An editorial on HD radio's fate

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://radioinsight.com/blogs/176522/hd-radio-too-much-too-little-too-late/

It’s been well over a decade since the first HD Radio receivers went on sale to consumers in the United States, and we have come a long way with the variety and availability of receivers – especially on the dashboard front as part of modern infotainment systems in new cars. This solves the “chicken or egg” problem of nobody having any receivers, but nobody actually knows what HD is, unless they take their new car back to the dealer to complain when their favorite station sounds odd when the time alignment is off and it sounds like a skipping CD while blending back and forth.

Being a radio geek, and not having any shame in admitting I paid $600 for the Boston Acoustics Recepter HD when new in 2006, I forget that there are others out there who just turn the radio on maybe change a preset or two. The other evening I was out with a friend who has a 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander – it comes with HD but no Artist Experience, and I started to show off the various HD subchannels here in the Pittsburgh market. When I came across “B94 Throwbacks” on WBZZ-HD2, my friend was ecstatic! She was instantly transported back to high school and set a preset for it, as well as some other HD-2’s and 3’s in the market.

Well HD radio was viewed as the best of its time but the issue here is that HD Radio has to compete against various digital HD apps to get the audience attention though.

 

[rbc]

It seemed to me to be more of a critique of the HD radio deployment and UI design. Not so much its fate. I'd say the thesis of his article had more to do with properly promoting HD radio with the listeners and providing relevant programming now that the radios are available.

 

[rbc]

When it comes to FM HD, I have an alternate UI in mind. Add a numeric display for the HD sub-channel, and a button to select the sub-channel. When the listener tuned into a channel with HD, the numeric display would light up with "1" for HD1 once it was tuned on channel.

Pressing the button would sequence the radio through the available sub-channels. When tuned into analog stations, the numeric display would stay dark and the button would have no effect. I think this might work with analog dials as well.

 

[stewie]

When it comes to FM HD, I have an alternate UI in mind. Add a numeric display for the HD sub-channel, and a button to select the sub-channel. When the listener tuned into a channel with HD, the numeric display would light up with "1" for HD1 once it was tuned on channel.

Pressing the button would sequence the radio through the available sub-channels. When tuned into analog stations, the numeric display would stay dark and the button would have no effect. I think this might work with analog dials as well.

My wife has an HD radio in her car (and has for 4+ years) and still doesn't understand the "sub-channels".

On top of that, we were in San Francisco the other day bouncing between an analog booster and HD main carrier and the experience was HORRIBLE (skipping forwards and backwards in time). We actually turned off the radio and started streaming.

In my opinion, it's dying a slow death.

 

[Kelly A]

My wife has an HD radio in her car (and has for 4+ years) and still doesn't understand the "sub-channels".

On top of that, we were in San Francisco the other day bouncing between an analog booster and HD main carrier and the experience was HORRIBLE (skipping forwards and backwards in time). We actually turned off the radio and started streaming.

In my opinion, it's dying a slow death.

One anecdotal example is not indicative of HD Radio in the entire US. That, and I'm not a big fan of boosters. It's my experience that they create more problems than they're worth.

 

[rbc]

On top of that, we were in San Francisco the other day bouncing between an analog booster and HD main carrier and the experience was HORRIBLE (skipping forwards and backwards in time). We actually turned off the radio and started streaming.

You know, I worked in San Francisco for 9 years. I'd walk up 2nd and 3rd Street toward the AT&T Ball Park pretty much every day of the work week. I was also active as an amateur radio operator at the time. Nothing RF works in SF that well. I found that AM/FM radio, VHF and UHF amateur radio and even Bluetooth and Wi-Fi barely worked unless you were inside a building. I did listen to KQED using HD all the time, but they have a pretty massive signal. It was strong enough to penetrate into the buildings I worked in. Outside the buildings, I'd listen to downloaded music or podcasts using wired closed-back headphones.

 

[DaveBayArea]

One anecdotal example is not indicative of HD Radio in the entire US. That, and I'm not a big fan of boosters. It's my experience that they create more problems than they're worth.

In the San Francisco Bay Area you need boosters if you're going to provide service to the area behind the East Bay hills. That's too big of a market to throw away. In the example cited above it's obvious that the station either didn't synchronize the booster properly or didn't have the HD time-aligned (in which case the problem would have been apparent on the main signal too). It's not easy, but if a station is going to the expense of providing HD for one reason or another they should make the commitment to support it.

Dave B.

 

[Ai4i]

I have used frequency, spacial, and polarity diversity reception with shortwave receivers
An important advantage of exclusively digital formats is their ability to combine streams on diverse frequencies from diverse locations.
Nothing is a better example of this than SiriusXM which combines half a dozen streams from multiple satellites plus terrestrial transmitters
and produces the end result of an uninterrupted audio output.

 

[KTN Corp]

Nothing RF works in SF that well.

Maybe if FM and TV were on Mt. Diablo instead of Sutro and Mt. San Bruno, S.F. and Sacramento would have reliable signals. I can't imagine RF broadcast sites providing reliable service to all of Greater L.A. from anywhere but Mt. Wilson.

 

[davideduardo]

Maybe if FM and TV were on Mt. Diablo instead of Sutro and Mt. San Bruno, S.F. and Sacramento would have reliable signals. I can't imagine RF broadcast sites providing reliable service to all of Greater L.A. from anywhere but Mt. Wilson.

Of course, local FMs have no interest in covering Sacramento. It's a separate market, bought separately, and there is no money to be made by SF metro stations from any coverage of the state capitol area. Advertisers wanting Sacramento buy Sacramento media and won't pay SF rates to reach them.

On the other hand, there are other mountains that are part of the range where Mt Wilson is located that offer as good or possibly better coverage of the LA metro survey area (MSA). Wilson was picked because in the 50's it had a road, built IIRC for logging early in that century, which the others did not.

Still, the Wilson sites don't have good coverage of the huge Santa Clarita area, the Lancaster-Palmdale area and the lower parts of Orange County from Wilson. Many have installed boosters for Santa Clarita, but the other areas are just not reliably reachable even by the grandfathered super-power FMs on Wilson.

This is the same issue with San Francisco, where the MSA runs from Campbell to Santa Rosa, and no FM truly covers all of it well... even superpower KIOI.

 

[boombox4]

I read the article, along with the comments (most of them being of the usual anti-HD Luddite variety).

HD's main problem, aside from the Recession wiping out the market for standalone HD radios not too long after HD Radio was implemented, was PR. I know people who listen to radio who still do not know what HD Radio is, or that there are HD FM channels in my local metro (and the HD channels in my metro are almost full).

When listening to a station, one rarely, if ever, hears a promo for the station's HD transmission, much less an HD2 or HD3 channel.

Right now, HD radios themselves are fairly cheap -- there are even some stereo mini-boomboxes that have HD available going for under $80-$90. Then again, many newer cars have them. HD should be more popular than it is, being that some of the channels are filling niches, and other ones provide clearer reception of their sister AM stations.

But if it isn't promoted, people aren't going to find out about it.

 

[bulwnkl]

HD's main problem, aside from the Recession wiping out the market for standalone HD radios not too long after HD Radio was implemented, was PR...

When listening to a station, one rarely, if ever, hears a promo for the station's HD transmission, much less an HD2 or HD3 channel...

But if it isn't promoted, people aren't going to find out about it.

EXACTLY!! Thank you!

 

[JBraddock]

HD's main problem, aside from the Recession wiping out the market for standalone HD radios not too long after HD Radio was implemented, was PR.

The 2008 market drubbing didn't wipe out HD radio sales, the rise of the "smart" phone and the resultant lack of interest in buying stand-alone radios did. HD radio was the answer to a problem that didn't exist. TV was going digital (and also changing spectrum), so the industry thought radio should go digital. No one asked listeners.

Then, when digital was implemented, those few who were interested found out that the reception was problematic. FM coverage was deficient and the AM implementation couldn't overcome the high noise floor. Add in license payments for the technology and lack of promotion by FM station managements afraid of cannibalizing their main channel's audience, and you have the failure you see today.

If the FCC hadn't allowed analog translators to carry HD transmissions, HD radio would be gone today.

Terrestrial HD can survive as one of the choices on the car dashboard in areas where cell service isn't good, but so can analog FM. Analog's lack of a UI isn't going to be a deal-breaker to most drivers as long accessing a station is no more difficult than pulling up other services. HD can offer all-digital AM stations dashboard parity at the cost of their dwindling analog audience if AM broadcasters want to invest the up-front conversion costs and still want to pay the maintenance and power bills associated with AM transmission plants. In the parts of the country where cell service isn't stellar and FMs don't fully cover, that may be a viable option. Other than that, HD's going to be an also-ran technology for terrestrial broadcasters when analog is just as easy to access, has better reception and is cheaper to implement.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I might would have had an interest in HD radio, but it has never been used by any station in my area. The only good I've seen come out of it is to feed translators for stations like WAY-FM in Nashville and Air 1 in Memphis. And I agree that I use my smart phone and MP3s as my main musical choice now.

 

[tested]

I have harped on this for years, but the entire HD rollout was poorly done. I would go in to stores to find an HD radio, but could never actually hear what they sounded like because they didn't have an antenna properly hooked up. (malls are not exactly good places to hear either AM or FM signals.) Yet the XM or Sirius display next to it had lots of channels available to listen to because they had some kind of antenna hooked up that could get the signals. Asking an employee at the store about HD was like talking to a brick wall. They had no idea what I was talking about, but were quite well-versed in satellite radio.

I finally got an HD radio several years ago and it's very nice. My sister has HD in her car, but has no idea what's on it. Stations need to run A LOT of promos to tell people what they have on their HD2 and HD3 stations. They need to have clear websites that let you look at information about the HD2 and HD3 stations too. In most cases, that does not happen. But goodness knows you can't go 10 minutes without hearing a promo for the iHeart Radio App or Radio.com app.

 

[davideduardo]

I have harped on this for years, but the entire HD rollout was poorly done. I would go in to stores to find an HD radio, but could never actually hear what they sounded like because they didn't have an antenna properly hooked up. (malls are not exactly good places to hear either AM or FM signals.) Yet the XM or Sirius display next to it had lots of channels available to listen to because they had some kind of antenna hooked up that could get the signals. Asking an employee at the store about HD was like talking to a brick wall. They had no idea what I was talking about, but were quite well-versed in satellite radio.

Stores that sold after-market radios got a commission from XM or Sirius and a cut of future subscriptions. So there was a lot of additional profit to be had. HD has no subscribers and no ongoing revenue stream to incentivize stores or car manufacturers. So there was not a viable business model for HD at retail.

I finally got an HD radio several years ago and it's very nice. My sister has HD in her car, but has no idea what's on it. Stations need to run A LOT of promos to tell people what they have on their HD2 and HD3 stations. They need to have clear websites that let you look at information about the HD2 and HD3 stations too. In most cases, that does not happen. But goodness knows you can't go 10 minutes without hearing a promo for the iHeart Radio App or Radio.com app.

When the FCC required, in 1967, most simulcast FMs to do separate programming, the AMs did not promote the FMs. And formats were picked that would not compete with the AM cash cows. Some of that was in effect ins electing HD formats. And the HD Alliance just did not do a good job of marketing with difficult to understand campaigns.

Streaming is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. If they can, station owners rent the HD subchannels to groups who will program in Farsi or Russian... no competition, guaranteed income.

 

[rbc]

Streaming is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. If they can, station owners rent the HD subchannels to groups who will program in Farsi or Russian... no competition, guaranteed income.

Streaming has its own set of issues. The radio stream aggregators that provide the back-end for streaming are a fairly complicated collection of third parties that don't necessarily get along. Here's a recent article that highlights the ongoing Frontier Silicon and vTuner spat:

https://swling.com/blog/2019/05/aggregation-aggravation-update-frontier-silicon-working-on-favorites-and-personal-streams/

It's caused a pretty lousy user experience for Sangean and Como Audio users. Another part of the equation is local programming. All the streams in the world won't substitute for local programming.

 

[TheBigA]

All the streams in the world won't substitute for local programming.

Really? Tell that to Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and all the rest. No local programming and they each have about 100 million users. OTA radio can stream its local signal, but that means streaming all the local commercials, and your competition either has much fewer or no commercials. A lot of the HD channels are closer in style to streaming radio.

 

[gr8oldies]

Dare I say it's possible for local and streaming to co-exist?

Really? Tell that to Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and all the rest. No local programming and they each have about 100 million users. OTA radio can stream its local signal, but that means streaming all the local commercials, and your competition either has much fewer or no commercials. A lot of the HD channels are closer in style to streaming radio.

 

[TheBigA]

Dare I say it's possible for local and streaming to co-exist?

In point of fact, they do. But it's obvious that local is losing out to national streamers. The people who stream seem to prefer to use it as a source for commercial & talk free music. So if local programmers hope to gain an audience in the streaming world, they need to change their presentation to what the customers want. What's their motivation when you remove the only source of revenue?