FWIWW, I posted this, my personal "soapbox rantings" against IBAC a couple weeks ago over on Radio-Info. But it never really gained much momentum there.....


......no thanks to the agendas of M--- W---, S--- C--- and other blind plodding bellyfeel pro-IBACers [completely oblivious to the problems IBAC causes on the dials and ignoring the facts that it DOES cause interference, especially on AM] so being that it is, well, let's just say...............

(Forget that, M--- W---'s a *******. ;o)

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Originally written: 16 March 2007, at 10:41 PM PDT
Author: MotoMuzak (Actually known hereabouts as "Motozak")


Something disturbing I happened to think about, while listening to Peter Frampton's decent cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" via Muzak at a coffee shoppe this afternoon:

IBAC (really any format, not just Ibiquity's) to me seems like an answer to a problem that never even existed in the first place. The problem lies not within the delivery method, the problem lies within the lack of decent quality programming! For example, you could have one of the most narrow-band, crappy-sounding analogue AM stations in the world but if that crappy-sounding station's got a compelling format and a solid presentation I am sure more than a few people will tune in. Many might even take it to heart.

Likewise, if you have a station with the greatest, wide-band, stereo and then some sound quality in the world but you have a crappy programme, no compelling presentation, no personal connection with the listener and a format seemingly centred on how it can make a profit--even Portland has more than its fair share of those--people aren't going to give a rip and will just tune right out.

Basically, you can put it in analogue form, you could put it in digital form, you could print it on a news-ticker display, if your programme sucks who's gonna want to listen?

Yeah, they advertise it as being quoteunquote "CD Quality" and how you just have to hear the "stations in between the stations". Quite honestly, sound quality problems aside, I have heard the stations in between the stations and really haven't been too impressed. With probably the sole exception of KOPB's "Deep Tracks" feed on its secondary channel, most of the secondaries I have heard in PDX really don't sound that much different from the main channel, in terms of content. Yeah, some are still commercial free but in the long run I think it's going to be a tough sell.

This is likely why Industry Heads are wondering why they are losing so many listeners to devices like CD players, Apple I-Pods, music computers etc. Seems if you want to listen to good, compelling, personally-connecting radio it's pretty much DIY. Like I say the problem's not whether it's analogue or digital, the problem's the content!! If this world were perfect they'd be improving the content first, *then* working on some new-fangled digital transmission gizmo for it.

People wonder why IBAC isn't selling?? Give me something worth listening to that analogue FM (or even a free-to-air satellite transponder) *doesn't* deliver then I might consider it!!

Links outta here:
http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,66255.0.html

I strongly agree with this.

However, the major obstacle appears to be executive level buy-in to the idea that radio can be just a delivery system, and that quality is a significant differentiator.

Now that the build out has happened, it's gonna have to play out before any other avenue of change is considered Sadly, the unique value that people bring to the table is also not in line with these scalable cookie cutter business models that drove the sales of so many stations in the first place.

They are gonna go for every technical means to make revenue first, before regressing backward to once again explore the people powered options. There is no way around it.

Until all the technical options are fully explored, there will be no going back at this point. Even then, there is a solid chance of the majors saying radio is dead, showing their dismal audience as proof of that, then asking for whatever they think makes sense in the end.

All through this affair, I've been watching for some sign that the industry (the majors in the industry) sees the value of a connection made between listener and radio station.

All of the ways that has happened to date, with success, have been detailed here many times. Also see them elsewhere too. So it's not an ignorance thing, particularly with the kinds of articles starting to appear in the trades.

It may well be that there are some new ways to get this done, but we've not seen any innovation attempts just yet. Tech issues are still being played out right now.

At the end of the day, being a delivery system means delivering something of value that is not easily obtained elsewhere. For radio, it also means delivering that something every day, or a high percentage of the days that holds value that day as well.

Put your tunes into a computer and you get a shuffle. That holds value for a while, but it wears off.

Let a warm body pick those tunes and it may or may not wear off, depending on how people relate to the selections!

(a person allows this to happen, a computer does not)

Introduce drama of some kind into the mix, and you've got another means to return to a radio station (outlet?) every day as well.

The current efforts, particularly on the HD2's, is focused on commercial free, quality (maybe), niches, etc... All of those are dumbed down efforts to provide something unique that does not involve people in the process, other than those making the initial formats to start.

I personally do not believe any of these efforts have lasting value.

Compare your radio station to a website. (I know this is trouble, but go with it ok?)

Why visit a site everyday?

Most of us have made some connection to the site that warrants this behavior, or the site provides some service in a manner that makes the visit worth it.

The rest of the sites are ones we visit when we need to, but don't hold any value otherwise.

What kinds of websites do you visit every day? I'll be willing to bet it's those sites where people are creating and or aggragating content that's appealing to them. You identify with that and some connection is made there.

It's the same for radio, but a whole lot of people are ignoring that simple fact.

IMHO there is a rapidly diminishing value to delivering music, no matter what the actual sets of tunes are. We are gonna be able to do this through so many different means it's not even funny.

The value add then is either exclusive content (fat chance of that), or some drama and or insight provided by people that other listening people find interesting enough to follow.

Getting there is gonna be quite the long journey, I'm afraid...

---That's exactly why I posted the other thread. Curious to see what others might be expecting from the HD stuff, and or ideas they have related to it. Maybe there is something many of us here are missing....

Maybe not!

The best sounding AM Top 40s with the best talent, best programming, best promotions, best everything are all DEAD! WABC, KHJ, WLS, KFRC, etc, etc, etc...DEAD! They didn't all stop sounding great. One by one, another person opted for FM until there was nothing left.

HD Radio has solved these problems for me:

1. My analog FM reception is terrible here. It varies from somewhat annoying to unlistenable. They're a multipathed mess. Even Reed College's 5 watt station (my favorite BTW) sounds better here than the big local stations. However, once digital fades in, all stations sound perfect. I can't even get KMHD in analog stereo here but I get perfect digital reception from them.

2. KIJZ has a pretty good non-elevator jazz HD2 station. There's still too much easy listening triple-Z jazzz on it for my taste but there is some decent stuff on it. I also like the Buzz's Funkytown too.

3. What song was that? What artist was that? No need to listen to three more songs to find out -- just look at the display. Type the name into www.allmusic.com or wherever and buy the album. Not many stations send song info on RDS.

"They didn't all stop sounding great. One by one, another person opted for FM until there was nothing left."

I think that Lee Abrams would disagree with that statement in that he once said, "what made FM happen was the programming." Not being a professional industry researcher myself, I only have my observations of events that happened at the time that people stopped listening to heritage AM Top-40s:

1) FM started appearing in factory-installed car sound systems, and the Walkman was introduced.

2) New formats were created for FM that differentiated between rock and dance music. People responded to these more finely-tuned formats.

3) The FM formats emphasized their lack of AM-style gimmicks and their focus on "good" (in the target audience's view) music.

4) Heavy promotion was used to get people to try the new FM stations.