Technology360

Terrestrial Radio: The Old Dog Is Resilient

Bridge Ratings CEO Dave Van Dyke writes:

... Only HD radio can make satellite radio look good at this point. Our latest study indicates that just about every consumer whom we asked whether they were interested in purchasing an HD radio in the next six months said they weren't because they couldn't see the benefits of it. ...

... So, we're experiencing the flattening of satellite radio which will continue to experience growth but at a much slower rate than previously expected and we're seeing almost non-growth for HD radio. ...

... Terrestrial is far more resilient than many on Wall Street thought. It will still have its challenges but because of its purest benefits it will stick around for quite a while longer: It's free. It's easy to operate. Everyone has one. Everyone knows its benefits. And the public doesn't seem to mind paying for it with commercials. ...

Link:  Navigate the Future. 

Not to dispute Bridge Ratings's pessimistic data about HD Radio -- they do very good work -- but don't be so quick to discount it.  The first digital television station in the U.S. went on the air in 1996 and it wasn't until 2004 or 2005 that the first receiver that actually worked except under controlled conditions unlikely to be found in normal homes was released.  HD Radio is a comparative baby and exciting new applications that almost no consumer even knows about are rolling out over the next couple of years.  It might ultimately fail or it might be a big deal.  These early consumer studies are not indicative of anything except that it's still early.  --Dennis

The Young or the Holy Grail

Rob Paterson writes:

Every meeting I go to that discusses the future of Public Radio and TV, has getting a foothold among the young as the Holy Grail. The implication is that somehow, a new kind of programming that uses the air will find this elusive market.

The core idea is that somehow the Grail will come to us. What if we went instead out to the Grail?

Go to Facebook and check the following out.

• Are there large networks that support public radio and TV? There are 2 that are in the thousands
• How big is your local regional network and how does it compare to your current membership? In St Louis there are more than 71,000.
• What kind of penetration does Facebook have in your community? In Charlottetown, pop 35,000, there are 13,000 ...

Link:  Robert Paterson's Weblog.

The futility of DRM

A code to unlock the HD-DVD DRM was just released into the wild, as Andy Carvin writes:

... The runaway social news site Digg found itself under siege by its own members, as they rose up in revolt against the site owners. A couple of days ago, Kevin Rose and his team had decided to remove a digg story containing the encryption key required to crack HD-DVDs after receiving a take-down notice.  ...

... Faster than you can stand and shout, "I'm Spartacus! I'm Spartacus!," countless digg members were posting stories with the HD-DVD encryption key. Digg simply couldn't keep up with the revolt as it spread like wildfire. Someone even started making the key available on a t-shirt. Eventually, Digg founder Kevin Rose decided to back down in a blog post that actually included the encryption key in its title, despite the potential legal backlash. ...

Link:  Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth.

Of course this provided fodder for countless blog posts this week, including the following from which I borrowed the title for this post.  Bill St. Arnaud writes:

Once again we are seeing an open rebellion against the attempts by the MPAA and RIAA, under the DMCA act, to censor and control the publication of keys for HD-DVD discs. When will these guys ever learn that DRM will never work in a large scale distribution of content. They continue to want to protect a failed business model through flawed DRM technologies, lawyers and take down orders, rather than develop new innovative marketing strategies. ...

Link:  Bill St. Arnaud.  Thanks to Gens Johnson for the tip.  --Dennis

BBC iPlayer gets go-ahead

The BBC's iPlayer, in  development and testing for about five years, has been approved by the BBC Trust  on condition that the player, now Windows-only, would eventually be rolled out for Apple and Linux platforms as well.  The player uses technologies from VeriSign's Kontiki (as does Open Media Network in the U.S.), Ioko, and Microsoft.  Screen Digest reports that the BBC has spent £132M on the project.

Also see:

BBC Trust reaches Provisional Conclusions on BBC on-demand proposals.  Link:  BBC press release (Jan.).

BBC Trust approves BBC's on-demand proposals.  Link:  BBC press release (Apr.).

Robert Andrews, More On The BBC's iPlayer On-Demand; Storage Time Scaled Back.  Link:  paidContent.org.

Rafat Ali, BBC's Download Plans Get Approval From Trust; Restrictions On What BBC Can Do.  Link:  paidContent.org.

Robert Andrews, BBC To Unveil Plans For Massive Online Program Archive.  Link:  paidContent.org.

In the U.K., Channel 4 and ITV are also moving forward with on-demand plans.  In the U.S., we're not just behind, we're getting lapped.  --Dennis