LinoNYC said:
The bigger issue: radio is not what is "happening" anymore. No one pays any attention to the large Sat-radio displays either. Internet radio? Yeah right.
It's all about "personal media' today.
A somewhat sad Lino
Perhaps "radio" is in trouble. I remain optimistic about the medium, although not about HD. I think that "radio" may need to redefine itself and learn to work with emerging technologies, rather than fight them. The successful buggy builders of another era started building automobiles. Some of them did quite well at it.
Back to the topic of HD radio availability, I was browsing through the local Wal-Mart in Kilgore, Texas the other day. I stopped by the car stereo area to see what was new. To my amazement, there were three HD radios: a Sony, a Panasonic and a Jensen. NONE of them were identified as HD by any of the signage. I had to look for a tiny "HD" logo somewhere on the front panel. Most front panels were also cluttered with a plethora of other logos for various technologies like “CD,” “mp3,” “USB” “Dolby” etc. “HD” did not stand out. In fact, without a magnifying class, it would be hard to notice on some of them.
While all of these radios seemed OK in analog, none of them picked up any HD signals in the store. To be fair, there are only two stations that are remotely possible to receive in HD in the area, even using a high gain outdoor antenna, so that is not a surprise. My HDT-1 has trouble with them, so I wouldn't expect HD to work in a store. Even so, without actually being able to demonstrate HD, it simply becomes a footnote. It’s one of those “features” lots of the stuff you buy these days has, but there is no need or desire on your part to use it or explore its possibilities.
What struck me as really odd was:
1. They were attempting to sell these radios in an area with no HD presence. OK, it is a national chain, so that probably explains it.
2. Absolutely nothing was mentioned on the header cards about HD. That may be because of "number 1, above," but most of the display stuff in Wally-world is national, and not left up to the local manager. I doubt any of the people in the automotive department knew how to turn on most of these radios, much less could tell you about HD. Great marketing!
I suppose for the avid supporters, you can say, "at least it is getting the radios out in the market," and I'd have to agree with you. It is odd that you can buy the radios in areas where there is nothing to listen to, but they seem to be hard to find in areas where there are a variety of listening choices.
I'm sure this will go down in history as a classic example of how not to market a new product. It is even more spectacular than the "New Coke" debacle. The only difference is the general public actually cared about Coke. Only a very few people are worried about this one.
By the way, the cheaper Jensen radio seemed to be the stand-out of the three. It seemed easy to navigate, which is quite a feat these days. Using the seek function, it stopped on more stations than either the Sony or Panasonic. It seemed to have plenty of poop and sounded pretty good. I may get one for my golf cart.
