Pros And Cons Of Digital Audio Broadcasting

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Digital Audio Broadcasting, known as DAB, is currently being used in several countries, mainly Europe.  Like everything else that is becoming digital, DAB is met with its lovers and haters.  While FM/AM radio is still the frequency of choice in the United States.  DAB is more used for microwave applications in America than for radio broadcasting.  However, there may come a time in the near future when DAB will find its way into American homes.  Let’s look at the pros and cons and you can make your choice, are you a lover or a hater?

With FM/AM radio you need to “tune” into your radio station.  In a rural area that could mean only three to four radio stations.  DAB automatically grabs radio stations in that area giving rural radio listeners more channels to choose from.

Much like digital television, when DAB signal is lost, it’s gone.  More than half the pixels are missing in the picture and there is no sound, right?  FM/AM analogue signal slowly corrupts and gradually loses the signal, like an analogue television.  It gets a little fuzzy but you can still hear it and make out the picture, and you eventually lose the signal.  Keeping that in mind, DAB sound quality is comparable to FM/AM analogue frequency.

FM/AM is very well established, the receivers can be made at a lower cost.  DAB is not very well established and its receiver can be costly.  However, DAB is more cost effective in terms of maintenance.

DAB is also able to send a radio text that announces the radio station and song playing along with a pause feature that allows you to halt live radio.  Some FM radios are able to do this as well but most stations are not able to broadcast this option.  That’s why you can see certain radio stations call letters on your radio.  And unless you have satellite radio you will not see the song name.

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Politics Continue to Fuel Talk Radio

December 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON - DECEMBER 30: National Public Rad...
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Conservative talk radio, historically a strong platform, continued to dominate political talk radio, fueled by the Democratic White House and Congress, according to a 2010 report released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity ruled talk radio with 15 million and 14 million listeners, respectively, in spring 2009. However, Glenn Beck emerged as a strong contender, his radio audience reaching nine million in the same time period, triple the number of listeners he garnered a year earlier. Much of Beck’s new-found popularity has been attributed to Beck’s opposition to policies of the Obama administration, most notably the economic stimulus package the proposed overhaul of the healthcare system.

Not surprisingly, liberals lost ground in 2009. Top left-leaning radio host, Ed Schultz, lost some of his audience with just 2.5 million listeners in 2009. The other major liberal talker, Randi Rhodes, left Nova M radio in February 2009 and didn’t return to the air until May 2009 on Premier Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications.Only time will tell if she is able to recover her audience.

One rising star among liberal talkers is Thom Hartmann. Although he isn’t seeing the rapid growth of Beck, he did have 2 million listeners in 2009, up from 1.5 million the year before.

In contrast to the draw of U.S. political, conservative talk radio on commercial stations, listeners turned to public radio for news and events that had a foreign focus. Almost 21 percent of National Public Radio (NPR) airtime was spent on news and events outside the U.S. Among the foreign news stories NPR reported on in 2009 were AIDS in Bolivia, organic farming in India and alcoholism in Mongolia.

Although Air America Radio, which is known for its liberal point of view, stopped broadcasting in January 2010, The number of radio stations identified by Arbitron as providing news, talk or information rose to 1,583 in 2009, up from 1,533 in 2008.

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The Growth of Multi-Ethnic Radio Stations

November 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are numerous radio stations that play a variety of music ranging from country to hip-hop and classical genres. Radio listeners fit a large genre with various tastes and preferences. Therefore radio stations have the task of deciding which area they want to specialize in and being the best station available for the consumer.

One segment of the radio population that is quickly growing is the ethnic market that also contains many various details and sub-genres within it. The radio ethnic groups that listen faithfully to their favorite radio stations are helping to form and mold the station towards what they like and want. This gives the station the opportunity to carve out a specialized niche in their market and corner a part of the buying consumer market for themselves.

The only detail about the presence of ethnic radio stations that makes it different is that the music is more customized, the interviews are more culturally engaging and the personalities are very diverse. This is what makes it so interesting and appealing for listeners.

Many ethnic radio stations are starting to emerge because the market is demanding more diverse media outlets for specialized groups. There are even more stations that are starting to appear which broadcast in different languages and are even available at different time zones and in different countries. This is starting to set a very positive trend and is a motivator for young radio stations who want to venture into other ethnic markets but may not be sure of what they can expect.

What will keep ethnic radio stations successful will be their attention to what the consumers want and the type/style of music and interviews they prefer. When the radio station starts to give the listeners what they like, they’ll have loyal and faithful listeners for some time.

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Tiny Nations Still Have Radio Stations

May 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Just because you may never have heard of a given country does not mean that they do not have a radio station. There are so many little countries (or protectorates and commonwealth members of larger, more politically hungry countries) out in the world’s oceans, that the term “Oceania” actually describes a sort of secondary culture where radio stations may be a significant part of a country’s power consumption. This goes far beyond Australia and New Zealand, whose populations and island nature could lump them in with the various island nations of the world. This concerns a whole bunch of different countries that the average 5th grader (and indeed, the average adult in many countries) could not find on a map if they tried. These could actually be referred to as “the pointed to countries,” because on most world maps they are depicted as being so small that their names can not be written on them. Thus, they need to be pointed to or lumped together in some way.

Do you know where Christmas Island is? How about the Cocos Islands or Lord Howe Island? If not, do not feel bad – most people could not find where these places are, unless they went to a world map or a globe with a magnifying glass in their hand. And yet, all of these different places have radio stations native to them. Norfolk island most likely has at least one radio station catering only to… Norfolkians? You can definitely tell that a country is a little bit on the obscure side, when there is no easily thought up term to describe its native people. Believe it or not, the people of Guam are actually called Chamorro. And can you imagine there being much of a population (let alone enough to warrant the construction and maintenance of an entire radio station) on an island that actually calls itself Micronesia?

Nauru, Palau, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu… there are a lot of places with roughly the geographic area of a postage stamp, that share not both having a radio station and a name ending in U.

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