November 29, 2006

• Not good.
• I think they're being a bit premature, but only a bit. I can see their rationale, since the spectrum licenses last for 24 years, and it's likely that there won't be any commercially viable radio broadcasting a quarter century from now, but some new services would be able to make use of the frequencies much sooner. It seems a bit pre-emptive, but not too far off. One only needs to look at the recent decision to break up Clear Channel in the US to see that the industry itself sees terrestrial broadcasting as a dead duck.
• If commercial radio is abandoning the AM/FM spectrum, why can't governments give it to micro-broadcasters like 17 years ago by meredithea
• Bah! Preview, preview, preview: fixed link
• Will this change the use of local radio for emergency updates in times of power outages or zombie attacks?
• What IC said. Sometimes 'ye old technology is best in situations of the unknown. I recall the 2003 blackout that affected NYC. My dad had people standing in line to use his 1937 model, as cordless phones were useless. Kinda makes me wonder if AM/FM would be as useful in emergency situations of such.
• wendell has totally fubar'ed my plans to hoark his link from MeCha and FPP it here as mein own! Curses! This is bad news, because I love radio for it's atmospherical simplicity as a technology. It's also a harbinger of the market-driven media choices that are upon us as winged minions of The Murdoch. Bah, I say. Up the SSTV!
• Yep. Like the windup AM/FM radios. Fantastic for black-outs. Plus AM/FM is the our only contact with the world at our cottage -- no electricity, no phone, no road access. We didn't even know about the big east coast blackout a couple of years ago until someone wound up the radio a couple days after it happened.
• Near as I can tell, digital radio offers no benefits over the pile of old AM/FM units I have in my house, car etc., except I will have to pay out good money to replace machines that still work. And some of them are 50 years old. Now lets see . . . new digital radio for the kitchen, living room, study, basement, replace the radio in the car, new clock radio for the bedroom, etc, etc, at $100 each (or whatever the cost is). No thanks. Not interested in satellite radio either -- why pay good money every month to hear the same dreck?
• True, but on satellite radio you get to hear Howard Stern talking about his penis, so it really is worth the price.
• I was infuriated enough when the CBC ditched its all-pervasive AM signal to go to FM, the reception of which is spotty outside of the Toronto area, forcing me to go to the wretched local services. And the ceeb counts for two of my three radio stations. I don't expect that a switch over to satellite could be any better than what I already enjoyed under the good ol' AM.
• Agreed, Capt. Especially when that switch was to go to an FM MONO signal. What the hell was the point of that? Not only is the signal worse than it was with the AM station, but you didn't even get the advantage of stereo. Driving through the northern Ontario hinterlands is a pain in the arse now, trying to find each little local CBC FM feed. As a side note, I can still receive the station that took over the old CBC Toronto AM band in Ottawa.
• I can't wait until we get CBC-78, Xtreme lime-green ceeb full of more diluted, jackass inspired talk shows and roots-punk-metal-polka for your advertising stretching dollars. Not to mention a certain shadowy pretense lurking deep within the waves perpetually waiting to be set free by substance. Speaking of roots-punk-metal-polka, I thought I made it up for a second and then remembered these guys. Hmm, where did I first hear these guys...?
• I would love to see radio killed. It is a foul beast in its current form. But I can't approve the idea of removing "free" services to replace them with pay options. I'm already sick of having every aspect of my life measured, listed, and billed, and there are many who cannot afford satellite radio and will simply have to go without if broadcast radio is shut down (again, the way radio is at present in most markets, that may not be much of a loss, but it doesn't *have* to be that way!).
• It's all about money again. Obviously someone will pay more for those frequencies, then pass the charges on to the users again. I really dont wat to pay for programming that is based on Arbitron ratings and sales of CDs that focus on mindless teenagers. 24 years? so what. Radio is a decent medium, and my home tuner kicks the ass of cheapo digital radio and CD players before it even gets warmed up. Many audio manufacturers still over standalone tuners, and some, like Magnum Dynalab, offer superior performance. They sound great. But I would be curious what car makers would do. The most basic stripped down models always offer at least am/fm. What would go in that dash space? Would they need to offer a digital radio subscription to people who can barely afford the car in the first place? That seems really dumb. I don't like the idea of this. Even if the idea of the constant advertising terrestrial radio offers is irritating, radio is firmly entrenched in our world. The last time I was in Europe, I had a rental car and just scanned the radio waves as I drove. The cultural tastes and idea were quietly delivered to me, and I learned more about the subtle undertones of the new world I was in.
• Making way for more (profitable) net/TV/mobile channels. I can see that happening. They have plenty of stuff already to fill in that gap on the dashboard. GPS navigation, engine diagnostics, DVD players. In the future, absolutely nothing will be free.
• I don't see many of those making it into the dash of a $9995 Chevy Aveo. Well, maybe the diagnostics...that stuff could be removed form the dummy light status elsewhere...but certainly not the GPS and screen.
• Monkeyfilter: In the future, absolutely nothing will be free.
• In the future, absolutely nothing will be free. Which is why they need to kill AM/FM and broadcast TV. If yer not paying through the nose for it, you obviously don't deserve it! Ya know, only 10 years ago I had no cable bill, no internet bill, no cellphone bill, and the telephone bill was under $25 a month, including long distance. Sigh. I'll be damned before I add a monthly radio bill to that list. Kind of a sad state of affairs when the monthly telecommunication bills are higher than the electricity bills.
• Yeah, they probably will put cheap MP3 player docks into the car instead of a radio. However, unlike the radio, which has been in use more or less the same way for about 100 years, any possible replacement will be obsolete in a matter of years. Or months. Whenever the newest and greatest iPud comes out.
• Short wave radfio's looking like a better ooption byt the minute - speaking of things ye absolutely want to have handy during a disaster.
• I love my shortwave -- got it as a birthday present in the early 80's. The glory days of the medium are long past -- it was way more fun back during the cold war. Seemed like there was an endless supply of international stations spewing out weird news, radio plays, documentaries and especially progaganda. Man, I miss good ol' Soviet-era Radio Moscow and the like. Now-a-days, most countries have severely cut back or even cancelled their shortwave service. Seems like almost the only thing left on the international airwaves any more are loud ranting Fundamentalist preachers.