"SFTV_troy" wrote in message
ps.com...
Frank Dresser wrote:
wrote in message
Frank Dresser wrote:
And more expenses for the broadcaster.

They doesn't seem to be stopping them from adding second and third
channels Like WIYY in Baltimore, which has *voluntarily* added
Classic Rock and Indie Rock to their AOR primary station. Now
listeners of that style have three times as much content to enjoy.

But how is the extra programming being paid for?

Advertising of course. Plus the money they save because Digital does
not require as much power.


The main channel is still analog and the digital channels require extra
power.

Anyway, I think most radio stations have far bigger expenses than thier
electric bill.





Plus: If a smaller station can't afford multiple program, then they
don't need to do anything. They can just limit themselves
to 1 high-quality channel (300 kbps).

Gee, maybe if some independant station can't afford multiple
programming,
they'll have even have trouble justifying buying the IBOC hardware.

It's not that expensive. No more expensive than a mono to stereo
upgrade for an FM station.

Sure it is. And if a station wants IBOC hardware, it's paying ibiquity's
price.



5.1 would be compromised in similar ways.

And then the listeners of that Classic Music station would complain,
and the manager would have to decide between (a) increasing
bitrate or (b) losing customers.

Yeah, there's a few stations in which true high fidelity
sound would matter. Not many.

Agreed. But the advantage of the HE-AAC codec is you don't need a
high bitrate to get FM quality. Only 24 is sufficient. At 64kbit/s
you get near-CD quality. It's a VERY efficient compression standard.

So a station could divide itself into 300 / 4 channels == 64-96 kbit/s
per channel, and still have quality ranging from near-CD to CD.


And that station would risk dividing it's listeners across four channels.
That's OK for the listeners, but what's in it for the station?






People in Canada, Japan, and Australia bought AM Stereo radio in
droves. Why? Because there was a single standard, not the 4-way mess
the FCC left behind. (It's similar to today's HD DVD versus Blu-ray
battle; most people are just waiting to see who wins.)

Oh? A great many radios sold in the US are the same as the radios
sold in other countries and AM stereo still pretty rare here.

Because by the time the U.S. fixed on a standard (circa 1990), the AM
Stereo stations had largely disappeared. Thus there's no impetus for
customers to upgrade.

There sure hasn't been alot of impetus to upgrade to AM stereo. By the way,
there's even less impetus to own radios which cover the European/Asian AM-FM
channel spacing and the Japanese FM band. But such radios are commonly sold
in the US. I even have a couple of them.



In contrast, Japan and Canada and Australia had a fixed standard in
the early 80s, thus giving consumers confidence that they were not
wasting money the next Betamax.

It's curious that so few of those "droves" of AM stereo radios make it over
here.


I already agreed with you that HQ is not going to motivate people to
upgrade. It will be seeing their favorite FM stations split into 3 or
4 programs, thus tripling their options, that will motive people.


Are they carrying commercials [on secondary channels]?
And I'm sure a fellow as clever and imaginative as you are can figure
how they might try to make money even if there aren't enough listeners
to sell commercial advertising. Hint: They won't call it "HD radio"

I have no idea what you have in mind as an alternative to commercial-
support.


It's simple. If the audience the advertisers want was spread too thin
across too many channels to be profitable, the IBOC broadcasters have the
option of selling their product directly with subscription radio.

Of course, the subscription version of IBOC won't be called HD radio
because, as we've all been told a million times -- "There's never a
subscription fee with HD radio!"





In my markets (Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Baltimore).....

Baltimore, huh? Got any friends at ibiquity?

Sorry. There are roughly 50 million people living in the Philly-
Wilmington-Baltimore-DC "megaopolis". The odds of me meeting someone
from iBiquity, by sheer random event, are about nil.

Given your interests, I thought any meetings would have been more than just
random.





HD radio does little to aid the health of the radio industry in general,
but
it may be harmful to those people who are trying to run a small time low
profit station.

My "smalltime" low-profit Christian station seems to be doing
alright. They happily embraced the new technology, streaming out 3
separate programs.


How are they supporting themselves? Do they broker airtime to others? Are
they subsidized by a religious group? Do they ask for donations?

Frank Dresser