Re: First AAC/AAC+ radio services launched on T-DMB?

Kristoff Bonne wrote:
There you are, regulation!



I don't actually know if this is a good thing as this stops the
broadcasting-world to reorganise themself and consolidate and -thereby-
drive down the cost.


The UK example has shown that major radio groups is far from ideal from a listeners point of view. I think that view should be predominant and not the broadcasters' ideas.

Another senario:
Say that 10 of the slots (concidering AAC+) on a the multiplex are
already taken by a large media-company (e.g. RTLgroup) which has put a
whole bunch of stations on it attracting large numbers of listeners,
this will greatly increase the value of the remaining slots.
This will undoubtably drive up the price.

Very simple to rule this one out. Let one authority run all multiplexes
and sell capacity based on overall price levels for the transmissions,
feeders, multiplexers, coders etc. That would have the added benefit
that quality could be controlled.

So you're actually proposing no less then the network-operators should
be state-owned or state-controlled where prices are fixed.


No, they should be run by an independent body that needs no profit margin and refrains from politics. It should just do what it is meant for: operate capacity and sell it at cost price to the broadcasters.

To be honest, I don't know it this is such a good idea as this takes
away the possibility for the operators to react easily to comtition and
-in the end- you will effectively kill the competition between them. In
the end, this will just mean that prices will go up.

No. It is cheaper to run all multiplexes from one operator, as they can share everything: feeders, aerials etc. and personnel of course. And you would need only one director :-)

As I already explained to Steve, the price of a product (especially
immaterial goods) is for the largest part set by the perception of the
value of the good, not really be the real cost of things.
A customer very seldon has any idea of the real cost of a multiplex
anyway, nor does he know what other customers (like the RTL-group buying
up half the multiplex) is paying.

A scenario where multiplexes are sold to the highest bidder is obviously
a very bad way to get a wide range of stations providing services to
different target groups.

Why? You are mixing two different things:
the number of stations available to the listener and the number of
companies owning these stations.

No. The radio groups in the UK do not provide what listeners want but what gives them maximum profit. Many copycat stations running an automated playout system playing the same 200 songs again and again is not in the interest of the general public. They all target about the same age groups, leaving out specifically people over 40.

What counts for the listener is the end result, i.e. the number of
stations. The FM/AM broadcasting world in the Netherland shows that it
can not even support 9 more-or-less national commercial stations.

No, not the number of stations but choice of listening. More stations in big groups means more stations sounding the same.
If the market is overcrowded as it is, then why add more stations? To drive private radio out, like what seems to be the goal for public broadcasters? The only way to solve this is to reduce the cost per station and digital broadcasting actually does the opposite, at least for the next 20-odd years.

If DAB and nationwide DRM (the broadcasting-technologies for national
radio-stations) allows you to increase this to (say) twice as much, this
reduces the revenue per station by 50 %. (probably more as you now
expand the coverage-area of all the station to the whole of the country).

So there needs to be an cost-reduction of -at least- just as much.

Some of the cost-reduction may come from the transmission-cost (that is
if you ignore the periode upto 2012/2014 when FM will dissapear as the
stations both on analog and digital have double costs upto then), but
this will probably not be enough.

So, this means that costs will need to be reduced somewhere else, and
the prime way to do this is reorganise yourself and consolidate.

The goal should not be to increase the number of stations but to provide a wide choice of listening. No duplicates! Regulation once more.

In the end, does it really matter for the listener is he/she listens to
a station that is individually owned by one company or a station that is
part of the group of stations owned by some big company.

The listener wants choice. Real choice. Not radio xyz and abc providing about the same under a different banner.

In essence, there are two issues:
- Digital broacast as -compaired to analog broadcasting- a lot more
"knobs" you can tune, but .. doing so a much larger direct economic
impact on the cost of the service.

That is why I would like regulations. On all issues regarding broadcast
quality.

The thing is that regulators very seldon regulate "quality".

They should. By using measurable rules like "no transcoding" etcetera.

No, they should N0T and especially not in this way!

Well, we obviously do not agree here.


Leave broadcasting to the broadcasters, that's what they are for and
they are the only ones who know how to do it best (expect for some
wizenose's on a internet NG perhaps :-) )

They do not. Private broadcasters want to earn a living (so far so good) and as most listeners want nonsense talk and popular music many stations sound very much alike. This leads to very standard formats and it leaves out other formats for smaller target groups.
Public broadcasters generally have political views they want to push. To do this best they provide popular services (the same ones as the private sector) and have their political chatter in between records.

I do not believe for a single moment that having broadcasters cater for themselves provides a wide choice of listening for many different target audiences. Look at the UK situation and see what I mean. Look at the Netherlands and see what I mean. Belgium also shows quite clearly what happens if you do not regulate properly. Public broadcasters providing jukeboxes with commercial junk with one goal only: as many listeners as possible!
On the other hand *over* regulation like in parts of Germany also provides a far from ideal

From a regulator point of view, the issue in making sure that there is
sufficient and fair competition. Usually, this is enough "so that the
market can do its job".

I think the UK situation shows it isn't. There is not enough capacity to
get all analog stations on DAB.

There is. At this point, DAB is used for the large national and regional
broadcasters and there they have increase the number of stations that
are available nationwide and regionwide.

That is: close down regional services? And you forgot about the fact that many stations need more capacity.

... The multiplexes are run by companies,
not an independent body. And major radio groups have very profound grip
on the market.

Is this necessairy a bad thing?

It looks like it.

As long as there are multiple groups competiting with eachother, I don't
see that as being such a problem.

Multiple groups, exactly. Not just two or three. So with the limited capacity that DAB has to offer that means just a few stations per group.

Big companies are also in a better position to deal with the
music-industry and the gouvernement so this will probaby give them a
better position then a large bunch of small but powerless stations.

Any deals with the music industry could be done by stations in any cooperative form, possibly including public broadcasters.

The issue of quality and bitrates will -in the end- be descided by the
market and the interaction between the radio-stations and the listeners.

Until now this has not happened. Sound quality is going down across the
board and millions are spent to tell listeners that digital is better!

Do you think you would need to less to spent on advertisement if
stations are broadcasted with a higher bitrate?

Yes. People could hear for themselves that they get a better service.

The quality does is descided by the listeners and -for the overwelming
majority- they are satified with it.

There is no proof for this statement.

Do not take the opinion of the majority of the people in the NG as the
"general" opinion. +99.9% of the people outthere just have a radio to
listen to it or to "have it on", not to have endless discussion about it
on the net.

The latter is true. But if people only want to "have it on" then why not on AM? Oh I see, it sounds bad does it? So many people switched to FM because of: sound quality issues!

If I see Steve writing "people need to be educated about the bad quality
of DAB" or somebody else writing "it takes some time for people to
notice the bad audio-quality" (a reply to the fact that one fifth of the
DAB-owners have already both a second or thirth radio); it does show
that the principe of "the market will descide" does work.

A market driven by millions' worth of advertising. And remember that after several years market penetration is very low compared to DVD, DVB-T, portable music players and the like. And in countries other than the UK the penetration is almost zero.



Any new service means new competition and the only way you can limit
this is by not allowing new stations, i.e. maintain the status quo.

Than what is the use of digitizing radio?

Indeed, one has to ask himself that. Providing more real choise to listeners? DAB does not, the internet does. Better quality? You say that does not matter, I say it does. Better reception? Possibly.

128 Kbps AAC+ may cost the same thing then 128 Kbps mp2, but it still
costs twice as much as 64 Kbps AAC+ and 3 times as much as 40 Kbps AAC+

If staying at 128 Kbps AAC+ does not really bring in more listeners (and
hence more revenue), this will put you at a weaker position compaired to
a competing station running at 64 KBps AAC+, or somebody running 3
stations at 40 Kbps AAC+.

It's as simple as that!

I don't see why more stations bring more listeners. This can only happen
in the UK, with its powerful radio groups. In the Netherlands analog
radio has strics regulations on the number of stations a group can have
(with analog licences). Regulation again!

True, but the end result of your system is less stations (due to a
bigger cost per station).


What you want to do is -for the sake of higher bitrates per station- you
want to squeze broadcasting into the regulatory frame which is aimed at
maintaining the status quo.

Not the status quo. Providing new services that actually differ from the already operating ones.

My proposal is different:
The netherlands now has 3 nationwide DAB-frequencies (excluding the
frequencies allocated for DVB-T).
- give one of them to the public broadcaster
- divide the other 2 on three pieces and sell it -as a block- to the
large media-companies; and let them do with it as they want, as long it
are "open" (FTA) stations and it is radio.
- They will probably fill it up a lot of low-bitrates stations.
- then let will be competition between the "high quality, few stations"
system on FM and the "low quality, lots of stations" on DAB.

End let the public descide on what they prefer. They have upto 2012 to
make up their mind!


That is ridiculous of course, if the word is that in that year analog radio will be switched off! Not much of a choice is there?

I agree that you can come in with regulation saying "you need to use at
least 96 Kbps AAC+ per station", but then the broadcasters will say "why?
- We see that broadcasting at 96 Kbps AAC+ does not bring in new
listeners compaired to somebody broadcasting at 48 Kbps.
- You are reducing our ability to start a second station (i.e. 2
stations running at 48 Kbps instead of one station at 96 Kbps), out
ability to better compete with the subscription-radio and -therefor- the
choice of the listener".

And rightly so! This would prevent radio groups to get a dominant market
share, or start up stations simply to stop others getting a larger piece
of the cake. Just listen to the countless DAB stations in the UK that
are in fact just PC's playing the same 200 hits in another order than
the competition. What a choice (not).

But it turns out that people do by their DAB-radio because of these
extra stations.

Perhaps. And the fact that they have been told it provides " digital quality" night after night on national TV.
People will be disappointed if radio qwerty plays the same music as radio asdfgh in a different order. I would prefer just radio zxcvb plying those at double the bitrate :-)

To be honest, if I compair it to the stations here on FM, most of them
are just PCs too; half of them with just a presenter, a quiz or a
competition inbetween it. (others just insert advertisements).

Then what would be the use of having more of them on a digital radio?

In that case, I prefer "hitbits". :-)

Jukeboxes won't last. They will be replaced by music players having all the music someone owns in a small box. A current 60 GB. player gives thousands of songs with no quality or reception issues at all. In a few years all music output from a certain period will fit on a player, a few more years and you can store everything you ever heard of.

gr, hwh
.

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