[opendtv] Re: Technology evolves
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 22:50:10 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> You are trying to equate two very different things.
>
> Radio is a mature industry that has found its niche. At one time it
> was dominated by music formats, and served as an important
> promotional tool for the music industry. Those days are over.
I wouldn't go that far. Tune across the FM dial, OR search out Internet radio
stations, and you will see that the very vast majority continue to be music
stations. I think you might be referring only to that oddity that has become AM
radio, and only in the US. Which coincidentally, my new WiFi radio tuner I got
for Christmas doesn't even tune to the AM band.
> Each generation seems to hold onto the music of their era.
Absolutely. My daughter and son-in-law have realized the same thing, as the
music THEY grew up with is now considered "oldies" too! But there are many
radio stations that transmit a mix, so even OFs like us get a taste of the new
stuff. Although I notice that most of my presets are for news and political
commentary stations, such as NPR, BBC World Service, RFI, and the like. (No AM
"talk radio," however.)
> And yes, Digital Radio Broadcasting has been a bust. iPods killed
> music stations, and Internet connectivity may be the final blow
Personal music collections are something else, and have always been, IMO. The
iPod might have killed the car cassette and then CD player, as well as the home
record player or CD player, yes, okay, I'll grant you that. But for instance,
podcasts are hardly essential anymore. If you want to consume a particular
program that has already aired over radio, and you want to do so while on the
move, with a smartphone or tablet you should be able to stream that program
without bothering with that first podcast download step. As for listening to
your favorite music, schemes like Pandora should be able to replace the iPod
nicely. So the iPod becomes more of a "personal collection" system, much like
records and CDs used to be, but not really a replacement for radio IMO.
I see the iPod approach for audio being much like the PVR approach for TV,
granting that audio collections MAY have more persistent value for some people.
With Internet streaming, both of those become a lot less essential. For
example, the last time I used my PVR was for the opening ceremonies of the
Beijing Olympics. And even that was ONLY a workaround, because NBC didn't
provide on demand Internet viewing of their FOTA coverage, and I wanted to
catch the ceremonies from the start.
But back to the original point. It seems to me that with ISP networks becoming
more capable of carrying TV, there simply is no TECHNICAL reason to think that
TV can't make effective use of Internet distribution as radio has. For both,
MOST of the content can be provided over the Internet in non-real-time (like
recorded music on Pandora, or on-demand radio news or TV shows), and what
really must be live programming can also be provided over the Internet. There's
no longer a reason to think that you must watch NCIS live, so people's habits
will most likely adjust. Even for the too-clueless to know how to use a PVR,
and who think you really must have a three-digit channel code in order to find
that TV program at an appointed time.
Bert
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