Re: [IRCA] IBOC battle begins

["Craig Healy" <bubba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>There's another way to look at this - it's the free market
>taking its course. If 24-hour IBOC service is valuable
>enough to the owners of WBZ, let's say, to justify paying
>WYSL's price for silence, then why shouldn't those two
>parties be able to freely set a price and make their 
>transaction?

Because of a little matter called Public Service which is supposedly at the heart of broadcasting.  If WBZ pays someone off, who pays the residents of the area that loses radio service?  Will WBZ step up and provide school closings and traffic reports for the station they killed off?  I think not.

I look at it as Walmart barging into a town and driving the locals out of business.  That's why we have zoning at the local level.  Too bad the zoning boards don't have some say in radio.

>This is nothing really new - look at the AM signals that were
>bought out and taken off the air so WWRL 1600 New York could
>upgrade a decade or so ago, for instance. Or look at WOWO/WLIB.

That's exactly my point.  Think how many small towns have lost their only service, or a powerful local presence so a big city station can gain another point in the Arbitron ratings. Is New York City truly a better place because WLIB has night service?  Was Air America *really* worth killing off most of WOWO's night signal?  That same mindset is trying to eliminate the Electoral College in Presidential elections.  It will severely diminish the smaller areas in favor of the metropolitan regions, and therefore the rich and powerful.  Suddenly people aren't quite so equal anymore.

>For every WSNJ, which is indeed a great local station, there are 
>probably a dozen AMs just barely limping along with minimal 
>listenership, whose owners might welcome a chance to cash out and to 
>clean up some of the interference on the dial in the process.

And just why does iBiquity or Clear Channel get to shut these down?  either by acquiring them, or jamming them off the dial?  If a station owner wants to sell out, it's not that hard to do.  Brokers happen..

>Of course, this would only "solve" one piece of the AM IBOC issue, and 
>not even the most critical one. It does nothing to fix the bashing that 
>the big clears inflict on one another - Citadel's not going to pay 
>itself to take WJR silent at night to allow WABC to run digital, or vice 
>versa. And it can't fix the international treaty issues - WBZ might be 
>able to buy off WYSL, but it can't do that for CJMS.

These are all questions that should have been on the table and thought out before the first IBOC sideband bludgeoned itself onto the radio dials.  Why did they have to use the world as a beta test for something that anyone with common sense and open eyes could have seen?

I hope Bob cleans their clock..

Craig Healy
Providence, RI




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