And speaking of “marketoids,” what time warp is this one writing from?

Peter Smyth^[1]:

Hello Everyone,

As we continue to work diligently to prevent the proposed XM-Sirius monopoly from becoming a reality, I have to ask the question that is slowly dawning on me: Why doesn’t Washington like free radio?

Hey Peter, word: It’s not just Washington!

Radio is the voice of vital information and safety,

...excepting weeknights after 6pm, mornings before 5am, and all day on weekends. Then you'd better hope the folks at the weather service push the right buttons on their EAS transmitter.

the voice of comfort and hope,

...recorded 500 miles away 3 days ago...

and the voice of collective action and change

...all the while running 20 minutes of commercials per hour.

From supporting our soldiers to sustaining our local food pantries, we are embedded deeply into the fabric of our communities

Communities that lost their local service so some group could turn it into another big-city rimshot.

... Our political leaders obviously understand the breadth of our reach and the depth of our impact on our audience in a given day. Why else would they buy time on our stations to get elected to office?

...nice office you got elected to there. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it, would you?

But somehow, instead of working with us, some members of Congress and the FCC continue to challenge the radio industry to prove that we are “worthy” of keeping our licenses.

You see, that was the deal. You get the licence free, in exchange for providing public service. No public service, you’re gonna get complaints. Hey, if you want to renegotiate things, I’m sure Congress would be eager to talk about a spectrum tax.

I find it absurd. I challenge them to leave the beltway for a day and go into the heartland. I invite them to visit Iowa and New Orleans and see firsthand where our listeners live and the beneficial role radio serves in providing a lifeline to the people.

...and you need to get out of Boston and listen to the kind of “service” the rest of the country gets. Hint: A lot of it resembles what bulls do to cows.

...I am weary from listening to the many politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. who do not appreciate the contributions our industry makes to our communities or the problems we face in this challenging economy.

You overpaid for your properties, cheapened the product, fired all the talented people, and then chased away the listeners with boring programming and advertisers with lousy marketing.  Now you're in trouble. And this should be Congress’ problem because...?

Washington is willing to ignore the many transgressions of the satellite radio companies, who have violated almost every law and rule that ever applied to them, but wants to impose a raft of new legislation and regulations to dictate the programming and outreach decisions of local

Out-of-town owned, satellite-delivered, 24 hours a day!

free

(Don’t mention that 20 minutes per hour of commercials!)

radio.

Washington wants to give our competitor an unrestricted and virtually unregulated monopoly, so Howard Stern can disparage Dolly Parton with impunity, but will fine local radio stations $325,000 when a guest or caller accidentally says “the s-word.”

You mean S-U-B-S-C-R-I-P-T-I-O-N, as in “paid, voluntary”?

And yet, when the politicians really need to reach their constituencies, they turn to local, free radio. And we deliver.

(Don’t mention that 18-24 demo. Or the 25-54 one, either!)

Local, free radio represents every demographic and every community in the nation. We employ hundreds of thousands of dedicated and talented individuals, from every city and town in America.

...mostly in San Antonio, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, etc. Everything else we voicetrack.

We deliver local news, weather, traffic, and sports updates every hour

(!)

every day

???

365 days a year

Disclaimer: Not including weekends, holidays, weekdays after PM drive, weekdays before AM drive, mid-days between AM and PM drive, overnights...

. We raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year for local and national charities

...all the while paying not one penny for our spectrum space

and people in need.

(Can't forget those needy venture capitalists and those corporate VPs counting on that quarterly bonus!)

How in the world did we become the bad guys?

Ya know, if you have to be told... But here’s a hint: “Local radio” went away 15 years ago.

(Yes, I may be being a bit unfair here. But only a bit!)

Via: Hear 2.0
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Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 01:22:29 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Another business model goes plop

Link your radio to a retailer to create a “buy what you’re hearing now” button for music.  Sound like a plan?  Didn’t succeed in the U.K.

Radio group Unique will close down its instant music purchasing initiative [“Cliq”], blaming the slow take up of DAB for the decision, the F[inancial] T[imes] reports today.

...Cliq [...has] been touted as the showpiece for the commercial potential of interactive radio. Cliq allowed DAB listeners to acquire a song as they heard it. It was launched two years ago, with the service embedded in standalone DAB^[1] radios... and also ran as a Java applet on mobile phones. - The Register

It appears that Cliq was shuttered due to low levels of business; while the company reported an “operating profit” last year, those figures didn’t reflect debt expenses or recovery of startup costs.

This is bad news for both the music business (which loses a much-needed sales channel) and the radio business (which loses a differentiating feature that might have encouraged more purchases of DAB receivers).


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Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 23:16:20 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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A new fancy radio - without HD

This expensive
4-column x 14¼" ad appeared on Monday’s Technology page (B6) of the Wall Street Journal:

Porsche Design
Audio
P’9121

Table Top Stereo System with Dock for iPod / XM Ready / AM-FM-Shortwave / RDS [Radio Data System]

Oh, and it’s $600.



So where’s the HD?
Nowhere.


Which should be particularly disconcerting to the HD crowd as this status-symbol-grade unit parses RDS information transmissions and comes factory-equipped to receive XM satellite broadcasts (not to mention including the now-obligatory iPod dock).  (The European version, BTW, is fully DAB-capable.)

Looks like another vote of no-confidence for HD.


Earlier HD posts:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 19:17:10 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Class and no class

No class:

Cameron [Holt] is a Make-a-Wish child, and Make-a-Wish is sponsored by radio station WZPL 99.5 FM.  In that context, Cameron was invited to visit the track May 21; he was asked to participate in a pit crew competition and be the guest of the WZPL team, including disc jockey Dave Smiley and other radio hotshots.

But when Cameron and his parents and sister Candace, 11, showed up at the WZPL area, Dave Smiley and the others in his crew were drinking,” said Trish [Sieger, Cameron’s mom].  She saw Smirnoff bottles and indifference.  The time? About 11:30 a.m., says Trish.

“I walked up and introduced Cameron.  They never put it (alcohol) down so we just stood there.”

“We were not expecting fireworks,” she explained.  “But when a sick child is involved, you would think they would make an effort.”

Although eventually the Smiley team offered to take Cameron to meet the drivers, the little boy had his heart set on participating in the competition. That never happened.

“They just walked off and left us,” said Trish, speaking of Smiley and Co.

Fortunately, somebody with real class showed up, and took things in hand.

Ruth Holladay has the story.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 22:16:45 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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“Potemkin village” demos for HD radio

HD Radio: Finally, buyers get to experience the technology:

In several hundred stores, [iBiquity, HD’s developer] has placed “retail demonstration modules” (RDMs) that connect to up to 10 HD Radios at a time to walk consumers through a simulated demo delivered through the radio’s own speakers. The demo includes a recorded explanation of the technology’s benefits, a recorded A/B comparison of analog and digital reception, and a demonstration of multicasting and metadata capabilities...

Now they’re not hearing the real programming. Stores often can’t demonstrate HD because

Most... lack outdoor antennas because for decades, “consumers have not needed FM demonstrated to them,” [according to Bernie] Sapienza [iBiquity VP for retail business development]... The antennas are often needed, however, to pull in digital AM/FM signals through the walls of commercial buildings and through a cloud of RF interference generated by flat-panel TVs and other electronics in a store.

Well, I dunno. This does address the problem of finding a working HD demonstration. But iBiquity’s decision to create its own “station” out of whole cloth, rather than simply figure out a way to get existing broadcast signals to the radios, doesn’t say much for its confidence in either the radios’ real-world performance or in the attractiveness of the HD programming that the stations are delivering. It fails to answer the buyers’ next question, “OK, the technology is neat... now what can I actually get on it?” And I wonder what the local HD broadcasters feel about iBiquity’s no-confidence vote.

Retailers already have problems with HD sets being returned because of poor sensitivity. I wonder how many radios will come back because buyers think the programming sucks?


Via: The Infinite Dial

Previously:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 01:23:22 GMT | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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One place where radio is still cool

In Grand Theft Auto IV:

At least as impressive as the city’s virtual topography is the range of the game’s audio and music production, delivered through an entire dial’s worth of radio stations available in almost any of the dozens of different cars, trucks and motorcycles a player can steal. From the jazz channel (billed as “music from when America was cool”) through the salsa, alt-rock, jazz, metal and multiple reggae and hip-hop stations, Lazlow Jones, Ivan Pavlovich and the rest of Rockstar’s audio team demonstrate a musical erudition beyond anything heard before in a video game. The biggest problem with the game’s extensive subway system is that there’s no music underground. (Too bad there are no iPods to nab.)

The game’s roster of radio hosts runs from Karl Lagerfeld to Iggy Pop and DJ Green Lantern. It is not faint praise to point out that at times, simply driving around the city listening to the radio — seguing from “Moanin’ ” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers to the Isley Brothers’ “Footsteps in the Dark” to “The Crack House” by Fat Joe featuring Lil Wayne — can be as enjoyable as anything the game has to offer. - The New York Times

HT (and link via):  The Daily Swarm, via Jeff Schmidt’s comment at Hear2.0

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 20:05:47 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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And just wait until the RIAA finds out

Sales manager’s nightmare!

Intempo’s Rebel radio records all your favourite FM stations and cuts out all the DJ drivel and adverts.

In a compact glossy package - it measures 195 x 80 x 70mm and weighs in at 1kg - the Rebel is a standard FM radio, but with the added twist of recording the most-played tracks on a given station. It then makes them available for transfer to an SD card, Memory Stick or MP3 player, as 192Kb/s MP3 files - all for free. - from The Register’s review

I’d love to play with this.  They say it uses Swedish-developed technology plus an Analog Devices processor to “filter the broadcast stream for unwanted promotional messages and verbiage,” and automatically replace initial recordings with later, “less disrupted versions.”  All for £69.99.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 16:05:42 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Marketing triumph (not)

Radio World's Thom Moon tries to buy an HD radio, finds comedy of errors:

[At Best Buy] On display, next to one another, were the Sony XDR-53HD table unit and another house-brand Insignia product, their NS-HD2114 HD radio/DVD player with matching speakers.  Even though both were connected to an external antenna, neither unit received enough RF input to lock onto the HD-R stream.

Another problem was, I never did figure out how to tune the Insignia unit, and a Best Buy employee who wandered by and offered to help was just as puzzled as I...

The Insignia was tuned to 107.1, home of Class B1 WKFS(FM).  That should have been fine, as the station’s antenna is less than 10 miles from the store.  But the radio wasn’t receiving any signal at all.  That’s not a strong recommendation of the unit.
...
[At Circuit City] As I expected, their selection of home HD Radios was underwhelming: just the Sony XDR-53HD.

Of course, it wasn’t connected to an antenna, so it wouldn’t link with HD-R, even though I was only about six miles from the WKRC(TV) tower, home to all of Clear Channel’s local FM’s and Entercom’s WKRQ(FM).
...
A Target is just across the street, so I sauntered over and looked around their home electronics section, located about as far as possible from the front door and against an outside wall. HD Radio?  Nada.  Zero.  Zip.

Talked to the gentleman who appeared to be in charge and he said, “Nope, we don’t sell those.”  When I said I had found Target mentioned on the HD Radio Web site, he just said, “Oh — it must be Internet only.”  And, indeed, the Target Web site lists three HD units...

You get the idea. Out of eight retailers, the only one where Moon got satisfactory demonstration (“I could actually audition an HD Radio without several other audio sources blasting at me.”) was the local Alamo Electronics chain.

Moon blames the retailers (“...the few HD Radios displayed aren’t able to receive an HD signal. It’s bad when you’re trying to sell an expensive unit and the prospect can’t hear the main selling points of the technology...”), but my cynical reply is:  If HD Radios were flying off the shelves there would be no problem with working displays.  (Just walk down the aisle and look at the HDTV department.)

It does make you wonder what the radio industry is actually getting for its multi-million-dollar HD ad campaign.

Previously:

Via:  “rbrucecarter5” at Radio-Info

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 15:28:10 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ain't it tweet

Innovative programming in the UK:

When digital radio station Oneword closed last month, it seemed that things couldn't get any worse for the broadcaster. But indeed they could. Gallingly, the temporary replacement on the old Oneword channel - a 1992 recording of birdsong, played on a loop - is causing more of a stir than its predecessor ever managed, with tens of thousands of listeners flocking to it. - Elisabeth Mahoney in The Guardian

A programmer friend once remarked, “If we broadcast a 1000-cycle tone^[1] for ten seconds every day at 10:02am, it would attract listeners, who would then complain if we stopped doing it.”

Via Charles G. Hill, who warns:

Citadel please note. And that goes for you too, Clear Channel.

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^[1] Which tells how long ago that conversation was. None of those “hertz” things in those days: Cycles-per-second all the way!

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Stupid Stupid Stupid - #4 of a series

The HD Radio Alliance has issued a new series of spots promoting HD radio.

One problem.  The spots promote HD by dissing standard radio.

In a sort of snarky approach, the campaign features a humanized radio talking to his owner about why HD Radio product is so attractive... ...Traditional radio is repositioned as old-fashioned, repetitive, and lame.

Why does the Alliance feel they have to market HD Radio by selling against AM/FM Radio?...

Why isn't HD Radio positioning against the subscription model of satellite radio or the 99 cents a song iPod? That would make sense because HD Radio could potentially be postioning its variety and free attributes...

(The immediate snarky answer: Because radio is old-fashioned, repetitive, and lame.)

What's more, I wonder how this campaign will be received: "You're hearing this spot on traditional radio, right? But traditional radio is old-fashioned, repetitive, and lame. So that makes you what?  Because if you weren't, you'd be listening to satellite or your iPod right now, right?"


Via Mark Ramsey, who believes that HD's marketing problem is so extensive that, at this point, the content of the spots "doesn't matter in the least."

The problem is not with the campaign it's with the logic underlying the product and its place in the marketplace. Sometimes a marketing problem is bigger than an ad campaign, folks.

Elsewhere: Ken Dardis thinks HD is dead, it just hasn't noticed.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 22:58:00 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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