RBDS: the American outlook

After much debate including times when the lawyers outnumbered the engineers, the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) was finally adopted on January 8, 1993. From the beginning this close cousin to its European counterpart, the Radio Data System (RDS), took on a different shape, influenced by a vastly different market and broadcast community. Now nearly two years later, the life expectancy (or birth in this case) of RBDS seems to be questionable. With slightly over 200 stations broadcasting this digital subcarrier, broadcasters have been slow to realize the potential benefits that widespread adoption would offer. This paper win focus on the market and technical issues surrounding RBDS