[BC] HD Radio -- Folks we have to get it right!

[Cornelius Gould]

It is these opportunities that are in front of us as broadcasters that 
will give us a fighting chance in the next couple years as available 
alternate entertainment avenues explode in the next 1.5 - 2 years.

If we have enough ***stations*** *not* operating correctly to cause the 
radios capable of picking up these alternate programming streams to be 
returned as defective, then the whole thing will go down in flames, and 
with it, all opportunities to branch out.  We then become more 
irrelevant than we are now, and die as an industry.

Broadcasters harp on Satellite Radio as the reason to move forward with 
this, but I don't see it that way.  It is all the other delivery methods 
being developed that will allow hundreds of stereo digital audio 
channels (at higher bitrates than broadcast and Satellite radio) to be 
received both in portable and mobile systems that will be the biggest 
threat.  I wouldn't at all be surprised if these new competing systems 
drive Satellite Radio out of business in a few years when they (the new 
services) are in a fully operational state.  This will make Satellite 
Radio totally irrelevant at that point as these new players can create 
as many national channels as they desire, and can also split these 
systems to have regional services to serve local audiences as well.

Where do we stand in this new world communications order?

Check out what Qualcomm and others are up to to get my point here. They 
ain't talking about no wimpy WI-Max, or 802.x hotspots.  They are 
talking about covering entire markets with broadband digital 
entertainment / information systems to be received on computers, cell 
phones, and anything else that has a little computer in it, and can pick 
up RF.  All this coming to a neighborhood transmitter site near us in 
the next year or so!

-Cornelius

cldube wrote:
> Actually, multicasting has the potential (once/if people get receivers- 
> there's the rub) to answer
> a problem that has plagued us for years- we've wanted to maintain our 
> emphasis on music programming
> in the region, in contrast to many (the majority?) public radio stations 
> that are dumping music for talk and news programming.
> Multicasting allows us to expand our program offering in news and talk, 
> while maintaining our classical and jazz on our main channel, in a fashion
> that has been hitherto difficult. We have done this to some degree by 
> supplying programming for a local AM station for the past several years, 
> but that signal disappears at night almost altogether and in the winter 
> it's very limited. Many of our listeners simply cannot receive it at 
> all. With multicasting, we can provide this service to the bulk of our 
> 60 dBu contour area for the first time to those with receivers. We are 
> also streaming this service. We don't have to sacrifice our music 
> offering in favor of informational radio.
> 
> Chuck Dube
> WFCR
> Amherst, MA
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sid Schweiger" <sid at wrko.com>
> To: <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 10:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [BC] HD Radio -- Folks we have to get it right!
> 
> 
>>>>> What?  Two or three channels of the same old schlock?  That's an
>>
>> improvement?
>>
>> Why "same old schlock"? It's the chance to make something new!<<
>>
>> Even funnier/more pathetic:  The only concrete plans I have heard of, to
>> date, for HD2 channels have been three stations (that I know of), that
>> have changed formats in the past year, putting their DEAD formats on HD2
>> to placate the complainers (and, of course, if just a tenth of those
>> complainers had had Arbitron diaries, the formats wouldn't be dead,
>> would they?).  If this is what lies in store for
>> multicasting...fragmenting the audience even further, with formats that
>> wouldn't fly on the main channel...then what's the point?
>>
>>
>>
>> Sid Schweiger
>> IT Manager, Entercom Boston LLC
>> WAAF - WEEI AM/FM - WMKK - WRKO - WVEI
>> 20 Guest St / 3d Floor
>> Boston MA  02135-2040
>> Phone: 617-779-5369
>> Fax: 617-779-5379
>> E-Mail: sid at wrko.com
>>
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> 
> 
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-- 


- Cornelius Gould
________________________________
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of
thinking we were at when we created them."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)