[BC] New HD radio

[Robert Orban]

At 12:04 PM 1/20/2006, you wrote:
>From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>
>Subject: Re: [BC] New HD radio
>To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20060120091005.06c5c6d8 at yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
>------ At 12:55 AM 1/20/2006, Robert Orban wrote: -------
>
> >I'm sure that Rich will figure out some way to put a negative spin
> >on this, but I find it hard to think of one.
>
>
>Two things. Where did you buy your receiver? Mail order or retail?

I bought it by mail order from Crutchfield. The Recepter is widely 
available on the Internet.

>Where in San Francisco can they go to hear all these new secondaries?

Best Buy and Magnolia Audio/Video offer the Recepter, according to the BA 
web site. I don't know which stores currently have it in stock and on display.

>Could I go into a store and hear the Kenwood headend and tuner before
>I plunked down $600+ to buy it?

Dunno...I haven't spent the time to check this out.

>  I want an IBUZMan. Can I find a portable/mobile unit?

Not yet, as you well know. They are coming


>Second, without looking, what was the featured Op-Ed article in the
>Journal one week ago? Remember your advertising/PR basics. 11
>exposures to a spot before any action is taken. Even an Advertising
>101 student knows a single exposure is a waste of money. It was quite
>a long time ago that the NY Times ran an article. I wonder how many
>people remember it. From my investigations of consumer requests, the
>NY Times article didn't prompt people to ask about receivers. I was
>the first and only person to ask about it.

You're right about repetition, of course. The HD consortium has to continue 
to expose potential customers to their message. Some San Francisco stations 
promote their HD radio transmissions; some don't yet. KDFC has been very 
good about on-air promotion.

Incidentally, the HD Radio article in the WSJ was not an op-ed, it was a 
feature on page 1 of the Personal Journal section, getting about 23 
column-inches.


>Most publications won't run anything that's been covered by the
>competition, so their wad has been blown well before there are enough
>receivers in the pipe to satisfy the demand if the secondary content
>is compelling. There's also an article in today's Boston Globe.
>
>What's "Alternative Classical?" Is that where they play the album cuts?

Dunno. I haven't heard it yet. My first guess is "classical music that is 
not presented a background music."

>When you wake up to this new, long form, Classical format format will
>you lie in bed until the Wagner Ring is finished before going to
>work? You know you'll be late - probably by a day.

Actually, I have the luxury of lying in bed for a while if I want to 
continue listening :-).  In any event, _I_ want to be the one to choose 
whether I listen to only one movement or the complete concerto, not the 
radio station. Moreover, my commute is about 30 minutes, which is plenty of 
time to hear meaty works in their entirety.

I'll grant you that a fair amount of classical music (particularly from the 
18th century) was originally written to be background music played at 
nobility's parties. But I find most of that stuff boring, even if Mozart 
wrote it. Even the greatest composers (Beethoven, for example) sometimes 
just cranked out product in order to get paid. The SF Symphony did an 
"unknown Beethoven and his contemporaries" festival a few years back with a 
lot of obscure works, most of which weren't worth the time to listen to 
IMHO. (Hmmm...sounds a lot like today's music biz. The more things change...)

Bob Orban