The "barbell strategy" is for HD Radio to focus on cars and portables. Attributed to his "long time friend" Lew Dickey, Bob writes for several paragraphs about how much he agrees with this strategy.
Bob did, however, add some qualifiers.
"To stick with the analogy, you need a bar to support the barbells, and that bar is traditional consumer electronic radios sold at retail. This traditional CE market is huge in its own right, and penetrating it first leads to more rapid adoption in cars and portables."
Hmmm...cars, portables and the traditional CE market...I think that pretty much covers everyone.
Nice job, Bob!
Despite his pandering, we actually agree with Bob.
Radio does need the traditional CE market to prove itself to car OEMs.
Continuing with the "Barbell" analogy, however, we do see a fatal flaw in this message.
Right now, each side of the barbell is weighed down by multiple players (e.g., OEMs, chip manufacturers, etc.) and viable competitors (e.g., iPods, iPhones, etc.).
Relatively small startup iBiquity is trying to lift both sides at once without a spotter.
This is like a 125 pound man trying to put up 800 pounds.
It is not going to happen.
If iBiquity was hoping that radio broadcasters were going to spot them during the lift with great content, this hope can be pretty much written off in this economy.
What iBiquity needs is a good protein shake to give itself a fighting chance. And that protein shake is an increase in the signal strength of HD Radio.
As we argued in our last post, it might be time to put down the weights for a little while and concentrate on bulking up.
The new NPR study is a good step, but until iBiquity has the requisite strength, HD Radio's naysayers will continue to call it a "Girlie Man"
1 comments:
"CPB/NPR to Fit Square HD Peg Into Round Hole"
"First, National Public Radio (through the CPB) has already extensively studied this issue, more than anyone else in the industry, and the results are pretty unequivocal that increasing the power of a station's FM digital signal will adversely affect not only its own analog host-signal, but also those of neighboring stations. So much so, in fact, that the (first) study's coordinating engineer has admitted in other fora that an increase in HD sideband power levels is much more likely to do harm than good."
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0409.htm#042909
I'm sure that Booble will exert a bit of undue-influence on NPR, but that's ok, since the power increase will make listening to analog radio impractical. I'm amazed at the morons who are backing the power increase - destroy analog radio all for the sake of a flawed digital system, that consumers have no interest in. Bring it on!
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