Stay sharp, do not be fooled

I am wondering what is going on with the HD Radio rollout these days. Particularly the all-digital AM conversion scheme being bantered about so often last spring. Not much is being discussed publicly about that or the AM revitalization.  I have found FCC Commissioner Clyburn’s remarks at this week’s NAB Confab interesting.  HD Radio is paid lip service here:

There are hurdles: if broadcasters do not broadly embrace the HD technology and the multicasting and other enhancements that it makes possible, listeners will have few incentives to buy digital receivers. Likewise, if no consumers own digital receivers, then there is no reason to broadcast in digital.
But I’m not worried. More than 15 million digital receivers have been sold so far, and that number will only rise. Thirty-three auto manufacturers include or plan to include digital receivers in their cars, and those receivers are standard equipment in over 80 models. This will dramatically increase the number of digital receivers in the coming years.

But in the solutions for AM broadcasters, HD Radio is not mentioned at all.  What is put forward as a six (actually five) step plan to revitalize AM radio turns out to be some rearranging of the deck chairs and a little more. Cliff notes version for the FCC’s AM revitalization:

  1. Open a one-time filing window for AM license holders to acquire an FM translator
  2. Relaxing community coverage rules for AM licensing allows greater flexibility for transmitter siting
  3. Eliminating the “Ratchet Rule” used in nighttime allocation studies for new facilities
  4. Permitting more widespread use of MCDL technologies by eliminating STA requirements
  5. Reducing minimum field strength requirements by twenty-five percent allowing the use of shorter towers

While those options may save an AM license holder some money, none of them do anything to improve the technical quality of AM broadcasting.  Several of them (#2, 4, and 5) will, in fact, if widely implemented, reduce signal levels over cities of license, making electrical noise and interference problems more prevalent. This is a step in the wrong direction.

These points are basically a rehash of some of the MMTC’s (Minority Media Telecommunication Council) ideas for a radio rescue first bantered about in 2009.

This demonstrates that the NAB and the FCC are not at all serious about revitalizing the AM band but merely marking time and making it look good until the final transmitter is switched off.

AM licensees are on their own, but all is not lost.  I have noticed several successful stand-alone AM stations that are not only surviving but thriving.  The common thread in this station is good local programming.  On the technical side of things; a well-maintained plant with good quality audio feeding a properly operating transmitter and antenna array will go a long way to providing good service to the city of license.

The FCC: Spectrum management in the public interest

Alternative title: Who will really benefit from all digital AM HD Radio™?

Remember when, at license renewal time, radio and TV stations played this announcement:

On (date of the last renewal grant), (station’s call letters) was granted a license by the Federal Communications Commission to serve the public interest as a public trustee until (license expiration date)…

Emphasis mine.

There seems to be a disassociation between those words and the actions of certain broadcasters who view their licenses as a matter of fact and have little regard for the public interest.  The FCC exacerbates the situation with the attitude that everything, including the entire radio frequency spectrum, is for sale to the highest bidder.  John Anderson (DIY Media) has a great article on how big business interests game federal regulators into doing what they want.  This happens in all sectors; banking, agriculture, energy, health care, media, military and so on.   There are many examples of shoddy regulators and big business gone wild over the last ten years to fully prove this theory.  If you don’t believe me, do a little research.  There is no reason to think that the FCC is different from any other federal regulatory agency.

The vast majority of mass media outlets in the US are owned by just six major corporations (see below).  Radio remains the only piece of the mass media system that has not been completely rolled up in consolidation.  Currently, there is a small number corporate radio owners who own a combined ~2,300 stations and one public broadcasting network that accounts for another ~900 stations. I include public radio here because the majority of those station’s upgrades were footed by the taxpayer though grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That leaves a majority of the approximately 8,500 radio stations that are still owned by a diversified collection of medium and small groups and individuals.

Forcing radio stations to adopt the proprietary, all digital HD Radio™ as the broadcasting standard would, in effect, drive many of those small owners and individuals out of business because of the exorbitant costs for equipment upgrades, antenna modifications, and licensing fees.  This would create a new wave of consolidation as smaller groups and single station owners sold out.  Any remaining small station owners will not have the legal wherewithal to fight against the coming waves of digital interference on both the AM (medium frequency) and FM (VHF) bands.

Therefore, the short answer to the question; who benefits from an all conversion to all digital HD Radio™ is iBquity and its investors, many of whom are found in the list of consolidated media corporations below.  Who looses? Just about everyone else; small and medium group owners, independent radio owners, listeners, communities of license, radio employees, advertisers etc. For those sitting on the fence, thinking “I’ll just do my job any everything will be just fine.”  Full implementation of HD Radio™ will destroy what is left of broadcasting in this country.  Radio is already on shaky ground as a result of product dilution, staff cuts, mediocre programing and competing media systems.  One more step backward, such as adopting a technically flawed digital system that works worse than its analog counterpart, and the remaining listeners may just say “screw this,” and abandon radio altogether.  When the last radio station is turned off, what do you think will happen to your job then?

At the big NAB Las Vegas confab, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai and to a lesser extent, Commissioner Rosenworcel, encouraged people to write or email them with their ideas on how to revitalize AM radio.  I suggest we take advantage of that invitation and tell them what HD Radio™ really is.  There is a shrinking window of opportunity to join the discourse and be heard, now is the time.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. ~John Stuart Mill

What is at stake?  The future of diversified media and radio broadcasting in the US.

Sidebar: Mass Media Consolidation

Can the public trust a mass media that is owned mostly by six mega corporations to honestly and without bias report news, current events, investigate corruption, and be a government watch dog?  History says no.

Who owns the media?

Time Warner

  • Home Box Office (HBO)
  • Time Inc.
  • Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
  • Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
  • CW Network (partial ownership)
  • TMZ
  • New Line Cinema
  • Time Warner Cable (spun off in 2009)
  • Cinemax
  • Cartoon Network
  • TBS
  • TNT
  • CNN
  • HLN
  • MapQuest
  • Moviefone
  • Castle Rock
  • Sports Illustrated
  • Fortune
  • Marie Claire
  • People Magazine

Walt Disney

  • ABC Television Network (8 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • Disney Publishing
  • ESPN Inc.
  • Disney Channel
  • Radio Disney (31 stations, 2 affiliates)
  • SOAPnet
  • A&E
  • Lifetime
  • Buena Vista Home Entertainment
  • Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
  • Buena Vista Records
  • Disney Records
  • Hollywood Records
  • Miramax Films
  • Touchstone Pictures
  • Walt Disney Pictures
  • Pixar Animation Studios
  • Buena Vista Games
  • Hyperion Books

Viacom

  • Paramount Pictures
  • Paramount Home Entertainment
  • Black Entertainment Television (BET)
  • Comedy Central
  • Country Music Television (CMT)
  • Logo
  • MTV
  • MTV Canada
  • MTV2
  • Nick Magazine
  • Nick at Nite
  • Nick Jr.
  • Nickelodeon
  • Noggin
  • Spike TV
  • The Movie Channel
  • TV Land
  • VH1

News Corporation

  • Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
  • Fox Television Stations (25 stations)
  • The New York Post
  • Fox Searchlight Pictures
  • Beliefnet
  • Fox Business Network
  • Fox Kids Europe
  • Fox News Channel
  • Fox News Radio
  • Fox Sports Net
  • Fox Television Network (175 affiliates)
  • FX
  • My Network TV
  • MySpace
  • News Limited News
  • Phoenix InfoNews Channel
  • Phoenix Movies Channel
  • Sky PerfecTV
  • Speed Channel
  • STAR TV India
  • STAR TV Taiwan
  • STAR World
  • Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
  • Times Literary Supplement Magazine
  • Times of London
  • 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • 20th Century Fox International
  • 20th Century Fox Studios
  • 20th Century Fox Television
  • BSkyB
  • DIRECTV
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Fox Broadcasting Company
  • Fox Interactive Media
  • FOXTEL
  • HarperCollins Publishers
  • The National Geographic Channel
  • National Rugby League
  • News Interactive
  • News Outdoor
  • Radio Veronica
  • ReganBooks
  • Sky Italia
  • Sky Radio Denmark
  • Sky Radio Germany
  • Sky Radio Netherlands
  • STAR
  • Zondervan

CBS Corporation

  • CBS News
  • CBS Sports
  • CBS Television Network (16 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • CNET
  • Showtime
  • TV.com
  • CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
  • CBS Consumer Products
  • CBS Outdoor
  • CW Network (50% ownership)
  • Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)

NBC Universal

  • Bravo
  • CNBC
  • NBC News
  • MSNBC
  • NBC Sports
  • NBC Television Network (10 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • Oxygen
  • SciFi Magazine
  • Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
  • Telemundo
  • USA Network
  • Weather Channel
  • Focus Features
  • NBC Universal Television Distribution
  • NBC Universal Television Studio
  • Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
  • Trio
  • Universal Parks & Resorts
  • Universal Pictures
  • Universal Studio Home Video

Large and medium group radio owners:

Bain Capital Partners, LLC Thomas H Lee Partners, LLC

  • Clear Channel Outdoor
  • Clear Channel Broadcasting (800 stations)
  • Premier Radio Networks
  • Radio Computer Services (RCS)

Cumulus Media (public)

  • Cumulus Broadcasting (550 stations)
  • Cumulus networks (formerly ABC Radio networks)
  • Broadcast Software International

Townsquare Media (220 stations)

Entercom (109 stations)

Salem Communications (97 stations)

Saga Communications (88 stations)

Univision (69 radio, 42 television stations)

Radio one (69 stations)

Family Broadcasting (63 stations)

Beasley Broadcast Group (47 stations)

Moody Radio (36 stations)

 

WBCN All digital field test results

When I said the WBCN test data may not see the light of day, perhaps I spoke too soon.  For your viewing pleasure, here are the results of the WBCN all-digital HD Radio tests:

WBCN All-digital AM IBOC Field Test Project (link has been broken, this may have been released by accident)

Well, that will teach me, won’t it.

I have given it a summary read and my first impressions were correct; from a technical standpoint (antenna, ATU)  this is a very favorable test configuration.  The results look pretty good on the surface, although they appear to have had some nighttime interference problems, go figure.  I’ll update this post when I have time to fully read the whole paper.

Update: The link I provided earlier has been taken down.  It may be that the information was not supposed to be released to the general public.  Several people have asked me to upload the report to my own server so that they can download it and read it themselves.  This leaves me in a bit of a quandary; the report itself is important information and its implications for the future of broadcasting are huge.  On the other hand, it is the work of a private organization and not the public domain, thus if released by accident, then it should not be shared.

This story from Inside Radio is more or less accurate as to what the report contains, although it paints a somewhat favorable picture.  There appear to be some issues meeting the NRSC5C mask for the MA3 (all digital) mode.  That seems to be fine, however, as the NRSC5C mask can be modified to meet field conditions.  How convenient is that?  The information about the number of AM HD Radio stations seems a bit off, latest I have is 207 AM daytime, and 66 AM nighttime stations out of 4,659 transmitting hybrid digital-analog HD Radio, or 4% daytime and 1% nighttime respectively.

When I have time, I will do some more analysis and post my own conclusions.

The AM HD all digital test, part IV

Continued from Part III

Profile of a successful AM radio station, March 2013: WSBS, Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Great Barrington is either a large village or a medium-sized town with a population of approximately 7,100.  There are many listenable FM and AM radio stations from Albany, NY, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Poughkeepsie, NY markets.  There are also a few local stations; WBCR-LP, WMAQ (WAMC repeater), and W254AU (WFCR repeater).  While the competition is not fierce, citizens have a variety of stations to choose from.

WSBS is a class D AM station on 860 KHz with 2,700 watts daytime power, 250 watts critical hours, and 3.9 watts night time power.

WSBS approximate daytime coverage area
WSBS AM 860 KHz approximate daytime coverage area

This is the approximate daytime coverage area for WSBS AM.  I could not find any good coverage maps online, so I made this one myself.  When I am driving, I get the station reliably to Kingston, NY, however, indoor listening may be a different matter.  With 3.9 watts ERP, nighttime coverage does not include much of the city of license.

They have a translator on 94.1 MHz, W231AK.  This is an example of when an FM translator on an AM station is a benefit to the community of license.  W231AK has recently been moved from the top of the roof of the Fairview Hospital to the WSBS AM tower.  During this move, the ERP was increased from 35 watts to 250 watts and the highly directional antenna was replaced in favor of a 2-bay half wave spaced circularly polarized Shively 6812.

W231AK old service contour
W231AK old service contour
W231AK new service contour
W231AK new service contour

Not only did the move increase the translator’s coverage area, it also reduced operating expenses for the radio station, as they no longer have to pay rent or TELCO charges.

WSBS Harris SX2.5 transmitter, courtesy of NECRAT
WSBS 860 KHz Harris SX2.5 transmitter, courtesy of NECRAT

The main transmitter for the AM station is a Harris SX2.5 .  It transmits from a 79-degree tower, the tower and antenna field are well-maintained.

WSBS 860 KHz, Great Barrington, MA tower base and ATU
WSBS 860 KHz, Great Barrington, MA tower base and ATU

The studio has a new Audioarts Air4 console, which we just finished installing last December.

WSBS Great Barrington, MA control room
WSBS Great Barrington, MA control room

More pictures are available at NECRAT.

The station has an AC music format, which is quite popular.  As the FM translator’s coverage has been quite limited until recently and there have been issues with the telephone company circuit taking the translator off the air, the majority of listeners are tuned to the AM signal.  There is a live morning show and afternoon show, the rest of the day is voice tracked with music on hard drive.  They have frequent contests and give aways.  They also do local sports, community events, news and things like live election night coverage.  In short, the station serves its community and, as demonstrated by a recent Chamber Business event at the station’s studio, the community appreciates its radio station.

There is nothing magic here; no gimmicks, IBOC, or another technical wizardry.  This facility is at best, technically average, albeit well maintained.  There is an older Orban Optimod processor, an older AM transmitter, and the original, electrically short tower.  The station also has a working emergency generator.  The only new tech is the web stream, which all radio stations should have.

The station is successful because of its programming, period.  People love local radio.  Making connections with listeners imparts a shared sense of community.  Being on the air with a local presence during storms, even when the power is out, is a big deal.  When it comes to relevance within the community and local businesses; in 2013 all radio stations need to earn that.

Conclusion:

I do not suffer from technophobia; when digital radio was first proposed, I welcomed the idea.  It was not until I began looking at the technical proposals and iBiquity’s proprietary system that I became concerned.  After hearing the initial implementation of AM HD radio on WOR in NYC, I was not impressed with either it’s audio quality or the side band interference that the analog/digital hybrid AM HD system created.  What is of even greater concern is the propensity for government regulatory agencies to rubber stamp technical proposals by lobbying associations without testing or even fact checking.

Digital modulation methods at medium frequencies present a unique challenge where the ratio of the signal bandwidth to available frequency spectrum becomes too great to be practical.  This is exacerbated at the lower end of the band where side band symmetry is difficult to achieve at ±15 KHz required by the all digital and the analog/digital hybrid version of AM HD radio.

Clearly, AM radio needs a technical revamping.  Can it be saved?  Yes.  Is it worth saving? Yes.  Is a yet unproven proprietary digital modulation scheme the way to do it? No.

And that is all I have to say on the matter.