[BC] Uselessness of HD

[Mark Humphrey]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mike McCarthy <towers at mre.com> wrote:

> 2) The issues with HD's tertiary channels revenue sharing rubs many
> licensees the wrong way.  FM and FM Stereo never had that hurdle to over
> come.  3% is enough to make or break an operation's profitability or
> survival these days.

One question that comes to mind:

If a station leases its HD subchannel to a third party for use as a
"translator STL"  for a flat monthly rate and the third party's
revenue exceeds that amount (which, of course, is the desired
outcome), can iBiquity demand more than 3% of the primary station's
lease payment?

For example, in Atlanta, Lincoln Financial has allowed Steve Hedgewood
to program one of the WSTR HD subs as "Streetz 94.5", and he is using
it to feed a 250 W translator owned by Edgewater Broadcasting.
Apparently he has lease agreements with both licensees.  So does
iBiquity base its cut on Hedgewood's overall revenue?  And how would
they apportion revenue between the direct HD audience and translator
(or streaming) listeners?

Mark