Struble After CES: AM/FM is the only Analog Technology at CES

Feb 4, 2012 3:20 PM, By Doug Irwin, CPBE DRB

Columbia, MD – Feb 2, 2012 – Bob Struble, CEO of iBiquity, continues to entreat over-the-air radio broadcasters to embrace HD Radio. In the latest edition of his series “Thoughts on Radio’s Digital Future” he shares some observations from the recent 2012 CES convention.

He writes: “That AM/FM is still growing and profitable while using 100 year old technology is a testimony to the industry’s resilience and adaptability. But it is not a viable long-term growth strategy. As CES showed, the vastly superior consumer experience digital technologies can deliver will win out over the limited capabilities of analog technology. Fair minds can debate how long that will take, but the end point is clear.”

While much of what Struble writes about is the digital dashboard, he also comments on mobile phone technology: “As to mobile phones, there is a strong industry consensus that broadcast radio must find its way onto the ubiquitous mobile device of our times. Radio cannot be the go to out-of-home medium if it is not on the device in everyone’s pocket. Happily, we are seeing solid progress on this critical initiative…Blackberry announced it would include analog FM on several handset models. NAB Fastroad is developing an end-to-end broadcast system that unleashes the true power of radio in connected handsets, creating exciting new experiences for listeners and innovative new services for advertisers. And at CES we showed the first working HD Radio mobile handsets. So we are getting there.”

You can read his entire view at the iBiquity website.

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