Don’t Touch That Dial

Michael Hedges October 25, 2007

Broadcasters have long cast a wary eye toward the digital realm. Even with grudging acceptance that ‘the world is going digital’ the unease is endemic. And the answers from consumers only reinforce every digital fear.
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Programming side broadcasters tend to be rather more right-brained than the left-brained engineers and accountants. Programmers talk about concepts; engineers talk about boxes. Broadcasting needs both sides of the brain, certainly, but visualizing consumer behavior remains the domain of programmers.

Something about digital radio has bothered broadcastings’ concept side, something not well articulated.

American broadcaster Cox Radio commissioned veteran audience researcher Bob Harper to find out how radio listeners may or may not use the new digital radio platforms. In a series of focus groups conducted in three US cities two years ago Harper sorted out a quite different layer of digital questions. The results were summed up nicely by one study participant -  “Why don’t they just leave it alone?”

Consumers’ experience with media profoundly affects their choices, preferences and willingness to change. The American experience (North and South) differs from the European and Asian. US media outlets are overwhelmingly commercial, market-driven enterprises. More than half of European listening and watching is to public service broadcasters, mostly tax supported and mandated to fulfill government requirements. Commercial broadcasters, wherever they may be, stay in business by monetizing a measurable audience. Tax supported media need only satisfy the taxing authorities; the average listener or viewer rarely gets a vote, just the bill.

Where digital channels have been introduced, generally over the last decade, devices on which to receive them have not exactly been flying off store shelves. The possible exception to generalizations about digital radio adoption is the UK market, where the BBC and commercial partners worked together to bring DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) into the media mix. This success has not elsewhere been duplicated.

Bob Harper’s study tackled digital questions not entirely unique to the US market. American broadcasters have warmed considerably to HD Radio, formerly known as IBOC – In-band, On-channel. DAB in the US was DOA. HD Radio uses existing licensed frequencies to offer as many as three digital channels, sitting at the sides of the conventional FM frequencies. HD Radio offers a reasonably inexpensive technical means of ‘going digital’ without messing with the cash-cow – FM. About 4,000 HD Radio channels are available right now in the US. European commercial broadcasters are also warming to HD Radio for the same reason. DAB and its variants are – UK exception noted – the domain of Europe’s public broadcasters. The other variant in Europe’s digital radio mix is DVB-H, the mobile phone standard. Bob Harper’s study asked the big, universal question: “How are they going to tune in?”

It’s the receiver question, but more. These are questions the engineers never ask. Europe’s public broadcasters – BBC exception noted – don’t ask either, far better not to confuse the tax people. It’s the real listener question.

Obviously, to hear a radio channel some sort of receiving device is necessary. Radio and TV channels are located on the great spectrum by address, a frequency, often referred to as a dial position. People know this through experience. Receiving devices display, one way or another, the dial position so folks can find the station of their choice. Digital radio offerings ask listeners to hunt for their favorite stations differently. Listeners like to have an address, preferably one they understand.

In Europe, very likely, receivers that replace the six or eight in your household right now will be multi-band and will, rather automatically, jump from one band to another. Finding your favorite morning radio station will mean using, at least once, an electronic program guide similar to those offered for television programs because a radio channel could be on any of the aforementioned bands, including old MW and FM. These smart, not so little radio receivers will save, adjust, swap, replay and otherwise do all the work. It’s all in the chips. More bands – more chips. More chips – more money. DAB receiver prices in the UK have fallen to as little as £50. Don’t even ask for one in Switzerland.

HD Radio addresses will be much like my apartment building. And hunting for one of those extra digital channels could be like hunting for me. The number on my building is 15. To find which apartment I’m in somebody must first get inside the building, not easy as there are codes, locks, bars, guards and dogs. To find the digital channel adjacent to an FM channel – call it HD2 – you must first, figuratively, get inside the building – tune to the main FM channel - so your receiver can lock-on to the digital signal. Who’s going to go through all that trouble? Nobody, said Bob Harper’s study.

Since the right-brained programmers are overtly concerned with marketing their radio brands to real people, the address is paramount. When American radio listeners are shown photos of billboards pitching Cowboy Radio 1066 HD2 (I made that up but that’s what an address might be) they scratch their heads and say “Where’s that? It must be satellite radio.”

Ah, but people will just love having all those choices. Not so, said the American radio listeners. Choice fell below quality as people scaled reasons they might be interested in digital radio. “Make the popping and crackling go away,” they said. If seems that the name ‘HD Radio’ triggers the notion of HD TV, which is far superior to analogue TV in the quality department. The digital reality is that the best digital radio can do quality-wise – so far – is be just as good as FM.

Are there any other reasons why the digital choice around the world is iPod?