Re: [IRCA] Another perspective on AM IBOC, from the broadcasters' mailing list

["Craig Healy" <bubba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I think there's a significant and compelling business case to be made
> for many, if not most, AM stations to avoid using IBOC. You've certainly
> made that case, successfully, to your clients. That's likely, I think,
> to mean the AM IBOC system isn't going to take off in the long run. (And
> it belies, to an extent, the "great business conspiracy" theories being
> promoted elsewhere in the thread; if the system is as great a failure as
> predicted, the business case for abandoning it will be an easy one to
> make.)

Just to finish my side of the thread..

If most AM stations avoid IBOC, then it will never make the transition to
all digital, short of some governmental edict.  That in itself is unlikely
due to many factors.  So, if only a few are running this temporary
"transition" phase, they will interfere with others and cause a reduction of
coverage.  Then all the points I made are valid.  Potential lawsuits, IBOC
stations becoming the skunk in the woods, the whole nine yards.  It cannot
stay in transition mode forever.

IBOC is meant to be an all or nothing scenario.  The bare minimum
transitional coverage on both AM and FM will do nothing at all to promote
it.  Quite the opposite.  The cutting edge Joe/Jane Average will in many
cases simply return the "defective" radios, and then tell their friends.
And it will end up on the same shelf as Quad and AM Stereo.  At least those
two formats were innocuous.  I suppose the core error made here is iBiquity
expecting that eventually all AM and FM would be digital only.  Ain't gonna
happen.

To be clear, I truly believe a move to digital transmission is highly
desireable.  I have been a huge proponent of streaming, and wait anxiously
for WiFi-enabled iPod devices that can receive it.  Analog will probably
fade slowly over some number of decades.  If the RIAA/ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/AFTRA
hadn't attacked streaming with such intensity it might have been a different
ball game already.  I am very glad to see legal action taken against the
RIAA on their RICO-type activities.  Maybe streaming will again have a
chance and they will end up leaving radio alone.

I am done.  If I post again about IBOC in the near future, please send a
cream pie at high velocity in my direction.

Craig Healy
Providence, RI

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