Convincing manufacturers that Americans are just drooling at the prospect of buying new radios will be the biggest hurdle to clear here.
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The Beginning of the end for HD Radio
- Thread starter stewie
- Start date
Convincing manufacturers that Americans are just drooling at the prospect of buying new radios will be the biggest hurdle to clear here.
Haha! And HD radios at that that aren't being made anymore. You think it's going to catch on soon? It's only been 15 years, plenty of time left. What's with the smileys here?
I'm glad it wasn't -- at 2 am. That would be mean. lol
Certainly would be: "It's your night to listen to make sure it doesn't go down" haha!
This hurdle has been surmounted very easily in the past with a threat of fines.
Haha! That’s actually really cool, Ralph. Well done!
The HD radio scene is thriving where I live. All the bigger FMs have multiple HD sub-channels in addition to their primary. It’s wonderful!
Are you able to sell any advertising on your sub channels?
Do you know how many years FM stations went without any advertising? My favorite story is in the 1960s, the Washington Post donated WTOP-FM to Howard University. They just GAVE IT AWAY FOR FREE! Ten years later that station was one of the most listened to stations in Washington DC, and is often #1, And it's STILL owned by Howard University. And there were many other FM licenses that were just given away or turned back in to the FCC because the owners had no confidence that the band would ever amount to anything.
Someone needs to have a vision that someday the thing you own will be worth something. It's easy to buy radio stations at the top of the market. iHeart did that 20 years ago. They spent billions of dollars to do that. All it takes is money. But to start something from scratch, and hold onto it until it becomes profitable takes faith.
FM radio was pretty much worthless but it was completely different and was practical 52 years ago but it did take a whole sea change in our culture to start FM radio on the way to it's dominance today, underground radio was the mouthpiece for the new culture and luckily they got it almost free and luckily for FM radio they got the hippies free that's what put FM on the road to profitability. Within two years of underground radio putting FM on the map it was highly profitable, IBOC's been here for 15 years and it's still just an unprofitable daydream, it ain't going anywhere and we've known this since it started out 15 years and it's actually using extra electricity so these companies are PAYING to broadcast something that very few people even know exists besides radio geeks, why is it still here, pride, are they just unable to admit that it's been a failure?
Think of how long you've been complaining about this. But what's happened in the last few years is that HD is starting to show up in ratings. Not necessarily because of the HD signal, but because it's attached to an FM translator. That means regular people WANT the programming. They may not care about the technology, and they may not be willing to buy an HD radio (because where would they buy one? Radio Shack? Circuit City? No.) People want the formats the radio companies are programming, and if those formats at available on translators from HD signals, they will get an audience, and yes they will get advertising. That's what's changed since the last time you were here.
Well if things stayed static it could conceivably have a chance to become profitable in some years but it has been in existence for at least 15 years and it has moved in that amount of time to where they now get advertising? I bet very little. With computers and streaming now becoming ubiquitous radio will probably be what it was during the 20's, a curiosity with some hobbyists such as myself still listening. IBOC is a technology that kind of works that was released way too late to ever really succeed. And a really stupid thing ibiquity did was try to get AM stations to adopt it knowing that it was not compatible with AM, that was not a real smart thing to do, that caused bad publicity among people in the business whom they should have been trying to ingratiate themselves to, instead they shot themselves in the foot and went bankrupt,.... I mean sold the company. Despite my own dislike of IBOC I do applaud you true believers though. I still have my Sony tuner gathering dust by the way. I should power it up, it's been about ten years, I'll have to get the Variac out.
Amazon. I own two Sangean HD radios that I bought from them. Both work great. The jazz station I like to listen to at night, KJZZ-HD2, is not fed to a translator.
But getting HD into cars is another issue. I just rented a 2020 Nissan Kicks a couple of months ago. No HD radio in it. If there's no HD in cars, then there's a problem. It took the car manufacturers until 1980 or so to start putting AM/FM radios into small and midsize cars and trucks as standard equipment -- almost a decade after rock started to take over the FM band. The HD folks need to get with the car folks and make FM-HD (forget the all-but-dead AM-HD) a mobile reality, and soon.
We're LPFM, so no commercials allowed.
Ibiquity added AM HD because the FCC was not going to allow a system that only benefited FM stations. There was an attitude of "there has to be an AM solution, too" and that came from the failure of the first AM stereo system 20 years before.
I didn't see any "bad publicity" due to AM stereo... just a feeling that it was not a perfect system and it sure seemed not to work very well on directional systems and even stations with shorter towers that had pretty sharp impedance and reactance slopes from the left to the right sidebands.
Ibiquity did not go bankrupt; it was sold to another company. It had a bankruptcy filing in 2008 but got a bailout including state and city incentives.
The "new" owner, which paid almost $200 million for iBiquity, is detailed here...
http://koreabizwire.com/dts-to-acquire-ibiquity-digital-corporation/41520
Remember, the original purpose was not to have side channels; it was to allow stations to be "digital" at a point in time when digital audio was supposed to be the next big thing. The discovery that multiple channels could be achieved was an added benefit, not the original purpose of AM HD.
Yes, if the sub-channel gets a translator.
And in larger markets, there are quite a few very profitable sub-channels that are leased to ethnic broadcasters who promote it in their communities.
As mentioned in another post, the original purpose of HD on both AM and FM was to provide a digital service, not to add sub-channels. The sub-channels were a side benefit.
Considering that there are two generations now... maybe two and a half... who don't use the phone the way Boomers do, two or three calls is a lot.
Kind of a rhetorical question designed to demonstrate how the marketplace has changed.
Yes you can buy radios online, just as you can listen to music and traditional radio online. Yet lots of people of all ages still listen (maybe for only an hour a week) to traditional radio. But they can't walk into their hometown Radio Shack any more.
There never was a "must include FM rule" and that is why, even as FM exceeded AM in total ratings, there were still cars in the late 70's that did not have FM as standard equipment.
One problem with HD is that it is a tough proposition for portable radios. The DAC is a big power draw, and not suitable for anything except AC powered or car radios.
I asked that question of Strube in 2002 and got no answer and told our management that there was a doubtful future in HD sub-channels. I was our delegate to the HD Alliance, and recommended that we pull out, which we did.
However, there is use for the digital copy of the main channel, and there is a neat way to exceed 8 stations in a market with the ability to run an FM translator with an HD channel. So it remains viable.
But "must have digital" is not going to be legislated. Never had it for FM, won't have it for HD.
I wouldn't call myself a "true believer." Just pointing out that it isn't the complete and total failure you make it out to be. Two different things.
And if they look for radios in Walmart or Target, they find a very small selection. They don't move, so not much space and no promotion.
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