High Definition Radio and New Content Alternatives 305
An anonymous reader writes "Many people are aware that satellite radio is a viable consumer option thanks to massive marketing campaigns. What many people do not know is that an alternative, High Definition Radio, exists in most major US markets. IBM DeveloperWorks explains how HD Radio works and why the masses may soon be scrambling to adopt this technology and expand it to alternative content as fast as possible."
It may be digital.. (Score:4, Insightful)
a big bucket of Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand it is a fully digital signal without paying a monthly subscription fee.
I don't see the motivation (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are in your car, you won't be able to tell the difference between HD Radio and plain-old FM Multiplex (unless your car is so well soundproofed that it poses a danger to everyone else on the road because you cannot hear horns/emergency vehicles/etc.)
If you are at home, for the cost of an HD setup you can get a HELL of a lot of music, or listen to sat radio.
Now, *IF* they were *replacing* radio stations with a pure digital block, then I could begin to see the advantage.
But I fear this will be just like HDTV - the broadcasters will use it to transmit FIVE TIMES THE COMMERCIALS! not actually transmit really good content.
Now, *if* auto makers start shipping HD radio in cars by default (or at least as part of the top of the line radio systems)....
High Definition Radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
Definition: Sharpness of an image (as seen by the clarity of detail) formed by an optical system. Definitions of definition on the Web [google.com]
Fidelity: A term used to describe the accuracy of recording, reproduction, or general quality of audio processing. Definitions of fidelity on the Web [google.com]
Interactive is the future. (Score:2, Insightful)
I won't pay for anything until I get Launchcast in my car. Having the ability to access tons of stations and rate songs is where its at. If I don't like a song... *poof* I'll never hear it again! It's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Also, I can have a mix of music from rock to classical on one station. Satellite and HD radio can't do that.
http://psychicfreaks.com/ [psychicfreaks.com]Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
People aren't buying satillite for higher quality (although it IS), they are buying it for content (O&A, Stern, etc) and for commercial free music. Not just commerical free, but typically genres that are totally ignored by traditional radio and in a censor free format.
Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)
Radio execs don't get it (Score:1, Insightful)
New Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually low-resolution (Score:5, Insightful)
HD Radio has many many problems, notably that its sideband transmission scheme crowds out adjacent low-power FM stations. Basically, it's Clear Channel's master plan to finally kill off the local competition. Oh, and guess who is a major investor in iBiquity and its patent portfolio? Yeah, Clear Channel.
So have fun with your "HD" Radio. It's a great way to crowd three times as many commercials and mindless corporate pop music crap into the same FM band, while destroying local stations, implementing DRM, and removing fair-use rights. Joy!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: High Definition Radio? (Score:2, Insightful)
HD does not matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Satellite is still better because I can get it anywhere in the US, Canada and Northern Mexico (Assuming you are in the US), you never have to hunt for "good" stations while on the road, there are no or very few commercials (Howard Stern is 3 or 6 minutes per hour, if that) and the content is MUCH MUCH better.
The problem is that normal radio or HD radio is pretty much broadcasting crap. No matter how good it sounds, it is still crap.
uh-huh, sure. (Score:4, Insightful)
They said the same thing about cable TV.
As long as the FCC keeps such a tight rein on who gets to set up a transmitter, we'll always have the same schlock on the radio, HD or otherwise.
Satellite radio fees (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine there's enough people that think like me to make any free digital radio the defacto standard/most popular.
Re:It may be digital.. (Score:4, Insightful)
One day, your precious (almost) commercial-free satellite radio content will go the way of commercial-free cable TV content. Prices will go up, and amount of content will go down owinf to commercials creep in "to pay the bills".
Looks into crystal ball
I predict that in the not-too distant future satellite radio stations will be just like their terrestrial ancestors.
Re:In conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HD does not matter (Score:1, Insightful)
So when it hits commercial time switch to one of the bazillion commercial free music channels.
Re:Actually low-resolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty soon, the usefulness of broadcast radio will be gone, and everyone will *have* to subscribe to some DRM'ed digital channel, or plan and download their own content of choice for long drives.
No way possible? What about... (Score:5, Insightful)
2.) Lower cost. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't XM and Sirius both subscription services?
3.) Embedding. XM or Sirius haven't made their way into car or home stereos as a standard feature. AM/FM antennae have long since. I didn't understand all the technical details from the article, but it sounds to me that there's not much needed beyond a decoder for the HD broadcast to be playable.
4.) Standardization. The article mentioned this format has been accepted by the FCC as a standard. Again, I don't know the details of satellite radio, but it sounds like the equipment is not inter-compatible.
5.) Independent operation. Stations handle the production and distribution of their programming themselves, instead of passing off the latter to the satellite owners. I tend to think of this as a good thing.
That's how I see it anyway. I'm no expert on this, so I welcome more information or rebuttals of my points. I'm also no fortune-teller, so I'm not saying HD is going to kick butt, but I disagree that it's too late to grab market share.
Re:Not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about 'em? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the Chicago area, there are a couple of stations that don't have mega-blocks of commercials, and little or no talk -- 97.1 WDRV (The Drive), and 104.3 WJMK (Jack FM).
The Drive plays mostly decent classic rock tracks, with a little bit of DJ (non-annoying type), little commercial, whereas Jack is no DJ, and only a few minutes of commercial breaks, and they play anything (it seems that I can always find music on one of those two stations).
If it weren't for those two, I'd have gotten satellite a long time ago.
Re:Your point? (Score:3, Insightful)
The innevitable encroachment of commercials to sattelite radio doesn't change the fact that it's great now. However, the point of bringing it up is that people use the lack of mind-numbing commercials as the major selling point of sattelite radio (see original post). I'd bet that in the future, when commercials have discovered and populated this frontier, subscriptions don't drop significantly.
Of course there's no way of really proving this, but let's take a look at another industry that has increased advertising in the recent past: the movies. There was a time not too long ago that you could go to the movies and only see commercials for upcoming movies that were, more or less, relevant to the audience in the theater. As such, they weren't really that intrusive or annoying. Now, you can go to the movies and see ten minutes worth of automobile, soft drink, television, and a host of other commercials. Despite this universal annoyance (I've yet to meet a movie-goer who likes the new ads) people still go to good movies in droves.
I think that the same thing will happen to sattelite radio. People will still pay for the service because "lack of annoying commercials" is only one of the reasons to subscribe (reception in really remote places is my personal favorite). Just like people will still go to theaters to see movies, because there's something really cool about seeing stuff blow up on a really big screen.
(Oh, and before anyone brings up the fact that movie attendance is dropping, any movie that grosses even $100 million still has ten million people paying too much to see the movie in the theater)
Re:It may be digital.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Faint praise. In a world in which most music lovers listen to low or no compression audio through decent electronics, we in the radio industry are rushing to provide an sonic experience I avoid on-line. As an industry we're slitting our own throats, and doing it for no other reason than the ability to program more channels of generice tripe in dramatically lower audio quality within the same licensed bandwidth. "Heeeeey, don't like our product now? Don't buy yet, for the same money we'll lower our quality and throw in Two, yes Two more channels of inane shit for free!" How will the audience resist?
Re:In conclusion (Score:2, Insightful)
My biggest issue is with the licensing fees that iBiquity charges. The FCC has given approval to a patented system, which requires very expensive annual fees from every station that uses the technology. While the station does gain "side bands" that can be used for content, they are also required to pay a very hefty percentage of gross revenue (not net profits) for the use.
The setup is also expensive. The average cost for an AM station to switch to this system is around 65 thousand, plus the ongoing annual fees that range upwards of 10 thousand a year/station. (I'll just reference AM, since being in talk-radio I've never worked FM. The cost for FM to convert and license is even higher) Less than .001% (I don't care what anyone favoring digital says, it is less than 1/1000th of a percent) of the radios that exist have the ability to pick up a digital signal.
Only some new automobiles have radios that pick up digital, and the estimated time to reach a 10% market penetration acording to the digital radio pundits is 2015. That estimate assumes that Americans will suddenly start buying a new car every year and torching the old one so that it gets off the road. Detroit has wanted us to do that for years, but we never seem to follow their instructions about replacing our vehicles every new model year. (My Honda Prelude SI4WS will be 18 this fall and still gets close to 30MPG avg. Of course the FM side of the radio broke years ago, but who listens to FM?)
And who is going to go buy a new digital radio for their car? They are more expensive (again, patent royalties), and if you're going to buy a new one you're more likely to decide to pay a monthly fee to tap into one of the birds in the sky since you'll no longer have to worry about signal dropout between cities and at night.
Oh, and did I mention that while Clear Channel has committed to moving their stations to digital they are ALSO ONE OF THE LARGEST INVESTORS IN THE COMPANY HOLDING THE PATENTS?
The article does not mention this fact. The ten ton gorilla of radio controls the technology that the FCC requires all stations to move to. Think about it.
Small local stations -- the true source of local radio -- aren't going to bite on this. They'll eventually be forced to, but they'll just sell out and make the ten ton gorilla gain some weight. I've spent a good deal of time investigating and following this for the past few years and am positive that this is a pig-in-a-poke.
This is too little, too late. The costs are way too high to redeploy new transmitters, there is a complete replacement of station to tower communications systems (again, more licensing fees to iBiquity), and a rewiring of most AM studios since no engineer ever wires an AM station in stereo unless the station owner is rich. FM might switch, but their costs are even higher and the pay-off after the 20% royalties ON ALL COMMERCIALS SOLD makes it actually decrease their current profitability.
Clear Channel doesn't care about royalties, primarily because the licensing fee schedule from iBiquity favors the large station groups. Besides, they get part of the profits back in dividends...
If you don't believe any of this then you can easily verify it, including Clear Channel's investment which is public record.