Roughly 30 broadcasters attended Broadcast Electronic’s HD Radio seminar. Tim Bealor said the company is “flooded” with orders for IBOC equipment that needs to be shipped by the end of October.
The seminar was a chance for BE employees to update customers and potential customers on updates to the HD Radio technology and BE products.
Richard Hinkle said between 60 to 70 percent of the systems BE has installed use low-level combining of the analog and digital signals.
Ted Lantz, new product manager for BE’s HD Radio products, detailed possible revenue opportunities for broadcasters using the data capabilities of digital radio, be they supplemental channels that are subscription services, or on-demand interactive audio.
As an example, he said, if a station charged a company $1.00 to send a text message, at an average of some 170 of those a day, that could bring in more than $5,000 per month of revenue.
He ballparked start-up costs for data applications at between $4,000 to $20,000.
Nautel plans a similar seminar Thursday night from 6-9 p.m.
