“HD Radio on the Offense”

“But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill.”

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-07/music/hd-radio-on-the-offense

The only issue not addressed is the HD Radio Alliance's ability to block competitors' stations with adjacent-channel interference - this issue is starting to be addressed by the Washington Post:

"The FCC Tunes Into HD Radio--And May Turn Off Distant AM"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/03/the_fcc_greenlights_hd_radi o_n.html

Be sure to check out the reader comments for both articles. Hopefully, these issues will be addressed further by the press.

Some time ago, possibly on the politics side of the board, I mentioned that I thought that the debate over proprietary vs. open business models of technology would be one of the really big issues in our world over the next few decades. Looking at Bob Struble's (Ibiquity's CEO) comments in the first link, it looks like this battle has been raging since the 1990s.

What is interesting is the somewhat empty statement from Struble that the Ibiquity technology will be licensed to smaller players under the same terms that would be extended to a major electronics manufacturer like Sony. Despite the seemingly intended fairness of this policy, it is still possible to design those terms such that they are easy for Sony to meet but not so for small companies (for instance, say that Ibiquity decided to charge some fixed fee to give you a license to put the decoder chips in your radios, regardless of the size of your company or how many receivers you planned to make).

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with Struble's "whitewashing" notion that old-style analog broadcasts were not proprietary, but it is OK for digital broadcasts to have proprietary elements because this is just the new way of doing business (have a nice day).

IMHO, it's all about making sure radio never, ever ends up back in a distributed ownership state again.

It's also about content control, no matter how they frame it right now. If this were not true, then the tech would be open, end of story.

Guess it's time to repost: "Ibiquity, owning the radio industry on it's own dime."

IMHO, this arrangement will eventually come back to bite the majors.

To everybody, just FYI--

I'd try to be *extremely* careful about posting responses on Pocketradio's threads--at least make sure your comments are very, *very* well researched and try to avoid posting personal opinions.......he's likely here aggregating information to post on Radio-Info, like he did to me recently........there it will get bashed and ragged to no end.

I am not saying not to respond but if you do, *please* be careful what you say........

(Yeah PR, I know how other posters from other forums come to competing forums to do stealth aggregation, "espionage" in other words, and I'm on to you bruddah!!)

Boy, are you paranoid !

Nope, just brutally honest given my 10+ years of experience on various forums on the Internet.......

short answer: yes

For now, I will stand by the comments I made above. The reason for this is that I didn't say that Ibiquity is trying to make keep its technology away from smaller players. What I'm saying is that they have a mechanism that would allow them to do this if they so desired.

In all fairness, FM was not originally an open system; royalties had to be paid to Armstrong to build FM equipment. I have an old 1948 AM/FM table radio that has a "FM The Armstrong System" patent decal and disclaimer decal that says something like, "This receiver is only licensed for the reception of non-commercial and experimental broadcasts in the following countries." It would be fun to hear the proponents of Ibiquity use this argument to make the case for proprietary technologies in broadcasting. (Perhaps they don't because a nice rebuttal would be, OK, we'll wait until the patents on your technology expire and then we'll actually start using it and singing its praises.)

Notice how FM took off once the patents ran out (or at least got real cheap)?

I'm guessing the patents ran out long before FM took off.

The prblem with HD radio is now with what it is, but rather what it's not. What it is NOT is a solution to an existing problem.

You're right because radio has no technical problems! It sounds JUST PERFECT the way it is. All the stations I could ever want playing all the music I like. All in 100db of dynamic range, perfectly flat 20hz-20Khz sound with 70db stereo separation, even in this metal building I work in. No trace of hiss or multipath because such things don't exist! I've thrown my MP3 player away because radio plays all the music I want to hear. I don't even buy CD's any more!

I apologize for the sarcasm but I simply can't receive KMHD's analog signal at work in stereo or even tolerable mono, but their HD signal at 1/100th the power comes in perfectly with beautiful 96 Kbps sound. All the other analog FM stations sound terrible here until their digital signals fade in. For the first time in 15 years, I'm listening to the radio instead of CD's or MP3's here at work!

I listen to more HD2 stations than regular stations because I'm tired of the hearing the same songs over and over every day, not to mention the loud DJ's telling me about bands that may or may not be reuniting in the next three years.

For me, it's HD Radio or NO radio here at work.

I remember when CD's were not a solution to an existing problem.

Really?

I don't.

Compared to analog means and methods, the CD really added a lot of value.

-very long perfect play life

(My first ever CD purchase still plays the same it did way back in 85.)

Overall sonic impact. 100Db capability, essentially zero wow / flutter, etc...

Robust operation.

(Portable players, etc...)

All of these things manifested themselves in one form or another with pre-CD audio. Actually, these things combined made a great sounding radio station and radio pretty attractive! (somebody else deals with those problems)

Compressed audio has lowered a lot of expectations where good audio is concerned. Frankly, this is in favor of HD overall because it's gonna sound like a lot of other media delivery systems (better sometimes!).

So, in this regard, it's a solution to an existing problem. But the problem is not that big of a problem, compared to the content differentiation problem portable media and Internet delivery of compressed audio brings along with it.

That one is huge.

And I don't think HD is the real solution. It's nice and appealing to the younger crowd, not weaned on analog, but that's it. It removes a barrier and that's good.

The biggie remains content and people.

This is why I like the FM HD. More places to put content and more potential to leverage people and their creativity. Multiple streams from one station present interesting and potentially compelling options, that all can reinforce a station identity. --or they can be places where some risks are taken to cultivate and then aggragate new content as it evolves.

(It's gonna evolve somewhere. If not radio, then Podcasts, Internet streams, e-mailed shows, etc...)

On AM, some people are gonna like it enough to try the AM dial again, so there is content potential there too.

In this, HD is part of the solution, but it's only an enabling technology. At the end of the day, radio is still radio with some shiny new spit and polish on it.

If the people delivering radio are not making connections to their listeners, they are not gonna be a part of the culture enough to make a difference worth paying for. If the content is the same tunes to be had everywhere, then... it's anybodys game at that point.

HD does nothing to address this directly. It does enable greater solutions to be explored, eliminates some techinical exceptions for a nice significant fraction of the potential listeners.

My point being the jump from analog to the CD was HUGE. A well mastered CD today still punches well above it's weight. That's a solid gain that's still paying off.

The jump from AM to FM was HUGE. Still paying off.

The jump from analog radio to HD Digital radio is not that huge. It might not pay off.

***program guide tests are in play right now. This will encourage more specialized programming, or at the least make it possible. I think this, plus the higher definition station identities possible with multiple streams has strong content potential not otherwise an option without HD.

So, how big the HD jump is may well rest almost completely on the content efforts tied to it. If they are aggressive and potent, HD wins! If not, then HD might sorta win, or could lose.

No one is saying that HD Radio is going to solve all the problems of radio, just some of the problems. There's nothing else out there that will give stations the ability to deliver potentially twice the content to their listeners at better (technical) quality. It's seems petty to me that some are discounting this feature because they don't expect it to be used the way they want it to be used. I find this really confusing as I listen to HD2 stations instead of my MP3 player during the day now.

"The jump from AM to FM was HUGE. Still paying off."

It was a big jump and for years, nearly decades, almost nobody cared. What was the problem? It sounded great, popular AM stations were simulcasting their programming on their hi-fi FM stations (until the FCC banned the practice) so it wasn't a matter of content. The adoption of HD Radio in the mainstream will probably take just as long as FM did.

I have no problem with people ripping into Ibiquity for creating a secret proprietary transmission system. I'm hoping that will loosen up within the next few years.

I think I largely agree.

Content is still gonna be more important than it was during the AM / FM transition however. Too many options these days are forcing this. Also, we've peaked on audio quality long ago. Today, it's all about making the right tradeoffs that deliver the perception of higher quality while really improving choice.

HD does this on FM nicely.

Yep. Don't like the closed codec. If anything, it will empower pay radio and I'll have no part of that. Looking forward to PVR type functionality though! If that's done really well, perhaps it will be worth it, though I can get that via internet now and use a portable player...

Nobody cares about HD Radio, and I would bet that a majority of the people who listen to the radio have no clue what HD radio even is, so whats the point???? Once Z100 went HD the station started to sound even worse. Not hating, just being honest, plus the fact that they speed up their music makes the station IMPOSSIBLE to listen to.

...and that's where the content efforts will become important.

The easiest way to get people to actually consider HD is to put some really great stuff there first, then air a sub-set of it on the regular analog channel and let them know how that's all gonna work.

"You heard it first on KXXX - HD"

For those few HD listeners, encourge them to spread the word with goodies they get for listening. Not trinkets from the studio though. Nobody really cares.

Goodies like special downloads, pre-release track listener invitations, chats with the station staff and artists (like a phone in music, focus profile segment -- get to know the artist...), etc...

Anything that actually is worth having those people talk to other people is nothing but pure gold at this point in time.

Done right, these efforts will reinforce the idea that "new radio" has arrived on HD. This does not mean old radio is bad, only that new radio is significantly better.

Of course, for that to actually happen it's gotta be somewhat true, which brings us back full circle to the content issue!

If stuff that matters ends up on the HD2 streams, then people are gonna talk it up and buy radios. If it doesn't, maybe people will still buy radios, but it won't be the same. --and it will take a lot longer as well.

This is a perfect time for radio to re-introduce itself to the people. With the perception of quality also comes the chance to reset expectations! So, why not set them then?

All it's gonna take is a station to do the work, and start airing the results. The first one to do this, will get to set the bar for their market. If they do it well, they get bragging rights and a leadership position for their efforts.

Others will follow, of course, and that's all fine and good. IMHO, there are lots of genres to fill, and plenty of room for innovation to occur.

It's also obvious there are plenty of new potential listeners to be had, particularly among the up and coming generations not seeing radio in the same way older, pre portable download, generations do.

Finally, the streams right now are nearly risk free! The pool of listeners is small enough to actually engage and learn from. There is absolutely zero reason to not do this.

Seems to me, plenty of dollars were made available to build the platform. So, it's here. Now it's time to make content investments, take some risks, learn some stuff and actually innovate.

I can feel the pay radio wave coming. The idea will be to monitize the content efforts. Maybe this is the right approach, but I doubt it because payment and subscription tracking, research, etc... are all gonna take a long time yet.

Too long.

Better to have some momentum now, instead of waiting for all of that to come together, if it even comes together.

There's nothing on HD worth paying $99 bucks for a new radio for.

Does it sound better? The average person is not going to be able to hear it or appreciate it.

What content will drive people to spend a hundred bucks on a new unit to hear something in a medium they don't have access to right now?

Well....

(interesting question! Since HD is here now, I'm totally interested in these kinds of discussions. The are the part of radio I find most interesting outside the tech issues.)

I've a coupla ideas:

* Before an artist appears in a given location, air interviews, other live performances, big CD sets, ticket giveaways where the HD2 listeners get the jump on everybody else, phone in to chat up the artist segments, etc...

"Sally, listening on KXXX HD, just picked up a pair of tickets to see [artist] this coming friday!"

When major fans of the artist find out about this kind of thing, they are gonna get a radio. Getting one early means a solid chance to score right now, if this is done. Even when that diminishes with numbers, there will still be the in club and the out club. That's the kind of thing that needs to be cultivated and exploited.

I've talked this idea up with some younger people and that's worth $99 to a whole lot of them.

Hell, they will spend 2K on their car rig. You know the kind. "Hi, my name is Bob and I need a bigger amp." A receiver upgrade is NOTHING. If that receiver has goodies, so much the better.

*Local / Regional DJ round table, or maybe spin contests. Bring 'em in, introduce them, let the folks chat them up, then let them just do their thing and get after it.

I would listen to this as I really enjoy great mixes.

*Build on that with niche shows. Since we are gonna be getting program guides at some point, why not build a following for these people and let them pimp their faves with style?

"Up next, at 7:00 we've got DJ Bob in the studio just jonesing to unload some of the best [genre] around! He can be seen regularly at club [name], friday through sunday, starting at 8:00 Hear his latest work here first on KXXX HD, every Tuesday at [time that makes sense]."

*Themed radio programs for specific demos, that lie outside the main focus.

There are essentially a ton of channels now right? So how many does it take to make enough room for some focus on the older folks among us, who are willing to spend?

If this stuff is all happening, there is another alternative for sampling as well. Air it on an AM somewhere as well. That's just another way for people to get a taste of the goods coming online, and might get them to remember there is an AM to tune in the first place!

*Syndicated shows, with few interruptions!

There are a lot of shows out there. If they start appearing on the HD2's, perhaps we will see more of them to fill the vacuum created by the effort. Content creators create. If there is a venue where there is demand, content will evolve and follow. This is one of the things that radio can do extremely well.

So have a host that ties things together, interviews the show producers, fills in with info, schedule for the day, etc.... Air the shows at specific times and leverage the up and coming program guides...

Again, some of the stuff KNRK is airing is fantastic. There has got to be more of it for other genres right? Go find it, air it and talk it up, so people know it's there and learn enough to identify with it.

*Enhanced talk programs.

Analog listeners get the usual segments. HD2 listeners get bonus material. Think sitting in the audience, getting to experience extra stuff and or maybe participate during the commercial break.

[show in progress, commercial break hits]

[analog gets the spot barrage]

[HD2 listeners get a break sometimes and the host can do a quick call in, contest, etc...]

"All right folks, we are back! Over the break, I was talking to some great HD2 callers. Let me tell you what Bob, listening on KXXX HD, said...."

Everybody with a regular radio is gonna wonder about maybe getting one of those new radios because they are missing out!

Anyone else?

What would you do if you had a station with two streams?

"There's nothing on HD worth paying $99 bucks for a new radio for."

Says you.

I paid more than that for the Boston Recepter and not only do I love listening to KMHD in amazing fidelity (instead of fuzzy mono), I listen to KIJZ's Jazz Spot and a few other HD2 stations all day. I don't see how anyone who loves classical music could possibly pass up on listening to KBPS in 96 kbps. I'm no fan of classical music but I sometimes listen to it because the dynamic range is incredible. Sometimes I forget I'm listening to a radio station.

If you're happy with your FM reception and listening to the regular formats, then it's probably not worth getting an HD Radio. If you're happy with your LP's, it's probably not worth getting a CD player either.

"Nobody cares about HD Radio, and I would bet that a majority of the people who listen to the radio have no clue what HD radio even is, so whats the point????"

I care about HD radio, and I assume the 1,000 stations broadcasting it care about it too so you're wrong that "nobody" cares about it.

A majority of the people who watch TV don't have a clue what HDTV is either (including some who own HDTV's), so what's your point? Are you suggesting that something great should be ignored until 51% of the people know about it? You don't sound like much of an independent thinker, Bunsofsteel!

Where can you get an HD radio for 99.00?

Coming this summer.

“Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check”

“While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse.”

http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html

"Is Pay-for-Play HD Content on Horizon?"

http://rwonline.com/pages/s.0049/t.4028.html

"HD Radio Effort Undermined by Weak Tuners in Expensive Radios"

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/hd-radio2.html

“HD Radio on the Offense”

“But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill.”

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-07/music/hd-radio-on-the-offense

"The FCC Tunes Into HD Radio--And May Turn Off Distant AM"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/03/the_fcc_greenlights_hd_radi o_n.html

“RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future”

“Making AM-HD work well as a long-term investment is seen as an expensive and risky challenge for most stations and their owners. There is the significant downside of potential new interference to some of their own AM analog listeners as well as listeners of adjacent-channel stations.”

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

The FCC has just given away our free airwaves to a few corporate thugs, including iBiquity Digital Corporation. Especially on AM, HD/IBOC causes adjacent-channel interference, which I have confirmed listening to WTWP 1500 AM-HD in Wash., D.C.- the HD/IBOC digital sidebands are over-powering on 1490 and 1510 and would clobber any existing stations on those frequencies. Few HD radios have been sold, as consumers have not bought into this farce. This whole setup is just to the advantage of the HD Radio Alliance, as they own most of the 1,200 stations broadcasting in HD - the small mom-and-pop stations have lost coverage and will probably disappear. This FCC sole-source, non-competitive contract award to iBiquity is totally outrageous.

the sky is falling and the emperor has no clothes.

At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, the conclusion I've come to as to why industry people so passionately defend HD-Radio is that they do not want over-the-air radio to go through what happened to over-the-air television when cable-TV got aggressive about its marketing in the 1980s. From the viewer's perspective, cable was more user-friendly because it offered channels that ran specific types of programming 24 hour a day (news, sports, music, programming targeted at women, children's programming, etc.), as opposed to broadcast television, which also carried these types of programming, but only on a part-time basis.

With the advent of satellite radio and Internet streaming, I believe that the HD proponents are concerned that the public is going to start seeing broadcast radio as having limited programming options that are not a good fit to the listener's whims, in the same way that the public started seeing broadcast TV once it discovered cable.

There could also be a concern that things that we traditionally used to identify radio broadcasts, such as frequencies/dial positions, will soon appear clunky and non-user friendly to the public, since satellite and internet radio identify their stations with names that are suggestive of the type of programming offered (OK, you could type in the IP address of an internet radio station, but you are not forced to do so).

Having said all this, I am not implying that HD will be a success or that it will actually solve any problems. I am just trying to "see the other side." Note that I made no comments about bandwidth, artifacts, power levels, etc; I don't think that these technical factors rank very high for the people driving the conversion to and adoption of HD radio.

I personally have set the tech issues aside. My position on them hasn't changed, but it's here now right?

Given that, let's get the good stuff going and keep radio moving forward.

Agreed on the tech not being the primary driving factor.

With all due respect, I still don't see anything that will drive purchases of HD radios so that HD is competitive with, say, satellite radio.

Right now, I completely agree.

If that does not change, then no amount of new tech is gonna do any good.

Right now the only real benefit you get is better sound quality (better than satellite) and some extra stations with no commercials (at the moment). I'm not really interested in subscribing to satellite radio and I did want to receive my local stations better so this was exactly what I wanted.

My concern with HD Radio is that ultimately
(once audience size reaches critical mass) they
will become as commercialized as current FM and AM stations. They'll be expected to get ratings, they'll be researched to death and
any initial creativity and programming variety will be gone. The same happened with FM in the 70's. The big broadcasting companies just look
at HD as additional revenue streams. More stations to add to their groupings.

I don't think you have to worry about that for several, possibly many more years.

> My concern with HD Radio is that ultimately
> (once audience size reaches critical mass) they
> will become as commercialized as current FM and
> AM stations. They'll be expected to get ratings,
> they'll be researched to death and
> any initial creativity and programming variety
> will be gone.

If you are talking about the HD2 and HD3 programs, I would say that this is a different beast altogether than FM, since these HD subchannels are not independently run. Today, many of these subchannels are running automated niche formats that were created solely to show off the multicasting capabilities. The only way that I could see anything analogous to early 1970s FM radio (which I am am too young to have experienced firsthand) happening on these subchannels is if some stations put on an all-podcasts radio format similar to AM1550 in San Francisco.

“Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check”

“While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse.”

http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html

No worries - consumer interest in HD Radio, after a year and a $250,000,000 ad campaign is almost nonexistent.

I read Al's mention of the "mechanism" (i.e., the potential for abuse inherent in such a design) with interest. While DRM on entertainment product is an annoyance, I have graver concerns about applying a proprietary technology to broadcasting itself, as it could conceivably be misused to impinge on the public's access to information.

I'm too young to remember Armstrong's FM patent, but now understand why some conservatives still harbored a vague suspicion of FM into the sixties. While absurd (after all, RCA controlled patents on much of AM's technology for decades), I no longer regard it as comical.

"Bridge Ratings: Sweat the cell phone and don't count on HD"

"In other words, Bridge says interest in HD radio is decreasing even as your station works hard to increase awareness. What can I possibly add to this honest and bleak picture that I haven't said before? My well-intended warnings about HD's "premature death" seem to be rearing their ugly heads almost two years later."

http://www.hear2.com/2007/04/bridge_ratings_.html#comments

Yes, HD Radio is a scam that never took off.

All right.

That's the same freaking comment essentially everywhere. Clear evidence of a comment spammer.

I think this guy needs a PDXRadio vacation. After that, maybe he will grok how it works here and contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way.

It's not the anti IBOC view that's the problem. It is the comment spamming. You are leveraging the friendships in this forum to rank your rants higher and didn't ask for the right to do so. That's wrong and it's an abuse of the net, and this forum in particular.

This guy is getting to be more annoying than djfrrresh!

maybe it's the same person!

At least we get a laugh at DJFressssshhhhy's expense.

Agreed, missing... deja vu all over again...