Richard,
I'll rewrite the message a little bit; to avoid repeating things to
much. :-)
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneAs digital broadcasting has also removed the link between the geographic
area for transmission and listening (e.g. you can now broadcasting
"local" content on a national network or even on satellite and have the
receiver "insert" the correct localised content into the audio-stream),
this has even removed the advantage of "local content" for terrestial
broadcasting.
I'm not certain either way. I can understand the concept of downloading
podcasts to play when mobile. However personally when I'm in my car,
travelling to and from work I still like to listen to a certain small
local radio station that I can just about receive properly on FM.
Well, I understand. I also like to "zap around" AM-band or shortwave
radio from time to time; but I do not think that "joe average" (is this
said in England?) is like that.
I do agree that local FM can have interesting content, but -like here in
Belgium- that's not really the case where probably 90 % of the "local"
FM-stations are nothing more then relays of some national chain with
some localised ads added.
Using digital technology, you can implement this service over a
national/international infrastructure too and much cheaper.
One of the two US sat-operators has a patent for this (to insert
localised traffic-announcements, based on the position of the receiver).
There was quite a row about this by the organisation of local
broadcasters. As you can see that this does not only apply to
traffic-announcements; but can also be used for all other kinds of
content, starting with localised news, and -and this is what they
feared- localised advertisement.
And this threatens the core advantage local radio has: using digital
technologies, you do not need a "local" transmission-system to
distribute "localised" content.
Now, on the other hand, implementing this for FTA-radio is more
difficult then using subscription-systems; as this does involve some
intelligence in the receivers and subscription-services in most cases
control both the transmission-system and the receivers.
Using FTA-broadcasting, you have to implement this "open" standards and
you have a larger number of different receivers to support.
Perhaps local "FTA"-broadcasters might then go for a different
distribution-model (e.g. podcasting-like).
Post by Richard EvansI don't know how many other people are the same as me in that respect,
but I like to be tuned into something local. If a podcast of a local
station were available I suppose I could see the value of downloading
it, to play in the car, but then why go to the hassle of having to
remember to download it, when I can just get into my car and switch on
the radio, and it is there.
True, but that is as long as you need a computer to "download" your
podcasting content.
But look at a device like an iPhone. These devices have the three
elements needed for podcasting themselfs (wifi, storage and intelligence).
I do not think it will be very long before we see devices that people
carry around (like media-players or mobile phones) that download
podcasts by themselfs when you get back home (in reach of your home Wifi
network). This will greatly reduce the "overhead" now still needed for
podcasting.
But let's take things a bit wider:
I would like to make a comparision between local broadcasters and a very
different other kind of broadcast: international broadcasting.
They may look very different, but -in essence- they do are very simular.
They broadcast a rather particular content to a specific "niche"
audience: a service not provided by the big mainstream media.
What you see in international broadcasting is this:
- an evolution of the transission-technology from "radiowaves"-based
broadcasting to satellite and the internet.
- a "splitting up" of content. (e.g. to be packaged for services like
the world-radio network)
- a evolution from audio-based broadcasting to internet websites.
- a evolution to "non-lineair" broadcasting-formats.
Instead of just broadcast at a certain point in time and people had to
make sure they where listening at that moment; to "delayed"
broadcasting: first email news-latters, then audio-podcasts of "news of
the day" and -to some degree- to vodcasting (video podcasting).
If you compair this with local broadcasting, there is a simular
evolution. Why set up a radio-station where you need to "fill up" the
station for 22 hours a day with music, just to have a system to
distribute the 1 or 2 hours of content you produce yourself.
Here in Belgium, we see it for TV too. A station like "TV Brussel" (a
TV-station aimed at the dutch-speaking community in Brussels) have been
playiong around with vodcasting their daily newsshow over the internet.
All the regional TV-stations in flanders also distribute their daily
news-show using video-on-demand (over digital cable).
They see systems like podcasting like a valid distribution-model; and as
the system itself becomes easier to use for the listener, I do see the
non-lineair format becoming more important.
One other thing:
The internet is not the only way to distribute podcasts. While the net
is ideal for "niche" content, you can still simply use the radio airways
to broadcast content, even non-lineair content.
Why not broadcast audio and video-podcasts over DAB/DVB-H/DRM/DRM+/...
uising datacapacity (e.g. at night when there spare capacity).
So, when you step in your car in the morning, your carradio will have
(say) all the latest radio-shows of BBC radio4 available, a couple of
radio-plays of radio7, a "specialised music" radio-program (e.g. jazz,
dance, ..);, the 24 h news-builetin of thee BBW worldservice, "spectrum
radio", the BBC asia network or the "local" BBC networks in the UK.
Just can simply use the existing DAB/DVB-H/DRM/DRM+ networks for that.
(or even satellite-based networks); so there is no direct need anymore
to use a "local" transmission-system to broadcast "localised" content.
Post by Richard EvansI can see the internet being competition for FTA broadcasting, but I'm
not convinced either way as to whether or not it will eventually kill it
off.
I do not think it will "kill it off" neither; but I do think
broadcasting will see a move to see "broadcasting" move more into the
field of "content-production"; which will then get "distributed" to the
potential listeners via a number of different ways.
Local FM-radio will probably still be one of them, but we will see much
more distribution-models pop up in the near future. The question is how
the model of radio as a continues audio-stream, interleaved with
advertisement" will fit into this.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneSure, but the question is "will the economic of FTA radio-broadcasting
be able to support this, or will the "better quality" content be
reserved for subscription-radio"?
Once again, I'm not convinced either way, but it would certainly help to
have a good cheap broadcasting system.
Broadcasting based on terrestial radio will always be more expensive
then terrestial networks or satellite (Ku-band) simply due to the amount
of bandwidth.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonnePost by Richard EvansBecause the DAB system makes it is too expensive for many of these
services to broadcast.
You mean "they do not generate sufficiant revenue".
No DAB is very expensive to broadcast, compared to it's current main
rival, which is FM. Hence DAB ends up providing a worse service than FM,
hence people tend to stick with FM rather than switch to DAB.
Sure, but FM offers a very limited service: you can only listen to the
content that is being played now, descided by somebody else.
Image having to go back 20 years, no internet-streaming, no
satellite-radio, no "on demand radio", no podcasting, no internet
music-downloads, ...
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneWhy is that? It is because "DAB is to expensive" or because you can
broadcast this kind of content much cheaper on the internet or via
podcasts rendering almost any radio-based broadcasting-technology
un-economic?
Well podcasting may be ultimately be cheaper than FTA broadcasting.
However I'm still undecided about whether sufficient numbers of people
would prefer the live broadcasts. Also live broadcasts have the
convenience of not having to remember to download them before leaving
home. So I think there would still be some demand for FTA broadcasting
the question would be whether this demand is enough to make stations
viable. Making stations viable it would help to keep broadcasting costs
as low as possible, and with DRM+ they ought to be very low.
Sure, as they can broadcast multiple radio-stations in one stream, use
it to co-broadcast data or video-content, offer subscription-services,
DRM+ -in fact- turns every radio-station in a small-scale
network-operator. Quite tempting (and also quite interesting for a
take-over :-) )
Post by Richard EvansProbably true. At the moment however in car satellite radio is only
available in some parts of the world. I know it's available in the US,
but apparently not yet in Europe. Also they are tempted to broadcast it
at very low quality then that would put a lot of people off.
Well, we will see.
But if the choice is having a station like "talk-sport" on
subscription-radio or no station at all, I guess the choice is pretty
limited.
Post by Richard EvansAt the moment in car Sat Radio is another possibility that I'm undecided
about. Well have to wait and see how it progresses. One other thing that
it might lack is localness.
I'm glad you write "might". :-)
(removed some things to avoid repeating the same argument to much. :-))
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneWhen in your car, play your own music from whatever source (CD,
USB-stick, low-power FM-transmittor of your mp3-player) on your
car-radio and let RDS's "TA" interrupt when there is a news-builetin or
traffic announcement.
Or even better. Leave the spoken traffic-announcements for what it is
and let your GPS in your car take care of it all (based on the TMC or
TPEG-messages).
Well at the risk of repeating myself several times. I'm not convinced.
Live broadcasting does have other advantages.
Like what?
What is the advantage of having to listen to 15 traffic-announcement
-most of them are of no importance to you- if you can have your
GPS-receiver do it for you; and just indicate what is important for you.
(as it does know where you are and where you heading).
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneThe problem you have is not linked to DAB or DAB+, (or DRM, DVB-H,
DRM(+) or any other technology for that matter). It's simply the logic
of digital broadcasting: "more bitreates cost more".
I do not see any reason why a broadcaster would broadcast at higher
bitrates then strickly necessairy. And -concidering the increased
competition FTA-broadcasting is facing- bitrates will be more under
pressure then ever.
Well obviously broadcasting reasonable sound quality will attract more
listeners that broadcasting very low audio quality. It would therefore
attract more advertising, hence bring in more money.
Well, do you actually have any numbers for this; as -sofar- I have not
yet seen any.
Post by Richard Evans... However will a poor
system like DAB, the possible increase in listeners would be outweighed
by extremely high cost of transmitting the necessary bit rates. If
however they were using a very efficient modern broadcasting system,
then the broadcasting costs become a much smaller portion of the
stations total running costs. Hence the equation shifts, and it becomes
worth considering spending a little more to provide the sound quality,
in order to attract a lot more listeners.
The thing is that -even in these circumstances- the principe that
broadcasts will always lower their bitrate as much as possible. That's
the basic principle of digital broadcasting (for the very simple reason
that analog broadcasting does not allow this).
FTA-broadcasting will never be able to match the bitrates of content
available over the internet. It's as simple as that. So I do not think
that the "better audio-quality sells" argument is worth that much.
People who are interested in high-quality audio will have moved away
from FTA-broadcasting to other media anyway.
And, it even goes farther then that. If audio-quality does is a
"selling-argument" for a certain format- it does mean that it's a prime
target for subscription-services: provide a low-quality mono-stream on
FTA and a high-quality full-stereo stream as part of a subscription-service.
You can even do this in DRM+!
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonnePost by Richard EvansWell the content offered on DAB probably hasn't helped, but then isn't
part of the reason for poor content, lack of investment, which might be
partly due to broadcasting costs being too high.
Well, you cannot really say that the companies who kickstarted DAB did
not show the willingness to invest. If it wasn't for (e.g.) the DAB
network-operators investing in DAB-chipsets; there simply wouldn't have
been any DAB sets around (and no DAB+ neither).
Yes they did put a lot of money into DAB, but they backed the wrong
system.
Not really. They backed the only system that was available at that time;
and -if they hadn't done it- changes are that the other newer
technologies (like DAB+, and DRM+) would not exist neither.
At least there is now one technology for which there is a market large
enough to "kickstart" the production of chipsets.
If the DAB-network would not exist now; how do you think the terrestial
broadcasters where going to compete with the internet and the upcoming
satellite subscription-radio?
In the US, the organisation of the FM and AM-broadcasters have done
everything to stall digital radio and come up with a system who's only
aim was to produce a technology which is as simular as possible to the
analog broadcasting technology.
And now they are coming to a conclussion that they do not have the
weapons to fight the satellite subscription-radio systems; because their
technology is not flexible enough; because their market-system is to
fragmented, ...
Post by Richard EvansThis has helped make things easier for DAB+, which is a much
better system that DAB.Whether DAB+ is good enough however, we shall
have to wait and see. It would be interesting to see what happens if
small local stations start using DRM+ which ought to be a lot better
than DAB+.
Why is that?
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonnePost by Richard Evans.. Also perhaps because
the big players launched services just to grab capacity, and so try to
keep their competition of the air.
But do you think that the UK broadcasters would have been willing to invest
in digital radio; if there wasn't a deregulation of the
broadcasting-industry that went with it.
Perhaps not, but then what does the arguement of deregulation have to do
with the point that started this sub thread. Which is the question of
whether better broadcasting standards would help to fix the problems of
digital radio.
Because that was the prime motivation of the private broadcasters to
step into digital broadcasting.
If the gouvernement just wanted to start digital radio which just
replicate the then-current analog broadcasting world; why would they do
the investment?
The only reason they stepped into digital broadcasting was to grab
additional market-share and the only way they can do that is by starting
up new radio-stations. The fact that these radios are broadcast in
digital form, is -in that sence- a minor detail.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneIf not, they would have just "stalled" the digitalisation of radio; just
as happened in almost every other country.
Probably. Then however we might have eventually launched digital radio
using a much better system, and that might have made digital radio a sucess.
I do not see why any other (new) systems would be more of a success. The
competition the radio-stations (and crush on revenue for FTA-stations)
are much larger now then before.
It's very doubtfull that even the new technologies for FTA-radio will be
able to compete with the combined competition of the internet,
non-lineair programing, datacasting, localised content on national
networks, subscription-radio, mp3-players, etc.
At least, the DAB-operators now already have a network in place and have
a technology which is known to work and for which chipsets are available
in large qualities and at low price.
Something no other (new) technology can say.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonnePost by Richard EvansDRM+ might help in this respect,
Why would that be? Do you think that bitrates under DRM+ will not be
under pressure from competing formats just as DAB, DAB+ or whatever
other technology?
My point about DRM+ was not about bit rates. I meant that DRM+ could be
used by broadcasters who can to get onto a digital multiplex. This
mostly applies to small broadcasters, because there often isn't a
multiplex that happens to cover the right area for them, and if there
is, the multiplex owners may keep them off, by charging very high
carriage fees. With DRM+ however they just need a little bit of spectrum
+ a medium power transmitter, and they are on air.
Sure, but they are onair in a very local market, with a limited reach
and a with a limited potential of listeners; competing with technologies
which offer the same services local radio does over a national network.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonnePost by Richard Evansbecause it would allow smaller broadcasters to provide services, without
needing to get capacity on one of the big multiplexes.
But what exactlty will these smaller broadcasters bring that is not yet
covered by the larger broadcasters?
More localised news.
Community issues.
Local events.
That's just what I can think of in the few seconds it took me to type it.
These are all events that can also be broadcast over a national or even
international network and over the internet; at lower cost!
Why would you need to operate a 24h/day transmittor, just to broadcast
your own programing which takes less then 1 hour a day?
Just podcast them over the internet or over mobile podcasting over a
DAB/DVB-H/DRM+ network?
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneAnd will they not be under pressure from the internet, like the
national broadcasters?
And why shouldn't they switch to (e.g.) podcasting to broadcast certain
content, e.g. to broadcast ethnic news or interformation.
They may well make podcasts available. However for the reasons I have
already given, there may still be a place for FTA broadcasting if the
technology keeps the costs down.
How can FTA-broadcasting be cheaper then podcasting over the internet?
At least, you do not have to pay royalties for the music you play just
to full up the "remaining" 23 hours a day in which you do not have any
content yourself.
Post by Richard EvansPost by Kristoff BonneAnd how will they be able to compete if -using digital technologies- the
"national" and even the "satellite"-broadcasters are also able to
broadcast localised advertisements?
Now that is something I haven't come across before,I suppose it would be
technically possible.
However I still keep coming back to the same points I made above. It can
be good to be able to listen to local broadcast radio, and you don't
have to remember to download it first.
So from the moment apple descided to add an automated podcasting-client
in their iphones which works automatically from the time you get into
reach of your home-network or a free hotspot; this argument isn't valid
anymmore.
Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.