What about the small broadcasters ? (was Re: HD Gets A Boost)

[Matthew Osborne]

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:01:25 "Peter Q. George" wrote:

> The BIG question that nobody seems to want to answer
> is..... what about the lower powered FM stations
> that
> want to embrace this new technology?  Spending a
> minimum of $75,000 to upgrade these stations to
> digital  and having to fork up another $25,000 to
> have
> it all licensed with Ibiquity comes to a grand total
> of $100,000.  Where in God's green earth is any
> smaller station (a college or LPFM) going to be able
> to come up with that dastardly amount to keep up
> with the technology. 

    Unfortunately, you do have a valid point here. 
However, these new digital receivers, AFAIK, will
continue to support traditional analog broadcasts so
its not like these stations will suddenly become
unlistenable with this conversion.  As far as going
digital, my guess is that it will take a long time for
these outlets to build up the necessary funding to
actually make the conversion, and until that time they
will probably just have to stick with analog
broadcasting.  In addition to LPFMs and college
outlets, I can also see this case happening in the
smaller markets, where a good many smaller market
stations (even class Bs) will continue to broadcast
analog for years to come because of the cost of
conversion.  Hopefully though, as the greater
conversion moves along, prices will start to come down
for IBOC broadcasting equipment in a few years, which
should help these smaller markets and smaller stations
convert.

                                        Matt Osborne
                                        Schenectady, NY

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