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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Digital Radio Will Force People To Buy New Radios, Kill LPFM |
Current rating: 0 |
by Dyan M. Neary, NYC IMC
(No verified email address) |
12 Feb 2002
Modified: 13 Feb 2002 |
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Yet another reason why corporate radio and National Public radio want to kill Low Power FM broadcasting by community groups. |
"The good news is, your old radios will still work," proclaims the digitized voice that greets each visitor to the web site of Ibiquity Digital, the singular proponent of the new wave of digital radio. "The bad news is, they won't be turning any heads."
The worse news is, your old radios won't work for long.
The regeneration of radio is upon us, and with it, the eradication of any trace back to its history as a "medium of the people"-particularly when the freedom to object to new technology is being stymied by a lack of information. "Politicians and corporations have effectively conspired here-and I don't think that's too strong a word-to take what should be our most democratically powerful medium and make it the medium of a handful of corporations," Robert McChesney, long-time media critic and political economist, told The Indypendent. "It is unfiltered, unadulterated, 100 percent pure American corruption. Period."
Television, for what it's worth, retains the option of staying analog. The pernicious process of the radio conversion is this: USA Digital Radio developed the In-Band-On-Channel (IBOC) scheme, which allows for a transition period wherein both digital and analog transmissions can be picked up by current analog receivers. But this will be shortly followed by a total conversion to a new digital spectrum, forcing the public to purchase expensive new equipment and ousting low-power community radio stations. "Our technology works using the spectrum that's already there," maintained Bob Struble, CEO of Ibiquity Digital.
The company is the product of the recent merger of USA Digital and Lucent Digital Radio, and is the principal developer of the new technology now filing for evaluation with the FCC. "I don't want to sound like a used car salesman, but it's a little bit of a something-for-nothing," he said. "If 50 years from now people are still buying and listening to analog radios, you'll never see mandatory sunsetting [prohibition of analog]."
Such a scenario seems almost utopian, if it were not obvious that analog will likely become archaic within a number of years. That is, the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are hell-bent on pushing a total conversion, which is not only costly and entirely unnecessary, but a threat to the democratic and participatory nature of the medium.
"Digital Audio Broadcasting will effectively destroy low-power FM if it works out the way they want it to," said Shawn Dewald with the A-Infos Radio Project. "The thing about radio now is that even homeless people have them.
It's one of the most cost-effective forms of mass communication, and it's being perverted by this conversion." Since the infamous Telecommunications Act of 1996 overhauled regulation for ownership among communications markets, an unprecedented consolidation craze has homogenized those industries. The effect was most salient for radio, which has since been dominated by Infinity and Clear Channel. The latter owns nearly 1200 stations - 70 percent of the market. And it looks like digital is going to amplify that centralization, with Ibiquity as its sole developer and the prohibitive cost of digital transmitters shutting out low-power community radio.
Struble emphasized some of the benefits of the conversion: a "radically upgraded sound quality" for FM as well as AM and a host of new data services. Perhaps most sinister is the "Buy" button allowing listeners to purchase an album by the artist whose song is playing, or a product being advertised.
The whole setup has broadcasters and their advertisers salivating at the prospect of the whole of humanity retreating ever farther into that singular category of any real consequence: Man-as-Consumer. Installing the digital system in cars is one of the most effective marketing tools for a complete conversion, an initiative Ford and General Motors have all too enthusiastically taken on.
Ironically, one source of hope for low-power radioistas is a general decline in listenership. "There's less interest now because of the wasteland [radio] has been turned into by media conglomerates," Dewald said. "So things may backfire and blow up in their faces.
"There might be some Christian stations with a shitload of money and enough people funding them to broadcast their crap," he observed. "But most community radio will be in danger."
The push for digital began about three years ago, Dewald says, at the peak of the microradio movement. When the FCC began making promises to allot a series of low-power licenses, the movement became divided as some put their energy into cooperating for what Dewald calls "table scraps." It was then that the energy of the movement disappeared.
"People started thinking, 'Okay, let's calm down and work with the FCC and put our energy into getting licenses,'" he said. "But basically licensing is a joke - there's no place in most urban areas you can even get one. That was really a step back for microradio."
For others, the fight is simply disheartening. "It's a bad time to be a communications media activist," said Pete Tri Dish of the Prometheus Radio Project, which is currently working to help others start up their own low-power stations. "A year and a half ago when I was young and idealistic, I thought this was a big deal and really fought against it. Now I'm old and jaded, and I've watched everything happen exactly the way it shouldn't have happened."
What shouldn't have happened, of course, is the forming of a consensus that digital conversion is almost a sure thing, in spite of repeated declarations of impartiality by such "neutral" parties as NAB and the FCC.
"We don't have a position on Digital Audio Broadcasting because we can't endorse a single company," maintained Jeff Bobeck, NAB's Vice President of Corporate Communications. "And Ibiquity has established itself as the major developer of this technology."
But it wasn't long before he went on to state NAB's role in assisting the conversion. "The NAB board passed a resolution last year saying it was encouraged by the development and hoped to get it into people's homes as quickly as possible," he said.
Furthermore, he reveals, board members and prominent radio groups had been investing in Ibiquity's digital technology during that time, solidifying a pro-digital bias.
And while the FCC insists that IBOC is one of the most heavily tested systems, it seems unconcerned that Ibiquity has done all its own testing. How trustworthy is an evaluation performed by the company that stands to gain the most from a conversion to its own technology?
"I haven't drawn any conclusion myself," said Edward DeLaHunt of the FCC's Audio Services Division. But it would certainly seem that he has, in the same way that it seems certain the conversion will go through without public discussion or dissent.
"Don't judge it until you've heard it, because I have," he said. "And I think it's a very exciting, exciting thing. Exciting and hopeful. Eventually people will make this decision because it will benefit them."
Other sources from NAB and Ibiquity provided a time frame of 5 to 10 years for a total conversion, although DeLaHunt says that decision ultimately lies with the FCC. It will probably happen once receiver penetration has reached about 85 percent, he suggests, or when the top 20 markets have converted to digital technology.
He also insists that information regarding the changeover is public, and that the FCC is open to rejection of what he called "the biggest technological breakthrough" if there is enough opposition. But the only forum for discussion is the FCC's web site, which is hardly frequented by the average citizen.
"Any debate will really be among the moneyed interests," McChesney said. "There will be zero public participation." Low-power FM activists have made it clear they oppose a conversion to digital, via thousands of letters, according to Radio Citizen. But DeLaHunt is convinced that broadcasters are positioned for a rapid transition, and that complaints from the microradio industry are "a lot of nonsense."
"Over time," he contended, "who can predict that this technology won't become affordable for those stations? Who would have predicted that every household would have one-and-a-half computers?"
Perhaps the concern arises from the six-figure price tag on digital transmitters. The whole idea behind low-power radio is the ease with which a group of impassioned individuals could set up a station and make their voices heard for relatively little money. But after years of mobilizing support and fighting the FCC for licenses, the movement could be left powerless.
An unabashed Struble sums it up nicely: "At the end of the day, business is business, and nothing comes for free. People are going to have to buy this digital equipment."
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See also:
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=17362
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A small ray of hope |
by Panizzi
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Feb 2002
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For what it's worth, the amateur radio community has been working with various forms of digital radio communication for some time now. A search on "spread spectrum" or "packet radio" should turn up some interesting stuff.
It doesn't take long for new technologies to filter into the hands of people doing geekery for the joy of it. Hams are even now experimenting with using chipsets developed for the cell phone industry in personal digital radio.
The expertise to develop digital transmitters for community radio is out there, although the change in standards will probably compel a return to "pirate" operation, since new digital radio regulations probably won't include any provision for licensing local comunity stations.
If digital broadcasting really takes over, which remains to be seen- will wrapping the rotten fish of corpo-radio in a new paper make it more attractive?- we will probably see microbroadcasters crashing the party. |
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EVERY household? |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) gmx.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Feb 2002
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Who would have predicted that every household would have
^^^^^
one-and-a-half computers?
Is Edward DeLaHunt serious? Are we that blind to the realities of the poor? |
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Ooops. |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) gmx.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Feb 2002
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I meant to highlight the word EVERY in that quotation from the text. |
