What does it cost/require for an FM radio station to stream information like website/slogan/song/title/artist/on air jock info/etc etc. Most new cars have this really great feature and was wondering why some stations are not utilizing it. Know nothing about it other than what I see/don't see on my display.

Probably $2-3,000. RDS has been in the U.S. since about 1993.

Typically, the computer that plays the music sends data to a computer that has the software to keep track of the slogans and jock info, and that computer sends the data to an RDS generator at the transmitter. The RDS generator creates a digital subcarrier on the FM signal at 57 kHz that the radios decode and then display the information.

Stations tend to not do it because they are still playing CD's (although there is a system now that will take data from the CD's and match it to artist & title), don't believe RDS is useful, and/or don't want to spend the money.

Kind of cheap way to constantly have station program info, website, slogan, music info continually played on most modern stereo's. And it looks to be a one time cost to get it up and running plus some routine maintenance I bet. But it seems silly to not take advantage of such a cheap plugging system.

It is largely a ho hum innovation.

Most listeners won't see it on their home and office radios. It does nothing to help make the station more money. And it will be replaced by HD anyway with a superior invention.

Waste of time.

Hmmm....waste of time for current usage? What about using the RDS stream to put advertisements in. Charge very little and have it pay for itself quickly and then some.
Also I do not beleive HD will ever replace free FM. As of right now I don't beleive(but I could be wrong) that any new cars are being produced with stock HD receivers. I will not personally pay for Radio. I will buy and IPOD or just get a 4gb sd card and use my IPAQ before a satellite or HD receiver. Until there are enough HD units out there FM will be around. Your talking about 20 years of cars all with just standard am/fm stereos. The 18-25 market may rush out and get HD units because it is the flavor of the day but really what market is there for that income group...kind of limited. So the point i'm saying I guess if FM is even around for 5 years wouldn't the 3 to 4 thousand dollar investment be well worth it???? I mean it really says a lot about a station that has it's stuff together and uses all technologies available to it to stay in tune with the listeners.

nuff said....just rambling now....

BTW....
You are right about home and office stereos but my drive time daily is 2.5 hours round trip...12.5 hours weekly just on the work drive...multiply say 1.5 hour round trip x5 x100,000....750,000 hours weekly and 39,000,000 annual hours of RDS display all for 3,000 dollars.....hmmmmm
There is no source on these figures just pure spec...but if 100,000 commuters have RDS and an average daily drive time of 1.5 round trip. Sound reasonable.

The same program that feeds the RDS generator feeds the HD Radio PAD (Program Associated Data) Display.

No stations are currently selling ad time on RDS. Probably wont happen.

There are no laws against it but there are corporate policies in place specifically saying that RDS is NOT for sale.

It is actually not safe to be reading to much information while driving. Cramming an ad into an 8 character scroll would be highly distracting.

Not to say someone won't eventually do it...

The NTR sales types do much better with internet placement anyway.

Thank you Notalent, good points.

Like I said with HD, RDS should be old news. And if we aren't getting HD radio then why does radio have any hope for the future if everyone else is digital?

Most TV stations even in Portland are now running with digital channels. Radio is here and there.

Not a good sign for the future.

Renew discussion on this subject.

I am cornfused now.

I have a new model GMC and it's Bose stereo has RDS capabilities. Entercom is sending great data while it appears at least to me the CBS stations are not.
Here is the confusing part.
My stereo in the car picks up great RDS from say KGON and nothing from say KUFO......however I just got a new "ZUNE" for xmas and it has a built-in FM radio receiver. Yesterday I did get RDS data on it from KUFO and nothing on my stereo.??????? I did notice the use of special characters like "" and --. Could these characters void the data because the unit can only recognize numbers and letters? The ZUNE may have a better processing system than the car stereo unit. If that is the case if they eliminate the special characters in their stream would I then receive it?

Just curious...thought it odd!!! At least it gives you engineer types something to chew on for a while!!! LOL

Some good info on rds (actually RDBS in the US)here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System

On some stations, using my Denon TU-1500RD tuner, I have to push a little button "RT" to get into "text" display mode in order to display the artist/title info. Anyway that works on 101.1, did not check the other CBS stations.

The odd characters may represent missing data, due to marginal reception.

Not all radios display all the characters. A lot depends on how many segments your display has. Can't do a lot with only 7 segments per character. On the other hand, if you have something more like a video display, you'll see everything.

I stick with hyphens and periods. Exclamation points don't usually display well.

With the software that Entercom uses, the RDS 8-character "PS" display has different text than the scrolling "RT" display when they aren't showing artist and title.


TV stations are required to have HDTV, and will have to turn off their analog transmitters in 2009. TV's over a certain size are required to have HDTV tuners now.

Radio stations are not required to have HD Radio signals. Radios are not required to have HD Radio tuners.

Jr...the odd characters were not missing data they were quotation marks and such. They displayed on the Zune but not the stereo....actually nothing on the stereo at all!!! From downtown PDX no less!

Sorry, I misunderstood about the odd characters. I just checked 101.1 on my Denon and saw some quotation marks on a song title, displayed in "text" mode. My tuner says that there is "no ps data"... they do transmit time data, which is fairly rare, Pty data says "rock"
Can you get your display into "text" mode... perhaps a "Display" or "RT" or "text" button, or perhaps something in a "setup" menu somewhere.
Do you have the operating instructions?

Ok...

Here is what I see.
KGON on Stereo:
Mark and Brian Mornings on 92.3 KGON (During the show) scrolling
Alternating with
92.3 KGON The Classic Rock Station www.kgon.com (During the show) scrolling
And
92.3 KGON The Classic Rock Station www.kgon.com (During ad spots) scrolling
And
The music info when music plays scrolling

KGON on ZUNE:
Line one:
Classic Rock static
Line two:
Scrolling text as described above
NO LINE THREE
Then non-scrolling but alternating static full display of scrolling messages above

KUFO on Stereo:
101.1 static with no scrolling text

KUFO on ZUNE:
Line one:
Rock
Line two:
No information programmed here
NO LINE THREE
Then the non-scrolling static full display of:
Adam Corolla & Danny Bonaduce weekdays 6a-10a

Now when checking on 107.5 Movin….in the same building as KUFU……I see MOVIN statically displayed on my car stereo and on line two on my ZUNE.
So it appears to me that it is just the lack of programming of the second line as to why I see nothing on some stations.

So it appears that the Zune displays PTY (program type) info on line 1, PS (program service) info on line 2, who knows what on line 3, and RT (text) info below.
On the other hand, it appears that the stereo can only display PS info, or just indicate the frequency that the radio is tuned to, and can not display RT (text) info.
101.1 appears to be transmitting the title/artist info only in the RT (text) field, and nothing in the PS (program service) field. Transmitting T/A info in the PS field now seems to be the more common practice.
EDIT 12:15 revised confusing last sentence.

So the RT is more common practice than the PS?

With KGON I pickup both scrolling text and static text on the ZUNE. They appear to be sending both. Is that right?

I think that sending the title artist info to the PS field is now more common... But it is more complex to slice up the title/artist info into small chunks that can smoothly be displayed in the limited (8 character) PS field. PS was first intended just for call letters/frequency. The text field (64 characters), which was intended for traffic/weather info, was a better fit for title/artist info (when it became feasible to provide such info) , but some radios can't display the text field. Many broadcasters now slice up the T/A info and ship it to the the PS field, and also to the RT field (un-sliced ?), as seems to be the case for KGON.

107.5 has a static PS display of MOVIN and then RT display for all of the info. I understand this a lot better now.....thanks for the education!!!

Even though it is a little work it is a one time setup right? If so then why not take the time and get it operational? Any advertising no matter how little with probably a small investment in time would be worth it would it not?

Thanks again.....

Possibly they would need a new RDS generator to do this... here is a selection from a $370 "bare bones" unit to near $3000 "does everything" rig:

http://www.bswusa.com/searchresult.asp?searchType=category&subcat=rfequip-rd

It is curious that they (101.1) are transmitting NO info in the PS field... according to my old log sheet (about 2 years old) they transmitted "101KUFO" on that line. Perhaps a failure in the RDS generator?

With HD radio looming on the horizon, they might have "bigger fish to fry" than optmizing RDS on the old analog transmitter.

Thanks again. No big deal for me but sometimes when I sample more modern tunes and listen to 101 I say to myself I wonder what band that was......would be simple to look at the PS display and see it. It is a nice feature for Joe average listener who may not know every song that has ever been recorded.

Anyway no big deal...just was curious about that whole thing and now I know more than I did. I just find it interesting that a large media company like CBS would not take advantage of every means of advertising available to them. It may be considered to be dated but the main cost sounds like just programming the thing....isn't that what interns are for? LOL