Traditional Radio Endangered By New Tech

Rob wrote to mention a Reuters article discussing the danger to traditional radio posed by new new technologies. From the article: "The radio industry could find itself at the kids' table in the media banquet hall, as new technology threatens the business, advertising executives said this week at the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit. Satellite radio, digital music players and the Internet are slowly encroaching on traditional radio's stronghold on local entertainment and advertising. Plus, radio ads themselves are less memorable and creative, these executives said."

Comments

Stay tuned for another bandwidth auction...

[jmp_nyc]

It's only a matter of time before the bandwidth gets reclaimed for something more lucrative. The only question is whether or not the Feds will reclaim first it so they can raise money from an auction.

If they do, it'll mean that the spectrum only goes to established companies who can afford it in auction. If they don't either the current media conglomorates that own most radio stations will sell the spectrum for more than the radio stations are worth, or they'll liquidate it at rock bottom prices as unprofitable until someone innovates in the space.

Knowing the current administration, I'd bet that the conglomorates will strike it even richer than they already are.
-JMP

Re:Stay tuned for another bandwidth auction...

[metlin]

That need not necessarily be a Bad Thing (TM). Use of that spectrum could mean services that you need to pay for, but like everything else, it might be shared with other tech.

With things like SSMA, you might be able to spread your use of the spectrum widely enough to allow for shared applications.

Quite honestly, I'd much rather have that bandwidth being used for something that I might actually find useful. Of course, the problem then would be of internationalization - there are a lot of countries out there where radio still means a lot, and the radio is one of those few things that has been fairly universal. But that might change.

Combine it with HAM operators and the percentage of folks that do listen to the radio in the US (for instance, morning drive-to-work listening), it's unlikely that it will COMPLETELY go away. More likely that it will amalgamate with other apps and evolve into something more.

Besides, auctioning a spectrum to a corporation might actually be beneficial. Resources + reach is something that Joe Schmoe does not have. Besides, built a strong enough transmitter (if you needed it that badly), you might be able to over-ride just about any transmission (of course, the legality of the issue would be another thing altogether).

Re:Stay tuned for another bandwidth auction...

[MikeFM]

I'd much rather the govt buy back (or jsut take back) the spectrum and release it to public use. The small amount of public spectrum we have has given us such useful things as wireless phones and WiFi - much more useful than a broadcast of Jessica Simpson's latest hit - so why not collect more of the spectrum for those useful things. If we could collect back all the spectrum sold for radio and tv use we could have a lot more spectrum to work with. Faster Wifi with fewer problems with overlapping AP's maybe.

Re:Stay tuned for another bandwidth auction...

[metlin]

I'm all for the government buying back the spectrum - but I also think that a part of the spectrum should be 'lent' to corporations simply because they've more resources to do cool stuff than joe user off the street.

If you must, insist that a bunch of corporations share the responsibility, that way you can be sure that there isn't exactly a monopoly of sorts.

Satellite Radio Sucks

[dgatwood]

The encoding artifacts hurt my ears. I tried listening to it once, and found myself REALLY glad I hadn't spent the money to buy one.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[goaliemn]

I've never noticed any artifacts. If there are any, it may be overridden with the variety over broadcast and the lack of commercials by my own mind.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[VAXcat]

Yah...traditional FM broadcasters have managed to produce a product that people will not only not accept for free, but will pay $10.00 or so a month to avoid....

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[ScottCooperDotNet]

I can only comment on XM here, but there aren't commercials on the music channels*, but there are some on the talk stations as most talk shows are syndicated to terrestrial radio (so they have commericals). *XM over-promotes the programming available on other channels, such as live concerts and things.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[bunkie21]

First, the quality is not "better than standard radio". That's marketing hype. Second, you don't have to be a "music elitist" to dislike the loss in fidelity inherent to lossy encoding schemes, you only have to have a set of ears and to have been exposed to decent speakers. But if your idea of of hi-fi is a four-letter word that starts with "B", I can certainly understand why you hold this opinion.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[dgatwood]

In fact, if you aren't deaf, it's nowhere near the quality of FM. With FM, the broadcasters end up compressing it somewhat because of limited SNR. Digital radio gives you improved SNR and thus in theory, you could get away with less compression, but really you still need it because people rarely listen to radio in their living room these days. They listen in the car, walking down the street, etc. where uncompressed (classical) music turns to silence for long periods, so you end up with compression on satellite radio anyway---at least if you want to be able to hear anything.

However, FM provides ample bandwidth for the broadcast audio's frequency range. With digital radio, you get artifacts because they're trying to cram a 200 kHz-wide analog FM channel into what I've read is, on average, a 96kbps encoded digital stream (and that's consistent with the quality I heard---about like a 96kbps MP3). Even in the rental car I was in, IMHO, it absolutely sounded like crap.

Don't get me wrong, FM isn't perfect, but I'd rather have the occasional bit of static going through the mountains than continuous HF flanging any day, particularly if I would have to pay good money for the HF flanging. No thanks. As for the commercial-free thing, so is my iPod....

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[Brett Buck]

Sucks is a strong word, but hi-fi it ain't. I went back and forth with Sirius over the sound quality, and they were pretty responsive and helpful, but they couldn't fix it. Lots of assuming that "my equipment was bad" - I was discussing my home system and mentioned the various high-end (real high-end, not 'audiofile' "good-sounding speaker wire and shakti stones" crap) parts, like my semi-custom AVA amplifier, and they mentioned that I might "upgrade" to Pioneer or Yamaha, for example. But the bottom line was the sound issues are a function of the encoding. It's not very good. The kicker was when I hooked up to the streaming audio over the internet and it was absolutely no different than the broadcast sound.

      It's *very* obvious in the DJ speaking voices, but it happens in the music similarly. The worst is a sort of a "hollow" reverb effect.

      By the way, the best feature IS the streaming audio, which is free if you subscribe to the broadcast service (or, is included, if you prefer that perspective).

      I listened to mine on broadcast for 6 straight days on a car trip, and I had a lot of opportunity to compare it to FM stations along I-80. The best Sirius channels are nowhere near as good in terms of audio quality as a good FM station, and the talk channels are worse than AM. I tried various encoding schemes from CD to compare, and somewhere in the range of a 96 kbps MP3 was pretty comparable to the very best Sirius channels. In other words, just barely good enough for most people, and not a whole lot worse from what a lot of people tolerate on their iPods (128 kbps is what I think you get from the ITMS - whatever it is it's on the edge of tolerable quality-wise). Which I guess is what they were shooting for.

      couldn't even find a bit rate low enough to replicate the worst of the talk channels.

      I think it's *probably* worth the money, but if you are expecting CD quality sound you will be sorely disapppointed.

      Brett

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[Hugonz]

Remember when subscription TV did not have any commercials either? it is not a matter of the technology, but the whole system. Radio is mature, and it has commercials. Satellite radio does not have commercials because very few businesses would invest publicity money in it. Whenever it goes mainstream, it will have them, and you won't have broadcast radio to fall back to.

The Howard Stern Effect

[ellem]

Ahhh yes. Radio as we know it will soon be the 8 Track of media. Unless, like broadcast TV they are allowed to piggyback onto Satellite Radio.

Let us all come together and hope that the FCC doesn't try to regulate that which we pay for.

Re:The Howard Stern Effect

[lawpoop]

Instead of hoping, how about writing a letter to your congressperson and senators?

NPR

[ducatier]

I have switched to listening to NPR on the radio as have alot of people. The ads and DJ's on other stations always seem to be yelling as if somting important were happening. On NPR that does not happen. I believe this is one of the major reasons why NPR has seen so much growth in ratings

Yea, just like newspapers huh?

[StressGuy]

Radio stations will just add internet broadcasting and/or simulcast on satellite. It's not a restriction, it's an increase in avenues of broadcast. If and when radio waves no longer become viable, they will already be broadcasting through these other media. If not, then they've no one to blame but themselves.

Clearchannel

[Anonymous Coward]

Clear Channel is the threat to radio. Computers are just the new medium.

And...?

[turnitover]

If it means a break in the Clear Channel et al stranglehold on the traditional radio marketplace, I can't cry all that much. However, if it leads to another auctioning off of the public radio spectrum and endagerment of things like college radio stations, it's not so great. On the third hand, it's exactly some of those smaller concerns who are finding not competition, but new opportunities in these alternative distribution methods. Check out what KCRW (www.kcrw.org) has got going on: they stream music and news and simulcast, and have used this to break into a national market so that they can promote events across North America. (Though, I should note, KCRW is one of the behemoths of public radio.)

Ah, the old blame game

[Rude Turnip]

I would say that lack of compelling content will kill all but actual, "local radio." Where I live, radio stations like New Jersey 101.5 FM and WWFM, The Classical Network, provide me with up-to-date access to information I need to function in my community (snow closings, traffic info, local news and discussions). The big commercial stations don't give me anything I can't already get on my iPod. Satellite radio will have its heyday for a while because it's new and offers variety, but I can't see it surviving a revolution in nationwide, wireless internetworking (ie WiMax). When that happens, I think local radio will have already made the jump to internet broadcasting. In fact, the two stations I mentioned are already available via streaming through the net.

"Clear Channel Killed The Radio Star..."

[jpiggot]

Yes, let us scurry to save the hugely government subsidized current radio system, for I beam with girlish glee everytime I listen to the same song 40+ times a day, as well as the constant performances of "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Yea, for this awesome display of man must be saved, so as to bore the crapnuts out of future generations.

Public Radio

[slaker]

Wow. ClearChannel and Infinity are bitching that they're becoming irrelevant.

Who cares? Public Radio (NPR in the US and the CBC in Canada, at least) are vibrant and entertaining.

I used to work for ABC Radio. I remember installing a device that removed "umm..." and "dead air" from the announcer's speech just so they could slide in an extra commercial or two over a one hour period. Everyone who bitches and moans about the 25 minutes of commercials per hour deserves the media conglomerates.

Re:Public Radio

[Realistic_Dragon]

You get the BBC World Service in the US as well... around 1am in the morning when they are running syndicated stations. It's great for night driving to keep you awake :)

I actually know some construction workers in MA who tape it overnight and then listen to it at work instead of the normal programming.

Re:Public Radio

[iamlucky13]

I certainly won't cry when Clear Channel bites the dust. It seems (contrary to what I'd expect) that the smaller guys are able to operate more efficiently than Clear Channel affiliates, since they always have fewer commercials and local DJ's. More importantly, the non-clear channel stations have a far more diverse musical selection, and their DJ's spend less time talking than playing music and are much less annoying, sometimes even entertaining or (gasp) intelligent sounding. I was extremely disappointed when looking for a good station to listen on my commute to come across "The Nelson and Terry Morning Show" on Portland's 105.1. The old man voice impressions, fart noises, DJ's interrupting each other, and incessant cackling were a pitiful change from my favorite oldies station, which Entercom had demoted to the AM band.

Odd

[confusedwiseman]

I've tried XM for a little more than a year, only to cancel it for what I have found to be the better option. NPR for local news, and my ipod for music. I can no longer stand the advertisments on either radio. XM or free broadcast.

It's all wasted

[Wansu]

Traditional radio is a wasteland thanks to outfits like Clear Channel and when they move into digital radio, it'll become a wasteland too.

I listen to ballgames when I'm driving. Sometimes I listen to Clark Howard or the news. Radio went into a downward spiral in the early 80s and with the advent of Clear Channel, it hit bottom and started to dig.

Crap to Content ratio too high for too long

[bADlOGIN]

It doesn't take long to get sick of hear over 20 min. every hour of ads on the air in any market where almost all the stations are owned by the same bunch of morons (Hi there Clear Channel, you bastards!). If you're not hearing the same add when you skip stations on the dial, you're hearing the same "crossed over" music on the today's mix station that you hear on the so-called hard rock station (one more round of Photograph by Nickleback and I'm going to say 'Goodbye' and move right to Satellite. Big stupid companies have been killing "Free FM" for years. It's sad, but it's just gone to hell and that's the way the people who are about to lose all thier money choose to run it.

No wonder the ads suck

[PeeAitchPee]

Plus, radio ads themselves are less memorable and creative, these executives said."

Ever notice that 90% of the stuff pitched on traditional radio is the same crap that we're constantly spammed with? I'm talking "herbal" sexual aids, non-FDA approved hair loss and weight products, "start your home business" and other get rich quick scams, "learn to be an MSCE for $10K" ads, etc. The targeted demographic doesn't care how creative the ads are.

Last.fm

[captainclever]

Traditional radio is becoming more homogenized, and clearchannel rules the roost.
Personalised radio programmes based on induvidual taste are the way forward!
Compulsory Last.fm reference :)

Re:Last.fm

[Saige]

Yep.

Personalized internet streams such as Last.fm and Pandora give people a much better alternative to radio while they're working at a computer. You can get the music you know you like, while at the same time get exposure to new music - and not new music that the labels are promoting like crazy, but new music that will fit into your existing tastes.

Then you take this information to buy music that fits you more, toss it on portable music players such as an iPod, and you've got a ton of music wherever you go.

But this wouldn't be quite as necessary if radio wasn't getting worse and worse. The variety has gone downhill as ClearChannel and other corporations take over mass control and standardize everything to a small playlist and shove more and more ads in.

XM/Sirius question

[Tsiangkun]

How well do their portable recievers work indoors ?

Can I be in the basement of a building and still get a signal ?

Re:XM/Sirius question

[confusedwiseman]

Their ability to work indoors is directly praportional to your ability to install the external antenna. (sad but true)

Re:XM/Sirius question

[blackmonday]

I get Sirius while at work at my desk. I don't have the antenna up high or anything, its in the standard position on the boombox. FWIW I work in a highrise on the 23rd floor, with a Window view.

By the way, Sirius lets you stream all the music stations to your computer (windows media player required, works on Mac or Windows). So you can subscribe and listen to music without the radio, pretty much whenever you're online.

you're all forgetting one thing

[circletimessquare]

it's free

you get what you pay for

there will always be a niche for radio, just like after the advent of television, movies, etc., there is still a niche for broadway theatre, just like the interent won't kill newspaper, but it will make newspaper more diminuitive and change it's venue

old media never dies, it just changes

at one time people used to listen to radio serials before tv "only the shadow knows" etc. now radio is driven by drive time: banter and music

radio changes, but it will never die, there will always be a niche for it, no matter how small or different than what was originally intended

Traditional radio killing itself

[Alsier]

As far as I'm concerned, "traditional" radio is killing itself. I finally switched to satellite when I realized I was hearing maybe one song on FM radio while driving to work. It seems like every station has a morning show that insists on talking inanely half the time, then splitting the rest of the time on commercials, inane joke clips that they replay everyday, then maybe a couple of songs. Of course, then I found that the satellite radio still had some talking, but at least I can avoid most of it and just hear music 95% of the time now, instead of 15% of the time I was getting music on FM radio.

Radio sucks

[RPoet]

Since my early youth back in the stoneages, I've been an eager radio listener. The radio had personalities, and a great mix of the music they loved. But gradually, the DJs stopped playing the music they loved, and was forced into rotating a small set of really annoying "hits" intertwined with an enourmous amount of amazingly annoying advertising. With the recent payola scandals in radio, the spirit is definitely gone.

And this is in Norway. I hear gruesome tales of the situation in the United States of ClearChannel stations.

Podcasting is taking the air back. For the longest time I couldn't be bothered to listen, because it's such a benign concept on the surface (and the term "podcast" is so braindead). But eventually I got myself a $75 mp3 player and started sampling some of the shows, and now I listen every day, to a wide variety of fun and/or interesting shows. With the "Podsafe Music Network", a collection of independent music approved for play on podcasts, growing every day, there's a decent amount of great music in the shows too.

If you want to get started with podcast listening, I recommend setting up Juice and subscribing to Adam Curry's Daily Source Code. It's a show about podcasts, playing (amongst other things) promos for other shows that you may want to listen to. Before you know it, your subscription list has grown plenty. Some of the shows are just plain crap, poorly done, almost perfectly uninteresting, but then some are really worth listening to. Check out Podcast Alley for some of the most popular shows.

BBC: traditional but fantastic quality

[fantomas]

I don't think so. I reckon the BBC will be in the game for a while yet - let me know when the local geek podcast can give me professional production value world music broadcasts, interviews with internationally renowned scientists and artists, history programmes scripted by teams of world experts..... (etc).... without adverts. All effectively for free, and online if you prefer. You can always donate and get the TV shows as well by getting a TV licence - sometimes 126.50 (UKP) a year is an *ouch* but hey divided between 5 of us in the house it doesn't feel so bad.

Only the case in the US

[Realistic_Dragon]

Here in the UK raido is doing just fine:

*No one wants to set up a music player with new content just for the drive to work.
*The commentary is generally interesting or informative.
*No adverts! Even the commercial stations have far far fewer adverts than the US.

It's no wonder the medium is dying in the US where you have to listen to the same ad over and over again followed by a Rent A Moron yelling *more* adverts at you - just disguised as 'content'. Then, to cap it off, you get to hear essentially a paid musical advert.

Compare this to the UK:

*Radio 1 - not my thing, but they play popular music and talk about popular events.
*Radio 2 - some alternative and older music with some other great programmes.
*Radio 3 - great classical music and discussion about the history and styles and composers.
*Radio 4 - the one true radio station - all the best comedy, programmes to make you think, news that does more than scratch the surface but takes a deeper look. Humphries (morning news presenter) is an abrasive moron, but you can forgive him for winding up politicians.
*Radio 5 - sport, waste of bandwidth, but at least it has no adverts.
*Classic FM - more populsr classical music - adverts no more than once every 5 minutes or so, and no interrupting pieces.
*All the local stations, BBC - no adverts, good local coverage.
*All the local stations - commercial - a bit like US stations, but even they have not managed to sink so low.

If you had that lot available on a device costing $9.50 wouldn't you listen more?

Radio is free, but not all radio is the same

[Divide By Zero]

Because what you get on XM (I've never had/heard Sirius, but this should apply equally) is NOT the same thing as you hear on broadcast.

Sample choices on FM: Alternative, rock, country, or Top 40. Commercials for five minutes every half hour.

Sample choices on XM: All traffic, 80's hits, bluegrass, comedy, each baseball game being played, hard rock, progressive rock, folk rock, classic rock. Twelve different talk stations, from far-right to far-left, sports and news. Commercials on the comedy and talk stations, but that's it.

When you have 200 stations, you have to keep them different, which means... and this is the kicker... you have to DIG DEEPER INTO THE FEATURED GENRE. Example: I like Rush. (I'm a nerd, I'm on Slashdot, whatever. My taste in music is an example, not the argument.) On FM, I hear three or four different songs by Rush, maybe one a day. I'm done with Spirit of Radio for a while, thanks. On XM, on their ProgRock station, I hear obscure stuff from unpopular albums that I like. You won't hear Analog Kid on ClearChannel stations. I also hear other groups who don't get the press who play a similar style of music. This depth of genre (obscure songs from well-known bands and obscure bands) simply isn't available on FM. Hell, I heard Side One of Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull on XM the other day. The whole thing. It's on the order of 30 minutes long. Nobody on FM will play that - it's not "radio friendly". So I don't get to hear it if I only listen to FM.

That's why I shell out $13/mo for XM. IT'S NOT THE SAME AS FM, and it's a service I'm willing to pay for. When I have the choice and depth that I get from this service available to me for free, that's when Hogan's argument becomes relevant.

Re:XM Radio, I love it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down. Plagiarist.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137418 &cid=11488437

It isn't new tech that's killing radio.

[iSeal]

Radio died long before the advancement of XM and Sirius.

Taken from The Myth of Media Piracy: [jmcardle.com]
It died when in 1996, the US Federal Communication Commission changed the laws on radio station ownership, removing the limits on how many stations a single company could own. As a consequence, Clear Channel was able to take over station after station. Within a matter of years, it owned 1,200 stations across the United-States; including 247 of the 250 largest radio markets.[1] This severely limited the amount and variety of new music being played on the airwaves. As Touré, a contributing editor to the Rolling Stones put it, "So now if you can't get through Clear Channel, or you can't get through MTV, how does anybody know your record is out?"[2] The fact is, no one can. Furthermore, polls indicated that youths were being turned off by the lack of fresh music on the air.[3]

Radio seemingly play the same 10 songs over and over. It doesn't help that labels like Sony BMG illegally bribed stations to play the tunes they wanted.[4]

These new technologies represent what radio should be: music. Not the worst crap of the 80s/90s repeated every hour. Unfortunately, these technologies either cost money (Sirius), or have to pay such insane royalty fees that they have no choice but to fall in the realm of illegality (Internet Radio). Did you know that an Internet Radio station has to pay $25,000 in royalties every day if it has 10,000 listeners? [5] Traditional radio on the other hand don't have to pay any royalties.

Sources:
1. http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_ channel/
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/musi c/interviews/toure.html
3. http://www.radiodiversity.com/faceofradio.html
4. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050725/music_probe.html?.v =11
5. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002- 07-21-radio_x.htm

"iPod killed the radio star..."

[SuperBanana]

The radio industry could find itself at the kids' table in the media banquet hall, as new technology threatens the business

Could? Try "already have". Every time I get in the car, I listen to the radio for exactly as long as it takes for the radio to load the cassette adapter for the iPod. Funny that usually the 2-3 seconds of radio I hear each time are...either a DJ, or a commercial. I got an mp3 player for christmas back in '99 primarily because I was tired of spending most of my commute listening to commercials, if I wasn't listening to NPR news.; the iPod finally made it practical. So cry me a river for the radio industry which is NOW realizing a market correction that started at least 2-3 years ago.

XM/Sirius is complete garbage; a relative has Sirius in his car, and it drops out all the time; tree cover, bridges, tall buildings. The audio quality is atrocious; the casette adapter for my iPod may eat low and high frequencies...but even a 128kbit mp3 through the casette adapter sounds better than Sirius. Plus it doesn't address any issues except the commercials- it's still crap other people want you to listen to, and not crap you want to listen to :-)

About the only thing worthwhile on radio right now is NPR; the news is superb, and the stuff during the weekends is usually pretty good too (I'm a fan of the old-school radio quiz shows.)

Re:"iPod killed the radio star..."

[dr_canak]

"XM/Sirius is complete garbage; a relative has Sirius in his car, and it drops out all the time; tree cover, bridges, tall buildings. The audio quality is atrocious; Plus it doesn't address any issues except the commercials- it's still crap other people want you to listen to, and not crap you want to listen to :-)"

Wow,

that hasn't been my experience at all. I have a Sirius Sportster and it's been great. Granted the quality of the sound for the music channels is "ok", but I'd hardly call it "Atrocious." I'm listening to it in my *car*, not on a $10,000 home audio system where even CD's can sound like crap. I have a plain old VW golf, with a very average sound system and the satellite radio sounds perfectly fine. I will admit that most of the talk stations sound pretty bad, but I only listen to Bears games when i'm on the road, so bad sound is better than no sound and not hearing the game at all.

As far as dropping signals go, I almost never have that problem as well. There are a few underpasses I go through that drop the signal, but an equal number of parking garages where the signal is just fine. Even for a large part of lower Wacker Drive in Chicago, it holds the signal. I drove from Chicago to the north woods of Wisconsin this summer and never once did the signal drop, regardless of the tree cover. I have my antenna mounted to the roof of my car, just behind the factory antenna mast so nothing special there.

About the only real problem I've noticed is that if you try to use the FM Transceiver(?) feature to "broadcast" to the in-car stereo, there is too much intereference from competing stations. There are only a limited number of frequencies available with the Sirius radio itself, and just too many FM stations in the Chicagoland area to get a clean signal. So I went with a cassette adapter and all is well.

just my .02
jeff

Re:Podcasting Satellite Radio

[karnal]

Satellite radio is totally pointless. Why do you need realtime delivery of prescheduled content?

Because when I'm travelling back from my parents' house in PA to Ohio, I can only hear 1/2 of the Steelers game that is playing. Once I hit mid ohio, if the Bengals or the Browns aren't playing them, then neither are the radio stations.

Don't be so quick to dismiss the fact that there are SOME events that are better enjoyed realtime. It may not fit your lifestyle, but definitely does mine.

Slowest product rollout ever

[DreadfulGrape]

I personally am not holding my breath for traditional radio to go digital. DBOC (Digital Broadcast On-Channel), or "HD Radio" as it is known nowadays, has been percolating for almost a decade, and it's still going nowhere fast. Here's why:

It's based on proprietary technology which comes from a single vendor.

The startup costs run around $100,000 per station, thus shutting out the few independent station owners that remain.

You can hardly find the HD Radio receivers anywhere, and even if you can, they start at about $500 per.

Re:XM Radio, I love it.

[CastrTroy]

There's a lot more cost in buying an iPod than in using a satellite radio server. If you buy 1 cd a month, then that covers the cost of the subscription. If you have an ipod, you have to buy music, either on CD or iTunes, or download it for free on the internet. With satellite radio, you pay $15? I think a great think would be an Ipod that you could put your own music on, or switch over to satellite radio when you got bored of your own music. Kind of like the old tape player walkmans with build in radios.

It's more than tech

[Bagheera]

It's not just the technology that "endangers" broadcast radio: it's the industry itself. There are so many things wrong with commercial terrestrial radio, that it's become a joke, and the broadcasters themselves don't seem to realize they've worked themselves out of the market and over-valued the stations so much that no one else could possibly come in an FIX broadcast radio.

Could it be fixed? Certainly. FM Broadcast technology is not inherently sucky. It's quite possible to set up transmitters to provide a killer sound with a nice broad range. Does it happen? Rarely. Station managers want it LOUD so they get heard, and to do it the compress the crap out of the signal and lose all the quality. But it sure is loud when you tune past it! It -sucks- too, but they only care about the advertising dollars their LOUD station brings in.

It's no surprise people have migrated to MP3 players, Sat radio, etc., etc., etc. It's a better alternative. Better sound, and no 40% commercial load.

Personally, I'm waiting for the bubble to burst in that media and the bottom to fall out. Once it does, the stations may get into the hands of people who can actually -do- something good with it.

"You had the time. You had the power. You're yet to have your finest hour. Radio."
Freddie Mercury: Radio Gaga

Government and competition

[SeanDuggan]

The existance of one or two government funded stations *forces* the commercial competition to keep their standards up to remain competative. Without that, there is no hope of a good service.
Actually, the US government is pretty much mandated not to compete with private industry. I only found this out recently when a piece of software I wrote for the Air Force looked like it could be useful enough to be used outside of the Air Force itself. I was told that if that were the case, it couldn't be released for free, because by doing so, we could be competing against people in the industry.

Satellite raido is going to go the same way as satellite TV - in a few years time you will have exactly the same crap there when the execs realise that terrestrial raido is dead and they can squeeze out a few more pennies by running adverts.
Huh... I was actually under the impression that they were already doing this. There's a commercial that frequently runs on an FM station I listen to in town, sponsered by ClearChannel, I think, which details the history of radio, leading up to satellite radio where they end with a line somewhere along the lines of "satellite radio where you pay for installation, pay for subscriptions and now? *dramatic sound effect* There's commercials." I guess that was just FUD?

Myself, I still enjoy broadcast radio. I think they key is that I listen to classic rock and classic country. The Classical X stations usually employ about three decades of material to work with and they've weeded out a lot of the crap. (Was it Stranger in a Strange Land where one of the characters claims he likes classical music because they've had 300 years to weed out the crap?) Because they're both local stations, you feel somewhat connected to the personalities because you'll see them at the local mall or at city events. Too, you get breaking local news including which roads have been closed down by accidents. I actually don't like the "50 minutes without commercials" stations because they then have a big clog of commercials later on. I can deal with a commercial every few songs. Again, local talent is often being utilized for the commercials, so you have less of the feeling of being spoonfed generic copy.

Anlogue Radio Needed for Disasters...

[Brit_in_the_USA]

...As I soon realized on 9/11. At the time I was a PhD student in a London University. The short hop to the London Internet exchange and bandwidth afforded to my office and Lab meant I had given up on analogue radio and TV and was using news web sites, real player news clips and streaming internet radio of major radio stations. When the disaster unfolded ALL of these technologies failed on me (news sites no longer loaded, streaming radio would not buffer) and I had to dust off the old radio discarded at the back of the lab to get any information as to what was happening. Do not underestimate the usefulness of the old radios.

King Radio is dead, love live King Podcast

[Urd]

I seriously think that radio in it's traditional sense is already dead, it just hasn't stopped moving yet. Podcasts have replaced it for me, I even get my old favorite radio shows as podcasts now (from the same makers no less).

Lots of people don't have access to podcasts yet but it won't be long until they are easier and more accessible then radio.