HD Radio on the Way Out?

[Santa fe]

Last week I turned in my 2020 car for a new 2026, same kind and similiar trim with the high spec audio system.
It took me a week to realize the new car does not have HD radio. At all. A call to the dealer confirmed that the manufacturer has been discontinuing HD in its vehicles due to "lack of demand ", replacing with Apple Car Play, Android Auto and Google.
Too bad. I also liked AM stereo and HD AM.
Guess we should just have gone true digital, like TV did or radio in England.

 

[TheBigA]

Keep in mind that HD radio is a trademarked, copyrighted technology, owned and marketed by xperi. Broadcast radio companies have nothing to do with it. They have to pay xperi if they want to use it. Car manufacturers also have to pay xperi if they want to include it. So the only company that benefits or loses from this is xperi. On the other hand, the other companies you mention are huge technology companies with marketing budgets and are a lot more invested in getting placement on car dashboards. This is why broadcasters are more interested in streaming than anything else.

Homepage Xperi - Xperi

At home, on the go, every moment of the day. Xperi invents, develops and delivers the technologies that create extraordinary experiences.

xperi.com

At one time, broadcast radio companies were invested in HD radio. That was over 20 years ago. Not anymore.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

At one time, broadcast radio companies were invested in HD radio. That was over 20 years ago. Not anymore.

Correct. If you go back through this forum you'll see Audacy and iHeart in particular have discontinued some of their former HD+ subchannels, shifting their focus to their streaming platforms instead. I still like having HD Radio capability in the car but it appeals to a very niche audience and it feels neglected by Xperi, just like everything else they own.

It's unfortunate that automakers lock customers into their factory entertainment systems now. I was someone who always upgraded my cars to great aftermarket gear that outperformed even the premium factory options with more features at a lower cost. You can't do that anymore. If you really wanted HD Radio but the automaker no longer offers it, you're basically stuck with what they give you for as long as you own that car. It's not like the good old days when you could easily pull out the factory AM/FM/CD player and put a Pioneer, Kenwood or Alpine head unit with Android Auto, Apple Car Play, HD Radio and a navigation touchscreen if that what you wanted.

 

[ted chittenden]

Last week I turned in my 2020 car for a new 2026, same kind and similiar trim with the high spec audio system.
It took me a week to realize the new car does not have HD radio. At all. A call to the dealer confirmed that the manufacturer has been discontinuing HD in its vehicles due to "lack of demand ", replacing with Apple Car Play, Android Auto and Google.
Too bad. I also liked AM stereo and HD AM.
Guess we should just have gone true digital, like TV did or radio in England.

For the most part, I agree with the analyses supplied by you and those below you. Where I think HD radio may survive in some form is where a broadcaster has an AM outlet that is seeking an FM outlet and either 1) no translator spaces are available on the FM band; or 2) the translator frequency doesn't properly cover the area that the broadcaster wishes to have the AM signal cover. The station I'm thinking of that falls in this category is Hubbard's KAZG at 1440 kHz licensed to Scottsdale, AZ. During the daytime, the AM covers most of the Phoenix metro area okay, but the nighttime signal at 50-something watts is only good within two to three miles of the transmitter. There is a translator at 92.7 mHz but that doesn't cover the whole area well (and with both an LP station and another translator at 92.9 mHz in the northern part of Phoenix, the 92.7 signal has actually gotten worse in that area). However, using the HD2 channel of KDKB, the station can be heard throughout most of the Phoenix area if you happen to have an HD receiver (which I do).

 

[Santa fe]

Keep in mind that HD radio is a trademarked, copyrighted technology, owned and marketed by xperi. Broadcast radio companies have nothing to do with it. They have to pay xperi if they want to use it. Car manufacturers also have to pay xperi if they want to include it.

The FCC made a misstep when they approved this proprietary hybrid system rather than starting the transition to a true digital platform.
By now we'd have universally better audio and more choices and radio would have a brighter future. But they didn't and, as always, consumers found other ways to get what they want, to the detriment of the broadcast industry.
But I still want my HD!

 

[K6JHU]

KHFM located north of Albuquerque has difficulty getting into some parts of the city. They are simulcast on KABG-HD3. That signal (on Sandia Crest) gives me an HD lock almost all the way to Santa Rosa.

 

[kevtronics]

Some automakers removed HD Radio during/after the pandemic, citing "chip shortages" as the reason. Since then, they probably saw no reason to add it back, if a negligible amount of customers noticed or cared.

It's like HDCD. Since the mid-1990s, a lot of CDs have been HDCD-encoded, even if it's not mentioned anywhere in the liner notes. But very few people bought CD players equipped with the HDCD decoder. And even those who did, didn't notice enough difference/improvement to care about it. To them, regular CDs sound fine, just as analog FM radio sounds fine.

 

[TheBigA]

The FCC made a misstep when they approved this proprietary hybrid system rather than starting the transition to a true digital platform

They made the transition to digital in TV in order to repurpose the spectrum space. They couldn't do that in radio.

 

[Weiserguy]

My wife's Prius came with HD, my Ford Fusion didn't. When I'm driving her car I play around with it, and have an increasingly difficult time finding anything on a subchannel worth listening to. When I'm in my own car I do not miss it one whit. I created a flash drive that's got 64 gigabytes of capacity to store music, radio programs, podcasts, whatever, and if I'm somewhere where live FM or (God-forbid!) AM has nothing worth listening to, I flip to the memory card and have days worth of content to listen to. So why should I, or really anyone, mourn for the rapidly diminishing portfolio of HD channels?

 

[Weiserguy]

They made the transition to digital in TV in order to repurpose the spectrum space. They couldn't do that in radio.

No, because the combined spectrum devoted to radio, FM and AM, is a mere 21 megahertz. They were able to recover more than ten times that bandwidth in the TV spectrum by auctioning it off to the cellular carriers and repacking the remaining bands. That was $Billions to the government and TV station owners. (And $Nothing to viewers like you.) Follow the money.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

They made the transition to digital in TV in order to repurpose the spectrum space. They couldn't do that in radio.

Let's see how the current transition to ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV plays out. Broadcasters want mandates on both the transmission and tuner sides. So far, the FCC has proposed a voluntary approach to the transition. There's a private organization -- the A3SA -- involved in certifying and gatekeeping the technology, raising costs, politics and obstacles not unlike Ibiquity (and now XPeri) did with HD Radio. So far, the whole process is looking a lot like a replay of HD Radio's failure to gain traction years ago, with the added twist of DRM encryption being added to the mix this time around. That's proving to be extremely unpopular with the public, killing enthusiasm and threatening to thwart uptake in the market if broadcasters can't gate the FCC mandated transition they want.

 

[davideduardo]

Guess we should just have gone true digital, like TV did or radio in England.

The digital "band" used in Europe is partially used by government functions here. And broadcasters did not want it. Wherever broadcasting is mostly and vastly controlled by private owners, DAB was not introduced... such as nowhere in our hemisphere. Canada tried, but it was not successful for a long variety orf reasons.

The main reason why many broadcasters objected is that suddenly every station would have a full signal.Those that had paid millions for the better facilities would have lost that equity.

 

[davideduardo]

Let's see how the current transition to ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV plays out. Broadcasters want mandates on both the transmission and tuner sides. So far, the FCC has proposed a voluntary approach to the transition. There's a private organization -- the A3SA -- involved in certifying and gatekeeping the technology, raising costs, politics and obstacles not unlike Ibiquity (and now XPeri) did with HD Radio. So far, the whole process is looking a lot like a replay of HD Radio's failure to gain traction years ago, with the added twist of DRM encryption being added to the mix this time around. That's proving to be extremely unpopular with the public, killing enthusiasm and threatening to thwart uptake in the market if broadcasters can't gate the FCC mandated transition they want.

Yep, and as soon as any consumer hears about what DRM means to their pocketbook, they are instantly opposed.

 

[TheBigA]

The main reason why many broadcasters objected is that suddenly every station would have a full signal.Those that had paid millions for the better facilities would have lost that equity.

The other reason was because it would make all existing radios obsolete. People would have to buy new radios that could receive DAB. We saw how well that went for HD radio, didn't we?

Broadcasters already have digital broadcasting. It's called streaming. People don't need new radios to stream their favorite stations.

 

[davideduardo]

The other reason was because it would make all existing radios obsolete. People would have to buy new radios that could receive DAB. We saw how well that went for HD radio, didn't we?

Your point is even more significant than mine (I am agreeing with you way too often!). Nobody is buying stand-alone radios, and stations that added HD would still need to maintain their AM or FM transmitters for a long time... at least a decade until about half of all cars had HD.

Broadcasters already have digital broadcasting. It's called streaming. People don't need new radios to stream their favorite stations.

And streaming has no "Metro Survey Area" coverage problems!

 

[Santa fe]

The other reason was because it would make all existing radios obsolete. People would have to buy new radios that could receive DAB.

Didn't seem to bother them with doing that to millions of TV sets, free government paid converters regardless. As mentioned money talks. And as mentioned consumers are making choices that are moving them farther away from conventional OTA broadcasting.
A digital transition could probably be done but to what end? IMO we are in the last generation of traditional OTA radio. Sooner than later, streaming and other modalities will supplant OTA as we know it today. It may not be too long before cars won't have "radios" as such at all.
Alas, I still want my HD. And my MTV too!

 

[Mediafrog+]

Didn't seem to bother them with doing that to millions of TV sets, free government paid converters regardless. As mentioned money talks.

You are overlooking the fact the advent of flatscreen digital-capable TVs came around the same time as the transition from analog NTSC to digital ATSC 1.0. The technical and practical advances and advantages of those new TVs were readily apparent to consumers, which hastened the adoption of the new technology. Vastly improved picture and much lighter and space efficient sets.

There is no similar technological leap to new TVs themselves with the switch to ATSC 3.0, at least as far as most consumers are aware or concerned, thus a lack of demand.

The last CRT set I had in my living room weighed 85 pounds. Many other sets were much heavier. People were glad to see those go just like they were happy to replace clunky tube-type radios with convenient transistor units 60-70 years ago.

 

[bigdonho]

The FCC pulled another "AM Stereo" mistake by letting the market place decide. TV standard and FM standards were decided by the Commission so every manufacturer new what was expected. DRM is an open system with no well financed developer looking to make a profit. While the rest of the world opted for DRM, we went with a system that made Ibiquity millions.

 

[davideduardo]

The FCC pulled another "AM Stereo" mistake by letting the market place decide. TV standard and FM standards were decided by the Commission so every manufacturer new what was expected. DRM is an open system with no well financed developer looking to make a profit. While the rest of the world opted for DRM, we went with a system that made Ibiquity millions.

The rest of the world did not “opt” for DRM. DRM is only partially implemented in India and it is a proprietary system.

I believe you mean DAB.

 

[TheBigA]

Sooner than later, streaming and other modalities will supplant OTA as we know it today. It may not be too long before cars won't have "radios" as such at all.

The only thing we need for that to happen is universal free wifi.