Re: [IRCA] IBOC battle begins

[saulamdx <saulamdx@xxxxxxxxx>]

The broadcast bands we know and love are nothing more
than a roadway. Our receivers are the delivery truck.
The product we should care about is the programming.

The HD Hucksters driving the doomed, rickety IBOC
delivery truck are taking advantage of people in the
broadcasting business who seem not to understand that
they are in the programming business. Their business
is to put quality programming (including advertising)
where it will reach an audience. I don't give a rat's
tush what route the delivery truck takes, or whether
the vehicle is a semi, a van, or a toddler on a
three-wheeler. What I do care about as an audience is
how I will be informed and entertained.

Part of a broadcaster's ongoing, evolving - living -
business plan involves knowing where their audience is
hanging out. Just like retailers need to be savvy
about whether to locate downtown, in the suburbs, at a
mall or plaza, or on the street, or - increasingly -
online, so broadcasters need to think more
thoughtfully about location. With some exceptions,
people have abandoned AM in droves. Particularly those
under 40. People are also on the verge of abandoning
FM. People don't even watch as much TV as they used
to. The platform whose star is rising is 
online, portable and enables users to hear or watch
what they want, when they want, where they want.
Increasingly, it even lets them interact, contribute
and participate.

AM sounds like crud in most urban centres, Even at my
fairly remote Burnt River DX site, the birdies from
hydro lines, fluorescent lights and computers would
turn off the average listener. (IBOC is a big, big
birdie - a pterodactyl). FM and TV over-the-air
signals are subject to line-of-sight and terrain
blockage issues. Cable only offers what the cable
operators want to offer or in regulated markets what
they are allowed to offer, not what the audience
necessarily wants to receive.

The trick is to retain as much of an OTA presence as
possible, include cable in the mix where possible, and
as quickly as possible develop, build and maintain an
online presence that above all is programming-centred
and is agile in terms of its ability to move with new
technological innovation. In other words, maintain
your brand and product over as many routes and
vehicles as possible, to keep and build your
increasingly scattered and diverse audience. The iPod
may rule with today's teenager and young adult, but
what will the delivery truck and radioset or TV look
like in a few years, as new technological innovations
occur. Personally, I am betting on satellites.
Regardless, technology is evolving in a chaotic way,
in part due to a lack of any central direction or
regulation, and in part due to open-ended
possibilities. I think the only way to possibly
harness technology advaancement and platform choice is
through an international body such as the ITU or UN,
or otherwise through international agreements.
However, I'm not sure that technological change, as
rapid as it naturally tends to occur, can be managed
without a serious shift in popular attitude or without
a dictatorial approach.

For now, broadcasters need to keep track of their
audience so they're always in sync. As it stands, AM
and FM radio stations are moving to IBOC when no one
is there. There's no promise that IBOC receivers will
be built or sold. The same happened in Canada to some
extent with DAB, although the DAB approach was (is)
perhaps a better idea than the IBOC approach because
the (planned) move to DAB involved a wholesale move to
a potentially better area of the spectrum whereas the
haphazard do-what-you-want move to IBOC is simply
screwing up the existing service before the new one is
built and working. Think about this: You live in a
rowhouse. Wouldn't it be criminal to tear down your
unit and damage the ones next door to you because you
happen to want a standalone highrise? The FCC
effectively abandoned its role as a zoning authority.
maybe the FCC should be sued for negligence.

SC

PVZ wrote:
>  Concur. Big Radio's S/Bag PR job offends moreso
> than its iBLOCkhead jamming. 
>  PR jobs belie ulterior motives. HD ginks preach the
> virtues of an inane 
> jammer to one another rather than admit the obvious
> - citizens quit listening.
>  
>   Youtube, pirate broadcasters, LPFM's, LPAM's,
> WiFi, iPods, other 
> consumer-driven media posess intrinsic veracity
> which attracts citizens and incites 
> BigFatRadio's avaricious manipulative bloviators to
> blind jealousy. 
>  
>  Dear BigRadio, HD can't fix your intrinsic
> disingenuousness.
>  
> What will HD do for Mr. Palm Beach Pillpop? Nothing.
> Beck? Spare us. FM jock 
> roots show unabashedly beneath his bottle job
> CNN/BigRadio sinecure. Barking 
> Two-minute-and-fifty-seven-second screeds fool only
> the willing. We've tuned 
> out.
> 
> HD/BigRadio speaks to manipulate and writes to
> mislead.
>  
>  Consumers discern BigRadio's message: 'We don't
> know what we want, we just 
> want it. We can get money for stuff we covet and
> sell off while selling 
> citizens out. We don't care about them or radio.
> Nincompoops sworn to protect public 
> airwaves allow us to loot, provided we parse
> moralistic nonsense at 
> competitors and citizens as we loot them.
>  
>  They think they fool us? They don't.
>  
>  They use the gangsta biz model, well democratized
> during the Rotten 90s. Run 
> everything upside down. Press the bar. Bust the
> envelope. Apply inapplicable 
> rules, ignore those which do. Make it up as you go
> along. Get rich. Not 
> wealthy.
>  
> BigRadio is moribund. HD jamming makes it moreso.
> People aren't complaining. 
> They know it's safer to quietly vote with one's feet
> and checkbook.
>  
>  Engineers and listeners say HD audio's high end is
> fatiguing. Women weary of 
> it more quickly than men given, given their acuity,
> but both tune out.
> 
> BigRadio underestimated its audience. People know
> interference. Audiences who 
> make or break Holllywood films may not know why nor
> do they have to, but they 
> know what looks and sounds good. 
> 
> HD does for radio what Smell-O-Vision and Emergo did
> for Fab Fifties monster 
> films. Zip.
>  
> BigRadio's brain dead greedy-guts remind one of
> Godzilla, lashing stupidly 
> about the landscape of an HO train set village,
> knocking over pylons, crushing 
> buildings in vain effort to accomplish something,
> roaring at all who point out 
> the obvious.
>  
>                                                     
>                          
> z
>  
> pv zecchino
> manablowhard key, fl


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