[BC] IBOC Query

[Rich Wood]

------ At 06:46 PM 1/31/2006, Stanley Adams wrote: -------

>Every station would be able to compete better if it were the case that all
>stations became digital at one time, but obviously a large number of AM'ers
>may not be around to see the collapse of analog.

I'm afraid you're going to consider this negative but you seem to 
have left out the part where, if analog goes away, so do all your 
listeners. Keep the figure of an estimated 1.5 billion analog 
receivers in mind. What would you do with the stations who can't 
afford the cost of IBUZ? Many of them are doing quite well, just not 
well enough to afford the cost. What if you owned a small market 
station that actually serves its community and makes enough for you 
and your staff to live on. Would you force them off the air if they 
either couldn't afford it, didn't like the monopoly feel of a single 
company source or felt no need? Maybe their market doesn't need a 
voicetracked jukebox in addition to your prime directive of serving 
your listeners. Should they fire however many people it would take to 
be able to afford the equipment and license fees? Oops! That means 
everything will have to be a voicetracked jukebox because you no 
longer have any creative people.

If there were a way to make the secondaries real radio stations, that 
might be different. If the biggest operators of all don't see the 
need for real radio on their secondaries, why should the little guy. 
I realize you don't like NPR but those are the people with more 
programming than stations to air it. Real programming. Real staffs 
producing it. Real radio.

Let's say manufacturers have released 1 million receivers to the 
market (a significant over-estimate, I believe). Most are still 
siting on shelves. That would mean that even FM stations would lose 
virtually all their audiences. With that few listeners we don't have 
an industry. Let's be really, really conservative and assume everyone 
won't replace the multiple analog receivers they currently use. With 
a population of nearly 298 million people, that leaves 297 million to 
go just to have access to the entire population, as we do now. That's 
close to when analog can go away.

Rather than negativism I prefer to think of this as realism. I think 
there's a real difference from what regularly appears in puffy press releases.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010