[BC] Wow, I wonder if y ou feel the same way about AM?

[Rich Wood]

------ At 03:36 PM 2/1/2010, Dana  Puopolo wrote: -------

>Channels 5 and six are the PERFECT place to put DAB!!!

The vultures are circling. I would think we'd have the same receiver 
sales problem we have with IBUZ. If you're talking about a central 
transmitter, that one was shot down years ago. I remember the New 
York rejection of what we thought would be the same power for 
everyone. The low powered stations were all for it. The 50kW guys 
wouldn't give up their advantage. The other issue was who will own 
the transmitter. Those were the days when every 50kW station claimed 
to cover 38 states. Some stations didn't want to give up complete 
control of their stations. I don't remember the conversations 
including the ability to control power for each station. I remember 
the almost complete rejection of Telco for STLs. How many stations 
set up microwave systems to get away from an unreliable Telco?

Until I heard the performance of the current system I always believed 
it had to be In Band On Channel for the same reasons color TV had to 
be backwards compatible with black and white. What I didn't figure 
into the equation was the apathy of consumers over replacing 
receivers. The current system has been in operation for, what, five 
years plus and 1 million receivers out of the required 1 Billion to 
replace currently operating analog receivers have been sold.

I also didn't factor in the horrible promotional efforts the current 
system is enjoying. That promotion or lack thereof was the same even 
when stations were printing money. The organization they formed had 
nowhere near enough money to do the kind of advertising required even 
to introduce a new soap.

I've been claiming the addition of more channels would make Docket 
80-90 look tame. Finally I'm hearing group heads complaining that we 
don't need more channels. They can't sell what they've got. When they 
do sell it it's for a fraction of traditional rates.

The real bottom line is that stations aren't programming their 
secondaries much better than high powered iPods. Even the main 
channels are boring and sound about as automated as possible. We're 
coming to centralized control of transmitters with a contract 
engineer on call locally and, certainly, centralized sources of 
programming. I predict a master technical control center in 
Cincinnati or San Antonio. Live and local seems to mean it originates 
somewhere on the planet.

Rich