Is this what radio will transition to after AM and FM?
Commercial terrestrial radio has been with us since the early 1920s when the governments made the then-cutting-edge technology available to civilians. AM was the first band we used. FM was introduced in the 1930s but didn’t really catch on until more than 30 years later. And that’s the way it was for a long time.
Eventually, though, new technologies emerged. Satellite radio was born in the late 90s around the same time as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) was touted as the next big thing. Satellite radio is very still with us, of course–it is, I think, an exclusively North American service–while DAB has widespread use just about everywhere else in the world but North America. We will never use DAB because the US kiboshed its use in favour of HD-Radio.
And how has HD-Radio turned out? Not so good. It exists and you probably have it in your car, but do you even know about it? Despite all kinds of promises, it’s been a big fat bust.
After 125 years, AM radio is struggling. Lower audio fidelity, static problems, and the insistence by some EV manufacturers on dropping AM tuners from their cars has the band struggling. AM stations are being shut down on both sides of the Atlantic. FM is still very much a viable medium, but it’s still old-school one-way broadcasting with 100-year-old technology.
So if it’s not DAB or HD-Radio, what’s does the future old for terrestrial radio? It could be ATSC 3.0.
This is a new global standard for broadcasting. It’s not only great for audio but it’s excellent for TV. I quote from Radio World:
“ATSC 3.0 enables the use of IP (Internet Protocol) as a core part of the standard, allowing enormous flexibility in the potential applications of the specification. If you can send traffic over an internet link, you can also send it over 3.0. At the end of the day, it’s all just bits: video, audio, software, files, signals, and so on. As a result, we can deliver audio services through a remarkably efficient, far-reaching and modern system.”
Although the above mentions IP, we’re not talking about radio (or TV) delivered via the internet. This is over-the-air transmissions that will carry enough data to provide “a comprehensive experience without the need for an internet connection.” That means a two-way signal flow. Whoa.
Experiments are currently being run in Baltimore, Las Vegas, Nashville, Detroit, and Washington DC. And if I’m reading the specs correctly, ATSC 3.0 broadcasts can be received by existing AM and FM radios but with more metadata and better audio. I have no idea how that’s possible, so I’ll leave the explanations to the engineers.
Okay. I’m interested. Here’s more as it applies to TV.
