TWiRT 12 - India Radio
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 9:51PM Kirk Harnack - Executive Director, Int'l Business Development, Telos-Omnia-Axia
Tom Ray - VP, Engineering, Buckley Broadcasting, WOR, New York
Chris Tobin - CBS Radio, New York
This week's guest is Elliot Stechman from Mumbai, India. Elliot has worked with Adlabs - a huge communications conglomerate in India - as well as Times Radio Group's Radio Mirchi
We discuss ...
NextMedia and Citadel file for bankruptcy protection.
Listener question:
I would like to hear how anyone can justify using iBiquity digital "HD" instead of advocating DRM. iBiquity is proprietary and expensive while DRM is open. If iBiquity ever gets to be the sole digital system and the FCC decides that we must go digital the FCC license would become a pre-approval for the licensing authority, iBiquity. If you do not pay iBiquity then you may not broadcast.
December 19, 2009 | 
James Johnson
Product Pick of the Week - BudTrap
Great gift is Scott Fybush's Tower Calendar for 2010.
Merry Christmas!
Download the show here...
Reader Comments (1)
Hi Kirk et al,
Seasons Greetings to you all!!
Another absorbing hour+ of listening... when I saw you were talking to somebody in India, I didn't think I'd be hearing a Kiwi accent. Umm, I'll refrain from comments about "fush & chups for sux"...
However I do have an opinion on one of your subjects - DRM.... and why not in the USA.
Here's my take.
1. DRM was developed for shortwave broadcasting, and later MW-AM, with the FM variant DRM+ only coming much later (it started development in 2005 and AFAIK it is still undergoing standards development).
So DRM was in its embryonic stage when the US was looking for a digital radio system - it was not really ready for "prime time" and was without FM support.
2. DRM is not an" In Band On Channel" system, it needs a new channel (or the analog to be shutoff). I got the impression that, back then, the US industry was demanding an IBOC/IBAC system. With your spectrum congestion, you have little choice.
3. DRM development has been painfully slow, with no traction anywhere yet. Maybe the initial application for digitization of HF/SW services became less important with the migration of so many of these services to the Internet and local regional partner's AM/FM services. A solution looking for an application, maybe?
That's my take on why there's no DRM in the USA.
If there was a thriving DRM ecosystem happening anywhere else in the world, a case could be mounted for allowing it into your market to co-exist with HDRadio (hopefully with multi-standard receivers) - but right now they'd be almost starting from scratch against an entrenched opponent.
BTW - DRM will almost certainly be considered in Australia as a supplementary system for rural areas, where the coverage of AM is needed, and where the number of services don't justify the expense and complexity of a DAB+ ensemble.
For this we'll be looking for FM/DAB+/DRM receivers to be available (particularly in autos) for the folks who move regularly between the sparsely populated rural areas with maybe DRM services and the major regional centers with maybe DAB+ services.
Cheers,
Peter Smerdon.
Melbourne, Australia.