Well, yes they did, but it was about 400 years after the fact … So we can look forward to them apologizing around 2350 ….

I like the way HD radio is going… two stations in my area are broadcasting HD comercial free to get people on board. When you digitize the audio and broadcast it – FM becomes CD quality, AM becomes long range FM quality… all those AM stations will now have the ability to broadcast decent quality music in > 100 mile radius.

I’m all for free music… sat radio will be around for the niche markets – like OTR truckers, people with extra cash to burn, or for people who really want to hear a specific station for $14 a month. However for the masses – HDR is the next evolutionary step in radio.

A couple of years ago I took a vacation on Grand Cayman in the Carribean. I was really looking forward to hearing some different music: steel bands, reggae, and such. Maybe even some calypso? Instead, everywhere we went all that was played was American pop and country, the same stuff I was already bored with. One day I saw a sign announcing that the bar down the street was having a live, local steel band that evening! Finally, some real Carribean music! When I went, however, they just played steel band arrangements of American pop and country music. Huge disappointment.

at radio and Clear Channel just continue that trend.

First of all, as far as I know, only US, Canada and the northern part of Mexico get sat coverage.

Second, FM is incorporating digital signals (HD Radio), with good backwards compatibility for current fm gear, which will mean better quality on local stations.

And personally, I see Sat as more of a convenience instead of having to switch through CDs, but mp3 players can do that for me too, so I’d choose an mp3 player over Sat. Of course, this may not be the case for everyone. Still I think FM is established, and needs innovations just to keep it’s status as no. 1, Sat has to fight to keep growing, and AM will keep being the indie option for the masses …until WiFi(or some similar technology) becomes ubiquitous.

Jim Ladd is still around? I remember listening to him back in high school, somewhere around 1983ish.

It was DJs like Ladd and the jocks at K-SHE 95 in St. Louis that made me eventually have a go at the disc jockey business.

Unfortunately for ME, after about a year on the job, the industry embraced satellite feeds by which one on-air personality could (without any local flavor) be the voice for 50 radio stations at the same time.

All the entry-level jobs kinda dried up as small-market radio stations could subscribe to a feed cheaper than hiring a couple minimum-wage disc jockeys.

I ended up writing for a newspaper eventually – another medium that was supposed to be eliminated, first by radio, then TV, then the Internet.

Local content is what keeps newspapers (and radio stations, and TV stations) going.

But anyway, glad to hear Jim Ladd is still at it : )

haha

I hope you’re paying out the people who brag about being first.

RCA is now a brand name for the French company Thompson and has little R&D or technical significance.
AT&T is a shell of a company whos assets were sold off leaving only a name that has been bought by Cingular with the hope that they can craft a new image.

Oh, and in twenty years Damn Interesting will run a story how all these towns and cities had their very own independent radio stations that said what they wanted, played what they wanted, when they wanted long before we succummed to the mind numbing pablum of clear channel and npr.