I guess you were out of the country when many millions of NTSC televisions became obsolete. As to licensing, how many are old enough to remember when stations had to pay Armstrong a licensing fee to produce and broadcast using FM. This is nothing new.
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RW Article: AM Radio Must Go All Digital
- Thread starter Carmine5
- Start date
I guess you were out of the country when many millions of NTSC televisions became obsolete. As to licensing, how many are old enough to remember when stations had to pay Armstrong a licensing fee to produce and broadcast using FM. This is nothing new.
When did NTSC televisions become obsolete? With the proper converter, satellite receiver, and/or disk player, they work just fine. They just don't work in anything other than SD 480p. I replaced all of mine a few years ago, but they still work and the people who I gave them to are still using them.
When did CB die? I still hear plenty of truckers on the band. AFAIK, the frequencies are still allocated to the service.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
Big difference here is that high definition television is something consumers actually wanted. The difference between analog FM and HD FM is only apparent on very high end audio systems. High end audio systems went out of favor decades ago, and live on today only as part of home theaters. Most consumers don't even know how to activate the FM tuner in their home theater systems, if they even know it is there. None of the big name AV receiver manufacturers include HD tuners. The only place you can actually buy an HD radio off the shelf today is an aftermarket car radio, and the dashboard is becoming so integrated today that you can't install an aftermarket radio in new cars. So aftermarket car radios can only be installed in cars a decade old. Unless HD can become standard in GM, Ford, and Chrysler - it is dead as a dodo.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
Only truckers use it today, unlike the 70's when millions of consumers had them. Cell phones and later social media killed CB radios for those millions of consumers.
D
diymedia
Guest
Regarding iBiquity's licensing scheme, it's totally new...at least in the broadcasting context. It requires a one-time fee plus ongoing residual payments for the use of certain features (and other features carry their own licensing arrangements as well). If you want to innovate, you also need iBiquity's permission. It's a software model of licensing, which iBiquity has made no bones about. The FCC's operative rationale on this issue is governed by a procedure on patent policies developed in the 1960s...way before software as we know it was even a thing.
Jonathan Hardis could speak to this more substantially, especially on the patent issues.
I think it's pretty clear, that, of all the system's detriments, its proprietary nature is the most troublesome.
...or not. Since the context here is comparing Armstrong's purported licensing fee to iBiquity's licensing fees, I can't speak to the subject since I don't know about either.
What I can speak to is the word "proprietary." There is nothing new or unusual about technology standards having proprietary aspects. They are all around you, and you don't much care (or need to). The problem is that "proprietary" is an umbrella term for different sorts of intellectual property. There's a big difference between technology that's proprietary because it's patented, and technology that's proprietary because it's a trade secret. Patents last for 20 years, and the quid pro quo for the rights granted by the patent is that after 20 years the public gets the right of free use of the patented matter. Trade secrets last forever. The IBOC system has both patented elements and elements that remain trade secrets. I have no problem with iBiquity or any other patent holder getting whatever the market will bear in license fees for their patents. However, I have a huge problem with the Government (in the form of the FCC) mandating use of trade-secret technology, which allows a private party to charge the public rents forever. The Patent Clause of the Constitution forbids the Government from doing this.
Because IBOC technology consists in part of trade secrets, the opportunities are limited for third parties to develop improvements to the system, or implementations of the system, and be fairly rewarded for their efforts. So, it should come as no surprise that there has been little improvement to the system in a decade.
- Jonathan
Doesn't it seem a little disingenuous that the VP of iBiquity is saying that all of AM should go digital? That would be like me saying everybody should have a fountain tipped pen and owning the only company producing them. Then, you got a FCC commissioner (Pai) backing this lamebrain idea - is this another case of somebody's palm getting greased?
Several years ago I authored a Radio World article called HD Radio Faces Rocky Road and it pretty much sums up the missteps with the entire technology and lack of public acceptance.
If the commission and our blessed government buys into this load of nonsense then we're really in trouble! Nobody's going to replace there car radios, people, especially the elderly, are going to be pissed when their local AM news station (assuming there's any left) goes dark on the radio they probably had for most of their lifetimes.
Several years ago I authored a Radio World article called HD Radio Faces Rocky Road and it pretty much sums up the missteps with the entire technology and lack of public acceptance.
If the commission and our blessed government buys into this load of nonsense then we're really in trouble! Nobody's going to replace there car radios, people, especially the elderly, are going to be pissed when their local AM news station (assuming there's any left) goes dark on the radio they probably had for most of their lifetimes.
Well look at this - two to three weeks and both WBEN 930 Buffalo and WBAP 820 Dallas are back to AM-only. Also KEX 1190 is back to AM only in Portland. People actually CARE about AM radio which I'm shocked at. Might have more people listening to news/talk on AM again. If they can keep all the crappy electrical noise down from the computers, TVs, lights etc. that would save AM. And it'll probably be a long time before AM ends up like analog television - converted with only Canada and Mexico on still.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
Someone had to change Wiki ... Still says KEX on 102.3
KEX is on KKRZ-HD2 so it's not AM only - But if your talking about analog then yes it's AM only
KEX is on KKRZ-HD2 so it's not AM only - But if your talking about analog then yes it's AM only
The take away from the RW article I got was that it doesn't matter if today's radios are rendered obsolete. That because all new cars sold in this country, from the most expensive Caddy to the cheapest Yaris, has HD Radio, consumers will be eventually replacing, not their radios, but their cars and get HD Radio in the process. Of course, that assumes that every new car sold here has HD Radio installed and I don't think that is currently the case.
That the author was dismissive of tabletop radios and didn't even mention home stereos tells me that iBiquity has written off those audio markets and has focused all its efforts on automotive. Personally, I'd like to see AM go all digital. I think it would bring new life to the band and make AM stations more valuable properties. But it has to be done right and having iBiquity hold all the cards is a very shaky proposition.
As a television broadcaster when I bought my ATSC exciter I paid a number of one-time license fees that were incorporated into the price. Notice the roster of patent holders: Philips, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung, Scientific-Atlanta, Zenith, Thomson, Sony and the ATSC. And then there's the ATSC itself, a non-profit independent committee which regulates and updates the standard (and reports its findings to the industry as well as the FCC). Digital radio needs this same kind of diversity of participants, transparency and neutrality. The iBiquity model as it stands is just plain "wacko" and shouldn't be allowed.
I can tell you this; no matter how many video streams I multiplex into my signal, I'm not paying anyone an on-going license fee for the privilege to do so.
That the author was dismissive of tabletop radios and didn't even mention home stereos tells me that iBiquity has written off those audio markets and has focused all its efforts on automotive. Personally, I'd like to see AM go all digital. I think it would bring new life to the band and make AM stations more valuable properties. But it has to be done right and having iBiquity hold all the cards is a very shaky proposition.
As a television broadcaster when I bought my ATSC exciter I paid a number of one-time license fees that were incorporated into the price. Notice the roster of patent holders: Philips, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung, Scientific-Atlanta, Zenith, Thomson, Sony and the ATSC. And then there's the ATSC itself, a non-profit independent committee which regulates and updates the standard (and reports its findings to the industry as well as the FCC). Digital radio needs this same kind of diversity of participants, transparency and neutrality. The iBiquity model as it stands is just plain "wacko" and shouldn't be allowed.
I can tell you this; no matter how many video streams I multiplex into my signal, I'm not paying anyone an on-going license fee for the privilege to do so.
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And that's how it should be. Once you buy into the equipment, it should be yours to use as long as it lasts, with no recurring fee. To most small broadcasters the whole idea simply rubs them the wrong way and they refuse to participate. Perhaps that is the point of the whole exercise...
Given the fact that people are keeping their cars longer than ever (I think the average is 11 years these days), that means you're still talking about the better part of a decade before HD even has a chance, and that's assuming that HD car installs filter down to most models (and they're nowhere near that now). However... (read on) ...
Even iBiquity must surely know by this time that most radio listening is NOT done in cars. Note that the author also didn't mention (at least I didn't see it) personal listening devices, such as iPods, which are taking an ever increasing market share. Many of those devices don't have radio capability of any kind, analog or HD.
Ever opened a software package from Microsoft? There's the rub...you really don't "own" it...you are licensed to use it.
And increasingly, with an annual payment due if you want to keep using it. Does that make it right, or just greedy?
Same thing basically on all CDs and DVDs. You don't own the content. No recurring fee, but there are limitations with what you can do with it.
If you were to read RAB's latest statistics on radio listening, it clearly shows that the majority of it is done in the car. For example, for adults 18+; 17.8% of radio listening is done in the home, 10.4% is done at work, but a whopping 60.4% is done in the car. This is apparently why iBiquity is focusing its efforts on the automotive market.
http://www.rab.com/whyradio/images/Full_Fact_Sheet_V2.pdf
I'm sure the author didn't mention HD Radio in handheld devices because it was tried in the Zune HD and it failed. Besides, the focus of the article was on AM.
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Of course, being intellectual property there will usually be restrictions in usage. But even here, you don't pay a fee every time you launch MS Office nor pay a recurring fee for using Windows.
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The Zune FM failed too. In fact, the whole Zune project was a failure.
You are reading the data wrong.
In terms of the amount of listening about a third takes place in the car, and the rest is divided between at home and at work, with at home being the larger of the remaining 2/3's of listening.
The RAB table is based on listening occasions. Radio is sold based on the amount of listeners actually tuned in. Radio in-car incidents are generally short, while daily at home and at work listening can be quite long.
Specifically, the RAB states that 60% of people listen sometime each day in the car. But the fact is that more hours a week are spent weekly listening in other places. In a market like New York, only about 25% of listening takes place in the car.
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