RRe: [BC] FCC Deletes digital report from today s meeting

[Tom Taggart]

Let's use Robert's example of the fellow driving out of Manhattan to his home in the distant wilds of Jersey listening to WINS 1010.  

One fall evening in the near future he reaches his suburban home with a nice clear signal from 1010.

KDKA finishes their IBOC installation that evening.  Our suburbanite gets up the next morning (in the dark) for his commute, gets in his car and hears, -----

Not the expected traffic and weather but this loud hiss.

My business partner is a former account exec with KDKA. He's lived in Pittsburgh for years. Still does, in fact, out by the airport (Moon Twp. for those familiar with the area). He drives down to our stations in WV on Monday, camps out in the old family homestead, and drives back home Friday. He is, of course, very familiar with KD's coverage.  And he was hearing that distinctive IBOC hiss behind 1020 from WBZ as soon as it got dark in the evening last fall--right up to six p.m. INSIDE THE METRO.

I know that at the last NAB radio conference the Commissioners attending expressed some questions about public service and other obligations for programing on the HD/FM second channels. I rather doubt it is that issue that caused the delay in proceedings. Nor was it the additional time demands for consideration of the Adelphia cable system transfers at the Thursday meeting.

The last thing Iniquity wants is AM IBOC 24/7.  They've got the public radio community conned & the Feds are happily shelling out money for FM IBOC converstionson the NPR stations. (Our local NPR station in Parkersburg just installed IBOC.  They're still horizontal only...but..). Looks like Homeland Security has cooked up a problem for this solution to solve with this digital EAS. 

However, IBOC is a tougher sale to those of us without an endless supply of cpaital for new toys.  Except for the appealing argument that it will cure all of AM's many illnesses. A dozen or so clear channel white noise generators will kill that line of argument. Especially when these noise generators interfere with each other!

So I have no doubt that the IBOC item was pulled at the last minute on request of Ibiquity, to allow them to con a few more dollars out of the clueless before the Emperor's last parade. 
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