I never thought I’d consider Twitter a tool for journalistic use, but it looks like I’ve been proven wrong.
iBiquity’s President and CEO, Robert Struble, has taken to tweeting. In early September, he revealed he’d taken the train to Wall Street to float the notion of taking iBiquity public: “Good NYC trip. Wall St way more upbeat than recently. IPO pipeline better, but most think [stock market] rally was too fast.”
Other than a mention-in-passing in the Washington Post more than four years ago (which coincidentally predicted iBiquity would need an IPO by 2009 to keep HD Radio viable), and less than a handful of dismissive side-comments on a couple of inside-baseball-type blogs, the notion of this process going forward (or, perhaps more importantly, gaining traction) is not being closely followed. Continue reading “Robert Struble Channels Lee DeForest (and Other HD Follies)”
Tag: national radio systems committee
Digital Radio Moves Incrementally at FCC
Last month the Commission released a further 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry on the implementation of digital radio in the U.S. When it first gave the nod to the rollout of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) in 2002, it admitted that it was not sure how it would work in the real world, but the intervening two years seem have provided the “evidence” necessary to move ahead with its nationwide expansion.
While the broadcast industry has portrayed the In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) DAB transmission system as ready for deployment, the truth is only the hybrid digital/analog “transition” system has actually been deployed, or is even close to ready. The National Radio Systems Committee (a joint effort of the National Association of Broadcasters and Consumer Electronics Association) has not yet tested the “all-digital systems.” Continue reading “Digital Radio Moves Incrementally at FCC”
Bump in the Road to Digital Radio
Guess what? The sound quality of the new “HD Radio” system sucks! That’s the verdict of none other than the National Radio Systems Committee, the industry-sponsored group that develops radio broadcast standards in the U.S.
In an internal memo dated May 14 (.pdf, 94K), Milford Smith, chairman of the NRSC subcommittee on digital radio, announced it is “temporarily suspending its IBOC-DAB standards-setting process.” This is due in part to the results of recent on-air tests and a private demonstration held at the Washington, D.C. studios of National Public Radio. The evidence mostly involves the AM side of the iBiquity-engineered digital radio system. Continue reading “Bump in the Road to Digital Radio”