Why do so many stations in the US use defaults, bad or invalid RDS PI codes?

[Kelly A]

What’s HD-PAD data?

(Program Associated Data) If you have an HD radio in many newer vehicles, they will display album art, song title/artist, and what's upcoming. For example; many NPR stations with HD will display a logo unique to that particular program, whereas many music stations, display album art for music stations, or station logos when a jock is talking. SXM features some sort of PAD logos/information for all their various channels.
Here's some discussion of PAD data from Radio World:

PADding the truth

PADding the truth May 1, 2005 12:00 PM The ability to display program-associated data (PAD), such as artist name and song title, is a common quest whether it is used for RBDS, a station’s website or HD Radio. This information is already stored in the automation system, so it should be an easy...

www.radioworld.com

 

[speer360]

IHM stations are pretty good about using PAD. They offer album art consistently in my area.

 

[pclover]

Exactly! What a nothing-burger to be concerned about..

A few people have pointed why you should have a proper PI code. There is more reasons why you should vs shouldn't.

Also, If you go though the effort to have RDS at all it seems silly not take the little extra step and program in a proper PI code as good engineering practice. It seems the NRSC has made considerable effort to make this as easy as possible with their dedicated website. Likely for the reasons above.

Many do of course set a proper PI code but quite a few don't for whatever reason...

Obviously, I'm not in broadcasting but something like this seems like a really easy thing to do and asking for just a few minutes of time.

 

[pclover]

(Program Associated Data) If you have an HD radio in many newer vehicles, they will display album art, song title/artist, and what's upcoming. For example; many NPR stations with HD will display a logo unique to that particular program, whereas many music stations, display album art for music stations, or station logos when a jock is talking. SXM features some sort of PAD logos/information for all their various channels.
Here's some discussion of PAD data from Radio World:

PADding the truth

PADding the truth May 1, 2005 12:00 PM The ability to display program-associated data (PAD), such as artist name and song title, is a common quest whether it is used for RBDS, a station’s website or HD Radio. This information is already stored in the automation system, so it should be an easy...

www.radioworld.com

iHeart and EMF do this on almost all of their stations as well.

Also there is Traffic and Weather maps. I think that is mostly iHeart stations only tho.

 

[Kelly A]

A few people have pointed why you should have a proper PI code. There is more reasons why you should vs shouldn't.

Also, If you go though the effort to have RDS at all it seems silly not take the little extra step and program in a proper PI code as good engineering practice. It seems the NRSC has made considerable effort to make this as easy as possible with their dedicated website. Likely for the reasons above.

Many do of course set a proper PI code but quite a few don't for whatever reason...

Probably because it's minutia that ultimately if the static or active display occurs on radios within the station market, using a generic or default code is good enough. As has been pointed out already; some stations use RDS for the basics, whereas others maximize use.

Obviously, I'm not in broadcasting but something like this seems like a really easy thing to do and asking for just a few minutes of time.

Again it depends. Some stations use contract technical support, and for those who don't care about RDS other than call letters or basic branding slogans are good enough.

 

[kevtronics]

There's also RadioText Plus, which has dedicated artist and title fields, instead of cramming it all into the generic RadioText field. The radio in my 2018 VW supports it, and it's the only way for a non-HD FM station to get artist/title info to show up in the instrument cluster audio display; regular RT won't.

 

[CTListener]

My favorite RDS scrolls are the ones that include "radio edit" or "clean version" after some song titles. They remind me of a Connecticut station's first go-round with RDS in which live reads of spots were accompanied on screen not with the station's call letters or the advertiser's name, but with "inside baseball" info like ":30 bed."

Most aggravating locally is the Vermont Public Classical affiliate's, whose chunk-by-chunk, bit-by-bit description of the piece being played clunks along on my car radio's display ever so slowly as "Piano Sonata in Bb" ... "major op. 22 by" ... "Ludwig van Beetho" ... "ven on WNCH".

 

[kevtronics]

A classic rock station happened to be playing the long version of Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" when I stored the preset on my car radio -- and when you do so, it stores the current RDS PS as the station name, like it's supposed to be used.

I caught them in the middle of spitting out "Life's Been Good - Long Joe Walsh" in 8-character chunks via the RDS PS, so my radio stored "Long Joe" as the station's name. I like it! "Your favorite Classic Rock on Long Joe 107.1"

 

[Deleted member 76036]

Probably because it's minutia that ultimately if the static or active display occurs on radios within the station market, using a generic or default code is good enough. As has been pointed out already; some stations use RDS for the basics, whereas others maximize use.

Again it depends. Some stations use contract technical support, and for those who don't care about RDS other than call letters or basic branding slogans are good enough.

One issue with doing this though, is that some radios won’t display the RDS at all if a PI code such as 0000 is entered. My 2020 Hyundai Elantra is one of those radios. I believe the radio in my old Pontiac Grand Prix was the same way.

103.3 KVDT and 88.9 KETR both have PI codes of 0000 and because of this, the RDS doesn’t show up. For some reason last week, KVDT’s PI code reverted to KESN. I noticed this, because the RDS appeared. Now that it’s back to 0000, the RDS won’t show up again.