[BC] Turning lemons into cherry cola

[Robert Orban]

At 12:01 PM 7/28/2006, you wrote:
>From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>
>Subject: Re: [BC] Turning lemons into cherry cola
>To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060728140312.05331470 at yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
>------ At 07:03 PM 7/27/2006, Robert Orban wrote: -------
>
> >I keep hearing all of this talk about iBiquity's "greed," yet no one
> >seems to want to acknowledge the 10+ years of R&D that iBiquity and
> >its predecessors (USADR and Lucent) put into development of IBOC
> >before they saw a dime of cash flow. They risked a lot of capital on
> >that project, and I suspect that they are still far underwater
> >financially when one considers their total investment.
>
>Poor babies. Do you suppose they've spent what the satellite services
>have?

Are you saying that entrepreneurs shouldn't be able risk capital with the 
hope of future returns? What does investment by satellite services have to 
do with the price of tea in China? Are you saying that iBiquity doesn't 
deserve to get cash flow unless they invest as much as the satellite 
services? What's your point?

>  As much as we hate oil companies, they spend money long before
>they see a return.

I don't hate oil companies. Their average margins are in the order of 8%, 
which is in line with a lot of other consumer products. And they work hard 
for their money.

>  The difference is that there's a market for their
>product and everything was in place before a single radio was sold.
>Was there a guaranteed market for the railroads before they built
>them. I believe it's called taking a risk. In this case, I see greed.
>They want a guaranteed killing even before they have a working model.

"Guaranteed killing?"  IBOC is voluntary on both the TX and RX side. 
Ultimately, the market will determine its survival (or not).

In fact, iBiquity took their big risk because the NAB decided ca. 1992 that 
a new-band digital broadcasting service was unacceptable because it would 
shake up the status quo. The NAB *wanted* IBOC. iBiquity (or, at that time, 
USADR and Lucent) was just working with constraints that broadcasters gave 
them.

Bob Orban