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True Oldies Channel Going Away - WCBS-FM HD3

RadioGuy1864 said:
Since I no longer live in the market, can someone describe the quality of HD2-3-4 signal reception in "the City"? I would think the tall buildings play havoc with the lower bit-rate signals.
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I have never had problems hearing HD subchannels in NYC where the regular FM signal is available. You only lose the HD signal when you go through a tunnel that also blocks the main signal.

I find you have to be about 25 miles or more from Midtown to begin losing the HD signals. You begin to notice it when you are in a valley or go down a steep hill. The HD stations are audible, for instance, while traveling along I-287, the interstate highway that rings NYC through most of New Jersey, plus Rockland and Westchester Counties in New York State.
 
secondchoice said:
I believe soon there will be two types of "listening." The cities will be internet based. Out here in flyover county if you are more than 5 or 10 miles from a 4 lane highway terrestrial radio is still need. Right now there is no incentive for cell companies to build out towers to totally cover the entire lower 48 states.

Two big questions: will satellite data ever get cheaper than cell data? Will the US ever get the town covering "wifi" service South Korea has? Both would take a lot of $$ to build out.
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No, and no... though satellite data is getting cheaper.

Back i n2016, i had viasat/exede.. it was $129 a month for 30 gigs of data and each extra gig was $10./ Speeds were like... about 20 megs down and 3 megs up fivew or take I won't tell you what my highest bill was.. but i couldve leased a luxury car and then some some months for what i paid viasat.

Fast forward to early 2021, viasat was $150 a month for 100 gigs and spoeeds where like 30 megs down and 5 megs up give or take., I then started paying $299 for 300 gigs, or thereabouts. An Extra 10 gigs was $15, i think?

Now, i pay $90 for starlink..... 40 to 225 megs down and 6/7 to 40 megs up....... and 1TB of data


Just because of transport data and other stuff involved, i dont think satellite can ever be as cheap as cell data
 
Barry said:
It's good that another HD channel in this area could be leased out. But it seems odd that it will be on an IHeart HD channel for only a few weeks, and then will move to an Audacy station's HD channel. It is also rather surprising that Audacy continues to broadcast Channel Q on both WINS FM HD3 and WNEW FM HD2.
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Audacy charges less for HD channels than iHeart does. Channel Q is a terrible waste of bandwidth, makes no money, and panders to it's demo. Expect to see it change soon.
 
coreynj2461 said:
Hopefully someone will record the changeover. I wonder what the last song will be? Maybe its rescue me, the same last song that was heard before the jackfm temporary takeover
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I am sure it will be as uninspired as the True Oldies Channel programming is. Simply drop the canned oldies feed and replace with the new programming. A couple of button pushes is all that‘s needed.
 
Since it still it still will be on iHeart, it's not really going away. They might "split" the feed for a special NYC farewell. At one time didn't someone claim it came from Scott's basement?
 
coreynj2461 said:
Hopefully someone will record the changeover. I wonder what the last song will be? Maybe its rescue me, the same last song that was heard before the jackfm temporary takeover
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The TOC is going to continue everywhere except on WCBS-FM HD3, so no, don't expect anything special in the program. It will just disappear with a click of a switch to some other program feed, and the rest of the country will be none the wiser that it's disappeared (for the moment) from NYC.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
And? You cannot solve for every edge case. There have always, always been genres and types of programming not heard on the radio in a given location - or any location in some cases. It is not remotely a sustainable business model to try to pick up the handful of hypotheticals who have an old car, the understanding or patience to stream on the road, don't have or understand smart speakers, etc.

The world needs to move on, however harsh that may sound.
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Facts.
 
WCBS FM 101.1 FM HD3 flipped to Roadblock Radio some time this morning.
I wonder whether commercial stations such as this and the Caribbean broadcaster that recently started on WKTU 103.5 HD3 will be able to get the word out to their potential listeners that they exist. Another challenge may be to help them (the ones that actually have HD radios) understand how to tune them to these stations.
Years ago, New York had One Caribbean Radio on an HD subchannel. They actually gave me a free HD table radio. The station did not last very long.
On the other hand, the 3 Russian language stations on local HD channels have been around now for several years.
 
Barry said:
WCBS FM 101.1 FM HD3 flipped to Roadblock Radio some time this morning.
I wonder whether commercial stations such as this and the Caribbean broadcaster that recently started on WKTU 103.5 HD3 will be able to get the word out to their potential listeners that they exist. Another challenge may be to help them (the ones that actually have HD radios) understand how to tune them to these stations.
Years ago, New York had One Caribbean Radio on an HD subchannel. They actually gave me a free HD table radio. The station did not last very long.
On the other hand, the 3 Russian language stations on local HD channels have been around now for several years.
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If the HD channel is being used to feed a translator(s) then its more out of a need for FCC compliance than anything else. If not, then it is quite the uphill battle. Not impossible by any means, but teaching people at this stage of the game what HD Radio is, would be quite the undertaking if it happens to be the sole means to offer programming. It's fair to say that most people probably do see the HD Radio icon on their in-car radio display and still have no idea what it means or represents. While sad, it's just one of many issues that plagues the platform. The analog to digital ERP being another. Sure the FCC has made some efforts to combat that issue but is it solving one issue while causing 3 others? "Saving the AM Band" by cluttering up the FM band seems counterproductive to me but the floodgates have already been opened. I will give credit to some of the lessees of the HD frequencies for choosing to broadcast legally while countless pirates choose otherwise...
 
Barry said:
WCBS FM 101.1 FM HD3 flipped to Roadblock Radio some time this morning.
I wonder whether commercial stations such as this and the Caribbean broadcaster that recently started on WKTU 103.5 HD3 will be able to get the word out to their potential listeners that they exist.
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Based on the amount of social posts I see when searching for them, I think the word is getting out to their core audiences.

Roadblock was running ads on WINS this weekend promoting the launch and soliciting advertisers as well. Not sure if they ran across the Audacy cluster or not.
 
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