channel staitons, mostly the old 1 Am and a few
1 B channels. On the other hand, radio faces major challenges, but AM and
FM. If a tiny amount of present-day fringe listening is lost to give radio a
longer life span, that is a tiny price to pay.

It used to be the FCC served the public, not the broadcasters. Now it
only serves the public when naked breasts are involved. There ARE
people who live in rural areas where there is no FM service. Really,
I've been there. AM is all they got, so they DX all the time, not as a
hobby. IBOC is intentional QRM.


You are defending a "today" that is ending. If you want there to be free
radio tomorrow, some chnages have to happen.

Take your IBOC shilling somewhere else. I don't see where most of us here
want to hear about it.

I am trying to explain why htings must change if there is to be any kind of
free radio in the future... AM, FM, SW of any kind. If you want media all
controlled by Rupert Murdeoch and a few major companies that are world-wide,
then stick to your guns. You will be part of the death of free radio.

You are a shill, but a polite shill.


Take it to rec.radio.broadcasting if you are even still welcome there. I
know at least one person who has met you in r/l and says you're just as
much a pompous ass in r/l as you are here.

Funny, I tend to get invited to speak at conventions and such because I say
what has to be said. were I a paraiah, I doubt I would be at the keynote
sessions of the NAB and such.

I get so sick of being marginalized by the likes of you. You are
"marginalizing" yourself, if I get what you mean by the word. the
interstate highways marginalized Route 66. There is a reason: Americans
had more money, better cars and greater needs for fast delivery of goods.
Route 66 is analog. HD is digital radio.

You ARE affecting people with this crap, we are not NOBODY.

Sorry, but you are. You are standing nearly alone with a dwindling bunch of
AM DXers who want the world to spin backwards. If you care about radio
surviving, and, more than that, if you care about the 120,000 employees of
US radio stations, you would be more wise to look at what can make the
medium viable further into the future.


HD will do more harm to AM than help it. Everyone knows those "free" HD
channels won't be free for ever, Radio is about content first and
foremost. The only thing that will save us from HD will be the
religious stations that will not go HD because they won't pay the
royalities, and will complain about the reduced audience. For a
religious station, it is the schmuck with the check that matters, not
an Arbitron rating.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the fake Hispanic and all 'round charlatan
wrote:

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the fake Hispanic wrote:

"RHF" wrote in message
ups.com...
DE - "two HD FM channels" = FM Stereo ?
-or- Two separate Channels of Programming ?

The digital channel can be sliced into one, two or more channels, and
receivers see these as HD 1, HD 2, etc for each station. There are
several
hundred of these HD 2 channels already launched.

And they all add up to one thing: QRM

You said. that. You are wrong. you are boring and tedious.

And you're a prancing charlatan.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
A few years later Karmazin was 'out-Karmazin'd' By Sumner Redstone, and
he found that the best way to improve his station was to gt out.
Interesting that, now, he's at subscription radio and the discussion is
about increasing the subscription base, and debate about advertising.

iBiquity may not have mentioned subscription implementation, but its
licensees certainly have.

Nice post, with an interesting insigt from one company's point of view. Mel
is definitely one of the most interesting people we have seen in radio, and
his statements are well worth considering.

Mel, despite his rather edgy manner, did think out of the box as he looked
at future revenue opportunities. I was once offered a job with him for the
NY Spanish station, but was so putt off by either him or the native New
Yorker he represented that I did not take the opportunity. It would have
been an interesting ride, though, until one of us screamed at the other.


LOL! I've heard tell that this happened from time to time at the
corner office at BlackRock. But nothing definitive.

I do know of at least one GM who voluntarily fell on his sword rather
than deal with Mel after a series of bad quarters. And here, in Chicago,
Mel refused to speak with my GM, after a revenue tumble. This went on
for a couple of years.

He's an interesting bird. And I'm not at all sure he's been good for
radio, except in that he put radio revenue on the map, and proved
conclusively that many of the myths by which radio lived were, in fact,
mythical.

I found him real easy to work for, though. He's very clear about his
expectations. You meet them. He doesn't care how, as long as it's ethical.

His expectations are VERY high. But, then, so are his rewards.

That's a dream job, compared to some I've had.



I have never had any discussion either in-house or with members of the
industry committee, about pay channels. I think nearly all of us see that
associating "pay" with terrestrial radio is a mistake. While the discussion
may have come up, I never saw it progress. Most of us believe that splitting
the HD digital FM in two offers great quality (absolutely marvelous, in
fact, compared to iPod and satellite channels) and the ability to market new
free channels.


I actually disagree with you about the mistake of pay terrestrial
radio. And so do others in the biz. Truth is, that subscription radio,
whether it be the baseband channel, or one of the alternates, may be the
only way to create viability for some formats that are not supportable
through traditional advertising.

My GM, for instance, desperately wanted to create a viable blues
format. (Imagine, the Blues not viable in Chicago...but there it is). He
could never get the perceptual data to support it. But subscription
radio would have made that possible. Just as a number of the niche
formats on XM and Sirius, now.

Now, on the other side of that, Karmazin believed the ratings/revenue
relationship to be more myth than reality in the presence of REAL sales
people. He preached it regularly. That the only thing needed to
overcome weak ratings is more sales people, who could then create demand
within an single station. Even driving rates up the card. And the 30+
sales ducks we had on staff were a testament to that. And he believed
that any station that couldn't convert at a minimum of 200% needed an
new Sales Mangler. We routinely converted at 200% and above.

So, though, it's a good bet that subscription terrestrial radio is
bad idea, questionable at best, it's not entirely a settled issue. Out
of the box thinking can make pay radio happen, and clever execution can
make it work. Especially, where there is little advertiser support.

(One of Karmazin's other bone deep beliefs is that every service pay
for itself. No one gets subsidized. And if it can pay for itself, it can
profit. In that aura, pay radio is an eventual certainty.)

As far as quality goes...that's a better marketing point than it is
a broadcast reality. Everyone talks about quality, and everyone has a
standard, but where quality is defined as absolute faithfulness to the
original material, it's failed everytime. If you use the tone control,
on your car radio, you're not that interested in high quality. If you
have an equalizer on your audio system....you get the picture.

HD Quality is, and will be, perceptual and personal. Right now, it's
being presented at its optimum. That will change. Stealing bandwidth
will begin. And look straight into your monitor and tell me you can name
5 engineers who can resist the temptation to 'tweak' their audio. Name
me 5 more who don't believe they can 'improve' it.


The Quality pitch is temporary. Once HD is established, and there is
a significant user base, the whole 'quality' issue will no longer be
mentioned, except to say 'digital quality.' Which is what they say
about Sirius and XM...and some of that is pretty ratty.






Since there are only 100 shares in any market, there will be no expansion of
radio listening, but there may be a slowing of any erosion. At the same
time, selling today is about clusters and combos, not single stations for
the most part... so having more specifically targeted stations will
definitely help. Low spillage and finely honed targets get better rates than
broad, vague targets, as sports AMs demonstrate.


No question. And HD formats will be, as cluster formats are now,
selected strategically, to protect the cash cow, and mop up any
periphery. Likely to be sold in unwired combo packages. With lip service
paid to innovative and alternative programming. At least in the short term.

And at least for the time being, you may indeed see a slowing of
erosion. New, exciting toys, with fresh options for things not commonly
heard. But as XM did recently, gutting a number of the channels I
enjoyed, and replacing the music I preferred to hear with things that
are more 'salable' and adding commercials to some music channels,
eventually terrestrial and HD will fall into the same patterns as
terrestrial radio exhibits, today.

The pith, here, is this statement:

"Since there are only 100 shares in any market,
there will be no expansion of radio listening,
but there may be a slowing of any erosion."

With evermore options for listening, and fractionalization of the
listenership into potentially thousands of niches, eventually,
programming offerings are going to have to be sold in combinations.
Actually quite large clusters of programming issues. That means that
programming offernings, whether on the baseband or the HD's, will have
to fit into certain packageable categories. Since the target demos
essentially do not change, and the maximum share is 100%, The total
numbers are fixed. Competition will have to be within the existing
numbers. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it were. Combo programming
packages will have to be selected, or created, with some target demo
participation. To remain salable in that context, some alternatives will
be too far off the target to be salable, in favor or more mainstream,
salable content. Not exactly like anything else, in the package, but not
that different, either. No matter how you slice it, if advertising
support is going to be part of the business framework, nothing's really
going to change, except how the programming offerings slice up the
existing demos.

In the end, the same research that gives you what you have now, will
give you a different slicing of the same listeners for thousands of new
channels.

More channels, less revenue per channel. More channels, less expense
per channel.

Profits fall.

Consolidation of expenses rears its ugly head, once again.

In the end, not much really changes, except how the pie is sliced.
Because there are only 100 shares in any market. And radio has saturated
the market with a mature product.

Now, in reality, Radio can't acknowledge this. Especially, not
today, in a stock price driven radio economy. So HD will forge ahead,
with promises of newer, better, cleaner, stronger.

Most only realized for a short time before economic realities crash
the party. The rest, unrealized at all.


All on technology that admittedly is a best guess at preventing
erosion. Sounds a lot like "do something, even if it's wrong."

But then, a lot of business is like that.

In the process. We, as listeners, get our dial trashed, but spend
more money. And in the end, the overall economy booms.

Which is the point. Because after all, in the US, Radio is ALWAYS
about the money.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the fake Hispanic and all 'round
charlatan
wrote:

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the fake Hispanic wrote:

"RHF" wrote in message
ups.com...
DE - "two HD FM channels" = FM Stereo ?
-or- Two separate Channels of Programming ?

The digital channel can be sliced into one, two or more channels, and
receivers see these as HD 1, HD 2, etc for each station. There are
several
hundred of these HD 2 channels already launched.

And they all add up to one thing: QRM

You said. that. You are wrong. you are boring and tedious.

And you're a prancing charlatan.

And, if so, one with responsibility for $3.5 billion worth of HD or future
HD stations.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
A few years later Karmazin was 'out-Karmazin'd' By Sumner Redstone,
and he found that the best way to improve his station was to gt out.
Interesting that, now, he's at subscription radio and the discussion is
about increasing the subscription base, and debate about advertising.

iBiquity may not have mentioned subscription implementation, but its
licensees certainly have.

Nice post, with an interesting insigt from one company's point of view.
Mel is definitely one of the most interesting people we have seen in
radio, and his statements are well worth considering.

Mel, despite his rather edgy manner, did think out of the box as he
looked at future revenue opportunities. I was once offered a job with him
for the NY Spanish station, but was so putt off by either him or the
native New Yorker he represented that I did not take the opportunity. It
would have been an interesting ride, though, until one of us screamed at
the other.


LOL! I've heard tell that this happened from time to time at the corner
office at BlackRock. But nothing definitive.

I do know of at least one GM who voluntarily fell on his sword rather
than deal with Mel after a series of bad quarters. And here, in Chicago,
Mel refused to speak with my GM, after a revenue tumble. This went on for
a couple of years.

He's an interesting bird. And I'm not at all sure he's been good for
radio, except in that he put radio revenue on the map, and proved
conclusively that many of the myths by which radio lived were, in fact,
mythical.

I found him real easy to work for, though. He's very clear about his
expectations. You meet them. He doesn't care how, as long as it's ethical.

His expectations are VERY high. But, then, so are his rewards.

That's a dream job, compared to some I've had.



I have never had any discussion either in-house or with members of the
industry committee, about pay channels. I think nearly all of us see that
associating "pay" with terrestrial radio is a mistake. While the
discussion may have come up, I never saw it progress. Most of us believe
that splitting the HD digital FM in two offers great quality (absolutely
marvelous, in fact, compared to iPod and satellite channels) and the
ability to market new free channels.


I actually disagree with you about the mistake of pay terrestrial radio.
And so do others in the biz. Truth is, that subscription radio, whether
it be the baseband channel, or one of the alternates, may be the only way
to create viability for some formats that are not supportable through
traditional advertising.

My GM, for instance, desperately wanted to create a viable blues format.
(Imagine, the Blues not viable in Chicago...but there it is). He could
never get the perceptual data to support it. But subscription radio would
have made that possible. Just as a number of the niche formats on XM and
Sirius, now.

Now, on the other side of that, Karmazin believed the ratings/revenue
relationship to be more myth than reality in the presence of REAL sales
people. He preached it regularly. That the only thing needed to overcome
weak ratings is more sales people, who could then create demand within an
single station. Even driving rates up the card. And the 30+ sales ducks we
had on staff were a testament to that. And he believed that any station
that couldn't convert at a minimum of 200% needed an new Sales Mangler.
We routinely converted at 200% and above.

So, though, it's a good bet that subscription terrestrial radio is bad
idea, questionable at best, it's not entirely a settled issue. Out of the
box thinking can make pay radio happen, and clever execution can make it
work. Especially, where there is little advertiser support.

(One of Karmazin's other bone deep beliefs is that every service pay for
itself. No one gets subsidized. And if it can pay for itself, it can
profit. In that aura, pay radio is an eventual certainty.)

As far as quality goes...that's a better marketing point than it is a
broadcast reality. Everyone talks about quality, and everyone has a
standard, but where quality is defined as absolute faithfulness to the
original material, it's failed everytime. If you use the tone control, on
your car radio, you're not that interested in high quality. If you have an
equalizer on your audio system....you get the picture.

HD Quality is, and will be, perceptual and personal. Right now, it's
being presented at its optimum. That will change. Stealing bandwidth will
begin. And look straight into your monitor and tell me you can name 5
engineers who can resist the temptation to 'tweak' their audio. Name me 5
more who don't believe they can 'improve' it.


The Quality pitch is temporary. Once HD is established, and there is a
significant user base, the whole 'quality' issue will no longer be
mentioned, except to say 'digital quality.' Which is what they say about
Sirius and XM...and some of that is pretty ratty.






Since there are only 100 shares in any market, there will be no expansion
of radio listening, but there may be a slowing of any erosion. At the
same time, selling today is about clusters and combos, not single
stations for the most part... so having more specifically targeted
stations will definitely help. Low spillage and finely honed targets get
better rates than broad, vague targets, as sports AMs demonstrate.


No question. And HD formats will be, as cluster formats are now,
selected strategically, to protect the cash cow, and mop up any periphery.
Likely to be sold in unwired combo packages. With lip service paid to
innovative and alternative programming. At least in the short term.

And at least for the time being, you may indeed see a slowing of
erosion. New, exciting toys, with fresh options for things not commonly
heard. But as XM did recently, gutting a number of the channels I enjoyed,
and replacing the music I preferred to hear with things that are more
'salable' and adding commercials to some music channels, eventually
terrestrial and HD will fall into the same patterns as terrestrial radio
exhibits, today.

The pith, here, is this statement:

"Since there are only 100 shares in any market,
there will be no expansion of radio listening,
but there may be a slowing of any erosion."

With evermore options for listening, and fractionalization of the
listenership into potentially thousands of niches, eventually, programming
offerings are going to have to be sold in combinations. Actually quite
large clusters of programming issues. That means that programming
offernings, whether on the baseband or the HD's, will have to fit into
certain packageable categories. Since the target demos essentially do not
change, and the maximum share is 100%, The total numbers are fixed.
Competition will have to be within the existing numbers. Robbing Peter to
pay Paul, as it were. Combo programming packages will have to be
selected, or created, with some target demo participation. To remain
salable in that context, some alternatives will be too far off the target
to be salable, in favor or more mainstream, salable content. Not exactly
like anything else, in the package, but not that different, either. No
matter how you slice it, if advertising support is going to be part of the
business framework, nothing's really going to change, except how the
programming offerings slice up the existing demos.

In the end, the same research that gives you what you have now, will
give you a different slicing of the same listeners for thousands of new
channels.

More channels, less revenue per channel. More channels, less expense
per channel.

Profits fall.

Consolidation of expenses rears its ugly head, once again.

In the end, not much really changes, except how the pie is sliced.
Because there are only 100 shares in any market. And radio has saturated
the market with a mature product.

Now, in reality, Radio can't acknowledge this. Especially, not today,
in a stock price driven radio economy. So HD will forge ahead, with
promises of newer, better, cleaner, stronger.

Most only realized for a short time before economic realities crash the
party. The rest, unrealized at all.


All on technology that admittedly is a best guess at preventing
erosion. Sounds a lot like "do something, even if it's wrong."

But then, a lot of business is like that.

In the process. We, as listeners, get our dial trashed, but spend more
money. And in the end, the overall economy booms.

Which is the point. Because after all, in the US, Radio is ALWAYS about
the money.

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs
 

IBOC at Night and the Local/Regional AMs