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Expect to see great news about radio around the corner! Elections are coming! With them will be the first glimpse at new politics in the US, courtesy of the Supreme Court overturning 100 years of precedent regarding corporate campaign contributions. Horay! We will all be bombarded with endless political attack ads set to ominous music.
Radio and TV should see a windfall from this new development, as the election process will now become awash (or rather, more awash) in special interest money donated hand over fist by PACs and big corporate players with something to gain or loose. After all, corporations are people too and campaign contributions are free speech.
During and immediately proceeding the elections, expect the FCC to be out roaming around looking at political files. I think they may see an increase in their take as well because the political rules; they are a little confusing. With the crop of radio station managers these days, or the complete lack of any local mangers, I’d expect a number of finable infractions.
One of the AM station around here that I am familiar with is considering a downgrade, which is to say reduce power and get rid of a directional antenna system in favor of a non-DA antenna. In this particular case, it makes sense, as the station can co-locate with another AM that is closer to the COL by a good distance. The coverage from the new site at reduced power looks to be a good fit. If this can be arraigned, the AM station in question would loose a multi tower AM antenna system that is 50 years old and all the attendant headaches, expenses and labor that goes with it.
Many AM stations that are DA-2 or even DA should consider downgrading to a lower power level and getting rid of their DA system. Directional antenna systems on AM stations are maintenance nightmares. Unfortunately, in the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s, it was often thought that adding power, extra towers to an AM station would give them great swaths of extra coverage. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it did not. Often what happened was some area was added, but in areas that where nulls toward protected stations, signal strengths went down. What the station ended up with was more towers, more maintenance, monitor points, a sample system, and more expense.
Taking an AM station in the other direction might actually make more sense. Go back to one tower non-directional 1 KW or whatever power can be used in the daytime. Time was when the FCC would only allow certain power levels; .5, 1, 5, 10 and 50 KW. Those were what a new station had to work with. No longer is that the case, any power level can be used so long as it meets interference contours and the city of license contour coverage requirements.
Presunrise authority is normally 500 watts and is available at 6 am, post sunset authority varies but often a PSA extends the on air time to 9 pm in the winter time. For a local radio station, which is what all but the class A AM stations are destined to become, this will be adequate. For a loosing station, it may be that, or turn in the license and sell the land to a developer.
Diplexing on another AM stations tower closer to town is also a good way to get out of maintaining an expensive antenna array with diminishing income.
Something to think about.
I was speaking with a friend of mine recently about some interference issues he was having at an FM transmitter site. There were several cellular and PCS tenants at this site and something from the FM transmitter was interfering with the GPS receivers. This one very small glitch was causing multiple carriers to go off line, basically shutting down the entire wireless infrastructure at this particular site.
GPS signals are used for syncing carrier frequencies and modulation timing for CDMA and TDMA that all cellular, PSC and 3G, 4G (or whatever G) wireless systems use to seamlessly hand off users from one site to another. Without it, the entire system will shut down.
What would happen to communications in this country if all GPS were interrupted? When I was in the military, we spoke often about high altitude nuclear detonations and the possible effects it would have on our communications circuits. In fact, we drilled for such things. Often. What, if anything, are wireless carriers doing to keep their sites on line if, heaven forbid, somebody does something to disrupt GPS? If terrestrial radio and television broadcasting is going to be replaced by 3G and 4G wireless networks, how redundant are they? I know, for example, many cell sites do not have long term backup power. They have battery banks, which in a power outage, may last 6-10 hours, but after that, the site is down.
Further, how about vulnerabilities getting the data to and from these sites? Most cell sites rely on some type of TELCO circuit, usually a T-1 (DS-1) or multiple T-1′s to interface with the wired network. This includes voice, text and data services. If those circuits are down, then anything connected to them will be off line.
What about redundant transmitters, antennas, receivers, etc. How much of the current wireless infrastructure is backed up with spares? It causes me worry to think that someday traditional broadcasters will be going out of business due to poor financial planning, leaving us all to subscription based data services that may or may not be there in an emergency. At least with many radio and TV stations, there are generators, backup transmitters, microwave systems and so forth. Most good broadcasters have emergency plans for restoration of service during a disaster. EAS may not be the greatest thing ever, but right now, it is the only emergency communications plan we have. Radio is still the best and most robust way to communicate vital information during emergencies. Cell sites go off line along with whatever G wireless service, cable TV systems go off line due to power outages or damaged distribution networks, land line phones can be taken out due to power interruptions at the company office or damaged networks.
Why do I care? Why should you care? Because, as I have eluded in previous posts, with the demise of local newspapers, the demise of local radio, the erosion of local TV news coverage and the general trivialization of our political apparatus on the local and national level, we are loosing our voice. We will loose our democracy. Right now, the US is on the verge of becoming an oligarchy or a corporatocracy.
What road are we traveling down when unrestricted free access to information is gone? The internet is a great resource, but it is not free. What will happen to the price of internet access when competing information and entertainment technologies such as radio, TV, and newspapers disappear? Look to our transportation sector for an example. Gone are the vast majority of passenger rail roads that criss crossed the country for nearly 100 years. In many places, public transportation is laughable. How do you get to work? How do you get to the store? How much will $5.00 per gallon gas effect your life? More importantly, what can you do about it when the cost of fuel gets expensive? Nothing. Most people are stuck in there suburban homes with not even a convenience store within walking distance.
What will happen when terrestrial radio goes away? I shutter to think.
So, the other day I was in the convenience store near my house. I had not picked up a copy of the local newspaper in quite some time, so I looked around for one. I couldn’t find it anywhere so I asked the checkout clerk, who looked at me rather dead pan and said “they went under about a year ago.”
What? I hadn’t even noticed my own local paper was gone, for a year?
A quick Google search and I found a notice on their website saying that the newspaper was no longer published and a blog entry from a former reporter summing up the end of the newspaper.
Sadly, the Millbrook Round Table was just one of scores of local newspapers forced to close down, because the holding company of many of them, Journal Register Co., defaulted on loans and was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange. However, despite the sympathy I feel for all of those reporters, editors, photographers, graphic designers, proofreaders, ad salespeople and delivery people, no one can say we didn’t see this coming. The truth is, newspapers have been an antiquated technology, and try as they might, they haven’t been able to find a new business model that would enable them to be profitable in the post-paper world of instant, online publishing.
Sound even vaguely familiar? All of the small local newspapers bought up by a big consolidator, who then defaults and cuts costs. Caught behind the technology curve, unable to make up the lost ground, local institutions that have been in place for more than a century fold and disappear in the wink of an eye, sometimes completely un-noticed.
Sadly, I will say that the radio business seems to be on the same trajectory.
I have been reading with interest the whole debate about radio being dead or dying vs. radio being a vibrant thriving business.
Radio is not dead by any measure, however it is declining for a number of obvious reasons. There are more competing entertainment and information options, that is true. Ipods, netcasters, satellite radio have taken some of radio’s listeners away. However, the main culprit in radio’s decline are the investment bankers that are squeezing every drop of blood nickle out of the industry before moving on to their next victim investment opportunity.
The net result of this has made much, not all, of radio predicable and boring. No longer is radio the source for new music, news, information and entertainment as it used to be. I don’t think that anyone will argue that point. The money men have fired most of the creative and talented individuals who used to bring in the listeners and replaced them with computers. They have also cut news staffs, support staffs and anything else that lives and breaths except sales people. More sales people are always required.
HD RadioTM radio is a joke at best. Setting aside all of the technical problems with coverage and building penetration, the programming sucks too. The same purveyors of crap on the main analog channels are now branching out on the HD2 and HD3 channels. I can’t believe that the secondary channels will somehow be better than the main analog channels, or even marginally good enough to buy an HD Radio radio. Some groups are putting their AM programming on an FM HD2 channel, which is great if one cares to hear drug addled corpulent talk show hosts wheezing into the microphone in full fidelity. At least on the AM analog broadcasts, everything above 4.5 KHz is cut off, wheezing included.
The good news is, there are still some radio stations that are programmed well. Radio sets are almost universal, every car has one, every house has at least one or two, most offices, stores, etc. Radio reception is still free. Radio is still popular among many people. Radio owner’s could very easily become involved with their communities of license, make better programing decisions, hire staffs, and add valuable informative local programs again. This decline would soon be forgotten.
The bad news is that is unlikely to happen. Less than a snowball’s chance in hell unless someone wakes up and smells the coffee.
I am half an optimist.
Sounds kind of silly, but in some cases, failure is good. Companies that are inefficient, poorly run, poorly conceived, have substandard products, do not serve their clients, and so on should be able to fail. This allows good companies, that do thing right, to thrive.
Too big to fail is too big and those companies should be broken up. This holds true in the radio business as well as the banking industry, the auto industry and so on. What is truly unfortunate is that the people most responsible for the failure, the upper management and CEOs, often get away with millions while the people who had their back into it get to go to the unemployment office.
That being said, radio is in for some drastic changes soon.
NO BAILOUTS FOR RADIO
Enough already with the bailouts. Radio is not some precious national resource, it does not funtion for the betterment of society, nor does it provide vital information in the time of emergency. It stopped doing those things years ago when deregulation kicked in, deregulation which was lobbied for extensively by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) at the behest of radio and tv stations owners, by the way.
Once deregulation took effect, station management went on a hunt for pennies, often tripping over dollars to get them. By staff reductions and cost cutting, the product was deluded and the medium was marginalized and that is where we are today.
Not everyone followed the above narative, there are some operators who stuck to the frame work of public/customer service and kept good programming on the air. Those stations are few and far between but they are out there. Why should they not reap the benefits of there forward thinking?
The Society of Broadcast Engineers or SBE is an organization that is supposed to further the art of broadcast engineering. Once upon a time I was a member, I attended meetings, got my Certified Senior Radio Engineer badge, I kept track of my professional development, and so on. As the decay advanced, I realized that the SBE looks and sounds good, but actually does little.
What are the issues facing Broadcast Engineers these days:
- Too much work. As consolidation changed the radio business, the engineering department was not immune to staff cuts. Add to this the increasing dependence on automation and computers to program and run entire radio stations from studio to transmitter as additional responsibilities.
- Lack of maintenance budgets. Particularly in this recession, money that should be spent on preventative maintenance is gone. The result, more reactive maintenance, off air incidents and the like.
- Lack of pay for increased hours. Goes with the above, more stations, more responsibilities, same or less pay and benefits.
- Lack of new talent in the radio engineering field. There is money to be made if you are a technical person, just don’t go into broadcasting.
- Lack of personal life. Being on call 24/7 for 20 years has taken it’s toll.
So what has the SBE done to alleviate these problems? Granted, most of them are management issues with the radio station staff, but has the SBE even tried to educate station owners and management. How about helping engineers learn how to negotiate pay raises? A better support network? Perhaps, (gasp!) some type of organized labor?
I know the more work for same or less pay is almost universal and is a contentious issue among fellow engineers, so much so that many have left to pursue other careers.
Then again, perhaps the radio engineer is a dying breed. Eventually, everything in a broadcast studio will be run by computers and distributed over the internet, so some type of computer guy could do the job. Broadcast engineers will have to re-invent themselves to stay in the field because I think terrestrial radio’s days are numbered. Eventually RF guys like myself could go work for the cellphone company, or go do something else.
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Axiom
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~1st amendment to the United States Constitution
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
~Benjamin Franklin
...radio was discovered, and not invented, and that these frequencies and principles were always in existence long before man was aware of them. Therefore, no one owns them. They are there as free as sunlight, which is a higher frequency form of the same energy.
~Alan Weiner
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
~Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 19
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