[BC] RAIN report: HD Radio's Creative Thinking

[Barry Mishkind]

Mike,

It does seem that at every juncture, "it is too late in the game" is 
the refrain offered to the technical community.

While I don't lay all of this off on the receiver manufacturers, it 
is symptomatic of a process that all along has had money as its goal, 
nothing more.

Money is nice. If IBOC happens, ibiquity will be rich. If they had 
merely been happy to be rich, and welcomed collaboration where all 
parties could make a buck, this whole thing would be several major 
steps down the path.  By desiring to be filthy rich and not share the 
treasure, ibiquity has not only earned the emnity of many, but has 
tried to shove an already outmoded technology down the throats of a 
community wanting, needing to go digital.

And then we come to the issue of content. And that is yet another 
part of the industry that is in a disconnect with the audience ... 
and technology.

But I digress.  "What a mess you've gotten us into Stanley."

At 04:08 AM 10/10/2005, mbergman at kenwoodusa.com wrote

>This was cross-posted on another forum, so I'd like to post my reply 
>here as well.
>
>I've followed the discussions on this in the NRSC.  Cox asked the 
>NRSC to endorse a creative scheme.  The NRSC decided not to (that's 
>the short version).  I was very much against modifying the channel 
>numbering scheme for a variety of reasons, and pretty vocal about it.
>
>The problem is that Multicasting is already launched.  This would 
>have been a terrific initiative in 2003.

...

>It's just too late in the game.  I think the engineers understand 
>this--they're used to project plans, and understand scope creep, 
>etc., but the marketing people don't seem to understand how 
>multicasting broadcasters are already rather committed to the 
>current system, or the huge force it would take to move the receiver industry.
>
>Of the entire receiver industry, only a few are even participating 
>in the discussion.  One maker I know of simply cancelled their 
>multicast receiver plan for 2006 due to this controversy.  It's a 
>bad situation if you are broadcasting IBOC, since it's only going to 
>cause the car OEMs and other key players to sit on their hands until 
>it is resolved.