[BC] The mysterious IBUZ license fee revealed?

[Rich Wood]

------ At 03:01 PM 1/25/2008, Milton Holladay wrote: -------

>A couple of thoughts come to mind:
>If radios that work for XM and Sirius also have to recieve  IBOC, 
>IBOC might acquire a few listeners when XM/Sirius subscribers cheap 
>out and stop paying for service and listen to IBOC by default..

That would happen if the IBUZ signal was as reliable as the satellite 
signal. If I'm at all representative, people will revert to analog to 
avoid the annoying constant loss of digital. Most stations I hear 
aren't syncd very well and there's an echo every few seconds as 
blending occurs. Secondaries just disappear, reappear, then 
disappear, over and over..

>On the other hand, perhaps IBOC should change to being a subscriber 
>service to gain listeners, because, since it is now free (other than 
>the cost of the reciever) it is percieved as worthless.......<gr>

As you probably know I have a large collection of bridges for sale at 
great prices. If you believe IBUZ will remain free I can sell you one 
or more heritage bridges for about what IBUZ will cost you over its 
short life. Lots of work is being done to implement subscription 
services as the distressed inventory spots on the analog signal 
emphasize how free it is.

My bet is that little effort is being expended on the awesome niche 
secondary programming as stations look forward to subscription 
profits. Of course, those profits assume someone actually buys 
receivers. Maybe special services will drive sales of data receivers 
at the incredible speeds IBUZ will allow. Sort of like wireless 
dialup. It'll remind you of an old FAX machine that's racheted its 
speed down or, maybe, make an old teletype machine seem speedy.

I still believe all IBUZ receivers should be able to receive 
satellite services. Some do and retailers tell me consumers usually 
buy the satellite tuner to go with it. It appears it's not viable 
without piggybacking on satellite. I wonder if the satellite services 
want an albatross like IBUZ weighing them down. I wonder if SIRIUS 
and XM want to have to pay the alleged $6 license fee to the IBUZ folks.

It reminds me of Lee Iacocca complaining to the government that Japan 
wasn't buying his cars. What he forgot to mention was that they were 
too big for the roads and had the steering wheel on the wrong side. 
The Japanese considered the boat-sized cars to be pimpmobiles. 
Instead of producing something the Japanese wanted, the government 
was implored to intervene and force the Japanese to buy the cars. 
Like most government interventions, I don't believe it worked.

It's blackmail intended either to prevent the merger of satellite 
companies or ride their coattails with something no one wants.

Rich