Digital Radio Mulling Subscription Play
As Digital Radio ramps up several concerns are mulling over a subscription offering. At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas this week, US-based digital radio technology provider iBiquity Digital announced a partnership with NDS Group, a provider of subscription-based platforms. The NDS RadioGuard technology borrows solutions from NDS VideoGuard, currently deployed by DirecTV and Cablevision. “NDS currently protects valuable pay-TV content in more than 70 million digital set-top boxes around the world, and we are transferring that technology heritage to radio,” said Tom Rucktenwald, director of Data Applications Security for NDS.
Terrestrial radio conglomerates are pushing the enhanced digital broadcasting technology aggressively allowing consumers listen to several digitized streams on one “station” by delivering multiple channels over the same spectrum. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg for the nascent technology and as the format matures, pay for play, subscription, and Premium services are also being researched.
