Authorities, broadcasters map out digital radio salvage mission

Struggling with a past littered with failed implementations and consumer indifference, broadcasters met with Industry Canada and the CRTC this week to hash out a plan to rescue the future of digital radio in Canada.The sit-downs are an outgrowth of the Commercial Radio Policy released late last year. Public Notice 2006-160 deals specifically with the stalled rollout of digital radio to date in Canada.In its May 25 letter to telecom policy branch director general Len St. Aubin, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters responds to Industry Canada's advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum auction process by asserting that the spectrum between 1452 MHz and 1492 MHz - otherwise known at the L-band - is the domain of broadcasters in Canada."The CAB notes that L-band spectrum is reserved for use by broadcasters," the broadcasters group's letter states. "Any attempts to reallocate L-band spectrum would frustrate broadcasters' current business plans and could compromise the CRTC's Digital Radio Policy."Several days later, on May 28, Industry Canada's assistant deputy minister for spectrum, information technologies and telecommunications Michael Binder sent a communique to CRTC vice-chair of broadcasting Michel Arpin outlining the department's take on digital radio.That document notes that while deployment of L-band has been less than stellar to date in Canada - slightly more than 60 stations currently broadcast in that spectrum - the US experience with in-band on-channel (IBOC) standards, such as Columbia MD-based iBiquity Digital Corp.'s HD Radio, could hold promise here."The department agrees that a new service model will need to be developed for DRB and that technology, already adopted in the U.S., may play a part in that model," Binder's letter to Arpin states. "IBOC enables the transition to digital without consuming additional spectrum. It also allows for the provision of supplementary program information and multicast services."But Wayne Stacey of Wayne Stacey & Associates Ltd. says those contentions aren't exactly accurate. "IBOC certainly doesn't get implemented without consuming extra spectrum, and that's the problem," he says. "The extra spectrum that it consumes, especially in the AM but also in the FM version of it, isn't on the channel that the broadcaster is broadcasting on - it's on his neighbor's channel."However, Stacey admits that the Canadian approach to date - putting all the digital radio eggs in the L-band basket - has failed. "That model hasn't worked, primarily because it doesn't offer additional choice," he says, referring to the mandated simulcasting of existing AM and FM services on L-band, rather than new services. "I think it's pretty clear that they have had a very slow roll-out of this, and the uptake by the public has been minimal, almost unmeasurable." Stacey says that the language used by Industry Canada in its letter to the CRTC doesn't necessarily mean the department is pushing IBOC as the way forward for digital radio, but it is a sign that Industry is willing to look beyond the all-or-nothing approach that governed the L-band rollout."What the broadcasters are looking at is additional models that will offer other choice to people and give them an inducement to buy receivers," Stacey says. "The model was based on the Eureka technology as it was at the time, but it's now evolved to become possible to transmit signals much more efficiently."However, he also reiterates that the US experience with IBOC is nearly as limited as Canada's with L-band, and that the technical standards are yet unproven. "If the technology works, we can do IBOC at any time without having to make huge alterations to the way spectrum is used. But, to utilize Eureka at L-band, the way broadcasters probably want to do it now, is going to require modifications to the way the spectrum is planned out for the country," he says.But some broadcasters are thinking beyond the L-band and IBOC paradigm to next-generation digital multicasting technology."Increasingly, even though we're in the radio business, we're creating for a multimedia future," says Rael Merson, president of Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. "It looks a lot more like the Internet, which is ultimately the richest experience you can get - the richest environment at least."With mobile broadcasting standards such as Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) and Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) being positioned as the future of digital broadcasting, Merson says the best approach may well be to stream a full audio-visual signal, and then let the platform itself pare the signal down to audio-only."The complete solution really has to envision a multimedia future, and as you go down that path the receiving device looks increasingly like an iPhone, or like a DVB-H handset, or DMB handset," he says. "Somehow, we need a strategy allowing us to program into that DVB-H, DMB-type of world."DMB is, in fact, based on the Eureka-147 standard for digital radio. But like Stacey, Merson admits that L-band Eureka-147 radio hasn't been a resounding hit with Canadian audiences. "The critical mass has not appeared: the receivers never really came down much in price, and really it never took off, even though a number of us are broadcasting in digital L-Band already," he says.Its track record as a digital radio vehicle notwithstanding, the L-band/Eureka-147 technology pairing might work as an interim solution for multimedia digital broadcasting. Merson notes that, in the US, Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFLO is gaining ground as a possible standard for next-generation audio-visual services.However, its reliance on part of the UHF spectrum currently in use by conventional analog television broadcasters means its adoption here is unlikely, at least until the August 2011 shut-off date for such analog services. "The L-Band fits that interim solution fairly nicely," he says.And with the relative ease of entry for pure-play Internet radio services, traditional radio broadcasters will have to add more value and versatility to their offerings in the digital era, Merson says, or face extinction."Radio stations, to a much greater degree, are going to have to evolve their offerings to become much more multimedia, to continue to hold their place in the value chain, or risk being seriously fragmented," he says. "In order to make that evolution, you need some sort of multimedia solution."

Authorities, broadcasters map out digital radio salvage mission

Broadcast | June 20, 2007

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