FM's Days Numbered?

[Shinkukan]

I've heard that by the end of '07 we will be required to buy a box to decode digital (or HD?) TV signals because standard NTSC analog TV over the airwaves will be terminated per government rule.

My concern is that we're approaching something similiar with free FM. Should I be concerned about future homes for my 5 McIntosh tuners? And what about all of the AK vintage '70s receiver junkies (me included)? Content aside, I don't look forward to the death of free FM, but economics rules and my limited understanding is that analog bandwidth is fat and digital bandwidth is skinny, so more stations are possible if its all digital, i.e., more cost-effective use of the airwaves?

Can someone clarify/elaborate on the future of FM?

 

[Sandy G]

I'm afraid you might be right, if some of these nitwits in Washington, & their pocket-padders in the industry have their way...But it'll be a long, long time. Same thing for Amplitude Modulation, too...

 

[merrylander]

The so called bandwidth arguments are just put up by people selling digital crap. What we all need to do is change the folks at the FCC (most of whom could not find their backsides with both hands and a flashlight) and get some people in there who ar not about to sell out to the yahoos who only want to obsolete perfectly good technology for profit. Otherwise it will not only be digital this, digital that, but a new and improved version every year - can you say Windoze?

Rob

 

[Lefty]

Well FM analog is a Hugh advertisement market these days and most is aimed at the automotive commuter listeners. I would think it would not happen that a sudden phase out of analog Vs digital on the FM band. Also there is a large number of non profit, college type low power stations that could not afford to upgrade to digital transmission. So I think that analog FM still has a long life ahead, but that is just one opinion.


Lefty

 

[Mark W.]

I would guess that if analog FM went away the number of Pirate stations might increase dramatically. I know they would in my house LOL

 

[Chad Hauris]

Digital radio broadcasting in the U.S. on the AM and FM bands is referred to as "in-band, on channel" (IBOC). The digital signal is transmitted simultaneously with the analog....unlike digital TV. There is no incentive or legal mandate for analog AM or FM broadcasting to be discontinued that I have heard of.

The only downside of digital that I have seen is that it seems to cause more adjacent channel interference especially on AM and requires analog AM audio bandwidth to be confined to 5 khz.

 

[gonzothegreat]

One thing a lots of people overlook in the digital FM debate is DRM. The content providers want to be able to control all aspects of your use of their works. The big boys would love to see "fair use" go the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon.

After the P2P revolution bit them in the ass, they decided to use DRM to hardware lock all future content. The DVD decrytion case was the most famous recent demonstration as to how far they would go to lock down their intellectual property. Their lawyers went after anybody who posted a copy of the code.

While I don't see broadcast music radio disappearing from our town (Madison -very liberal university town), I could see it drying up elsewhere thanks to Sirius and XM. Who wouldn't turn down the usual burger & fries FM music fare when for just pennies a day you could have a hundred item buffet (aka XM/Sirius).

 

[melofelo]

to keep fm analogue...don't 'downgrade' your reception equipment to digital...

 

[Redcatcher199th]

I would guess that if analog FM went away the number of Pirate stations might increase dramatically. I know they would in my house LOL

lol Mark ...........but they would have a fix on your signal then point the big

lazer in the sky toward's your house zap ......... :lazer: ......anyone seen


Mark >>???

We just need to put a end to the Tyranny anyone rember what percent tax the boston tea party was over ??

We The People :scratch2:

 

[Donkey!]

Well simply put Im going to raise hell on the airwaves when all of this happens. Soon they will be wanting us HAMs to use digital shit. No way. And Im going to stick my 1.5KW RF amplifier up there ass taboot.

Now really we all know it's about the industry lobbyists telling them that we have sold them everything we can, and "You don't want a recession do you?" We need them to buy new products for our sake even if they don't want to.

Im telling you this is plain ol' fashioned Communismistols:

 

[Sandy G]

I'm just waiting for the day in Jan 2009 when Joe Sixpack grabs hisself a brewski, sits down to watch the Tournament of Roses parade and-ZAP ! NOTHING'S on. Anywhere. He yells at his wife if she forgot to pay the cable bill, & then it dawns on him, this is that new TV thing they've been yammering about. So, he hies hisself down to the local Circus Shitty, & tries to buy a decoder thing-a-ma-bob, or maybe a new TV, but they're all sold out. Won't have any for another week. Joe does what EVERY red-blooded American does when faced w/an insurmountable crisis- he calls his representative in Warshington, & lets him have it good 'n' loud. Somehow, methinks analog TV MAY not be quite as dead as they think.. Remember the seat-belt interlock fiasco of '74? New cars wouldn't start unless you were all properly buckled up-people raised so much Hades the feds backed down. Betcha a dollar to a donut that could happen on this, too...It would do my old cold, black heart good to see a couple of idiot bureacrats burned in effigy..Hell, just burn the bureaucrats themselves....Might teach 'em a lesson to not go a-pheckin' w/stuff they don't have any business a-pheckin' with in the first place...

 

[Whitehall]

HD Radio is one way to triple the number of channels within the FM band. Of course, triple zip is still zip. I sometimes post at an FM marketer site called Hear 2.0 - they focus on the business end of radio broadcasting and they are not optimistic about HD Radio but are searching for some competitive response to sat radio and internet broadcasting, etc, etc. I tend to offer the audiophile's viewpoint insisting that audio quality is still analog FM's competitive advantage.

Here's the link: http://www.hear2.com/

Attached is an example of the content:

 

[Holst]

I've posted this before, but I have worked in radio for 30 plus years, I work for a big old chain of stations, I visit daily with engineers and owners and sit in on meetings with the company's FCC attorneys form time to time.
I previously wrote a nice long eloquent post. But short and sweet this time.
The industry will drag it's feet and kick and scream and fight. I know there are print stories and websites talking about how the industry is all on board and stations are experimenting with it and it will happen any day. But by and large, the industry doesn't want it, it sees no need for it, it doesn't want to pay for it. It really, really doesn't want to pay for it. And though some are trying it with the idea of getting some sort of competitive advantage, the rest see none.
Add to it, the radio industry is largely unregulated, this was Ronald Regan's big thing. We can now own lot's of stations in one market and not have a single living soul in the building. This means budgets are low and the government doesn't visit unless someone complains. This all adds up to status quo.
If all the predictions were right, radio would be gone and we would all listen to Internet radio, sat radio, cable radio and so on.
The sky is not falling, it's staying put.

Anyone who doesn't believe me and want's to be the rush, I'll take your McIntosh tuner (I really want a MR75) and I'll give you a digital something.

 

[Whitehall]

As much as I'm a solid Republican and adore Reagan and Bush, I've always thought that allowing the conglomeration of station ownership was a bad idea. It has allowed local oligopolies based on ownership of public airwaves. The broadcast industry seems to be fighting to retain that "rent seeker advantage". That statis and technical advancements will kill the Clear Channel business model.

I believe that the value of the licenses will need to be depreciated or written off (good accounting question!). Already Clear Channel is selling off properties. That means the average bandwidth slot will decline in price. At some point it will be profitable to buy a channel and deliver highly focused content that attracts a smaller audience and the advertisers trying to sell them something. In other words the business model will evolve. I expect signal quality to be one possible selling point.

Revoking the "Fairness Doctrine" on the other hand was great! It has opened up political discussion in the country so that no longer has the liberal mainstream media had a monopoly on mass media opinion forming. The internet has doubled down on that. Bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" will be a big battle ground in the future with liberals dying to crush talk radio.

 

[Punker X]

First warning... DO not let this turn into a political discussion... !!! Like the last time this topic came up. Keep your political opinions to yourself, whether it be liberal or conservative, left or right, us guys in the middle don't want to hear it.

This happened last time this topic came up and the thread was killed. Individual action will be taken this time against the offenders.

X
Moderator of this forum

 

[axel]

We've had for years the possibility to listen to all available stations plus many more over the cable and dish decoders and, now, the internet on top of that. But it still doesn't change the habits or the industry: a minimal minimum amount of people listen to radio off those decoders or the internet.

DAB sunk in Germany, isn't even mentionned in France and I'm sure the situation is about the same elsewhere. To a lesser extent, RDS/Eon was supposed to be extended to all radios when launched but maybe 10% of them send the data they are supposed to, and almost never complete at that...

I use the internet to catch a broadcast when I wasn't there to either listen or record to DAT but my 1978 TU-850 Denon has quite a few years of use left ahead!

 

[Vinyl Rules!]

I've posted this before, but I have worked in radio for 30 plus years, I work for a big old chain of stations, I visit daily with engineers and owners and sit in on meetings with the company's FCC attorneys form time to time.
I previously wrote a nice long eloquent post. But short and sweet this time.
The industry will drag it's feet and kick and scream and fight. I know there are print stories and websites talking about how the industry is all on board and stations are experimenting with it and it will happen any day. But by and large, the industry doesn't want it, it sees no need for it, it doesn't want to pay for it. It really, really doesn't want to pay for it. And though some are trying it with the idea of getting some sort of competitive advantage, the rest see none.
Add to it, the radio industry is largely unregulated, this was Ronald Regan's big thing. We can now own lot's of stations in one market and not have a single living soul in the building. This means budgets are low and the government doesn't visit unless someone complains. This all adds up to status quo.
If all the predictions were right, radio would be gone and we would all listen to Internet radio, sat radio, cable radio and so on.
The sky is not falling, it's staying put.

Anyone who doesn't believe me and want's to be the rush, I'll take your McIntosh tuner (I really want a MR75) and I'll give you a digital something.

Holst, thank you. Your words make perfect sense.

I never understood the economic model that Ibiquity presented to the FM station owners that they could simultaneously multicast multiple music formats to their listeners AND make money doing this. The stations have to buy new equipment and they have to pay Ibiquity a licensing fee and they have to pay RIAA fees for the music they broadcast, and they have to pay someone to do all this for them. And they're broadcasting to those 1,000 or 2,000 people in the entire US that happen to own the Proton HD table radio or one of two Yamaha receivers (both costing over $1,000) that have an HD tuner. This isn't even VooDoo economics, this is Dumb Ass economics. :withstpd:

And an IBOC start-up would require the station owners to hire some someone to put into those empty buildings to broadcast something on the additional channel(s) as there are no syndicated services offering new formats that can be broadcast on the IBOC channels.

So if a station wants to do IBOC now, they either cue up a big honkin' hard drive and let it run, or they hire someone as a DJ for their new IBOC channel. AFAIK, this has not happened, anywhere.

As I've said before in other posts, IBOC is as dumb and stupid an idea as was the DIVX DVD: That lasted about 18 months before the Hollywood Lawyer idiots who thought up the idea and conned Circuit City into supporting it pulled the plug.

The truly sad thing about this entire fiasco is that our elected idiots in Congress (What? I don't know how that $90,000 got into my freezer wrapped in aluminum foil!) provided funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting so that virtually any Public Radio station could get new IBOC broadcast equipment for free and I would argue this money could have been better spent on better programming or, an even more radical concept, not spending our tax dollars at all to fund a new technology that is most likely DOA.

And BTW, if you think the McIntosh MR75 is a good tuner, the MR74 sounds even better, IMHO (I have both).

 

[Holst]

And BTW, if you think the McIntosh MR75 is a good tuner, the MR74 sounds even better

I'll take any McIntosh tuner, the MR74 is a beauty and a half, it's just that the MR75 matches my C27 and MC2125.

 

[henry]

UK situation.

DAB in the UK is referred to by real hi-fi enthusiasts as the new AM! The data rates are so low, even mono at times to fit in all the stations when the cricket is on. Quantity is the name of the game rather than quality I'm afraid.
On FM a lot of the commercial local conglomerates are playing the same content in several different locations. The only local content often seems to be the advertisers! Although I do not feel qualified to comment on the US position I feel a thread of this type must be political by it's very nature. The engineers & scientists invent & discover things & then the money people take over!

 

[influx]

There is the politics of Capitalism and then there is the distraction(s) of the other two political parties. Great Britain is no different then the USA in that respect sooo.. I think we can have a thread that explores HD, RDS etc. and FM's immanet demise (going on 20 years now :scratch2: ) and stay on track :yes: !