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Atlanta HD Radio: a sad state of affairs

MRFLASHPORT

MRFLASHPORT

As if we need another thread, but when I look at NYC and LA's HD offering, for a market of this size, we have at least two full powers running spoken word who WASTE all their HD bandwidth on talk: why not just turn it off WZGC and WYAY? And everyone else just uses their HD to get around the FCC rules for translators.

More and more new cars come with HD tuners, I don't want to turn this into a "why HD radio sucks" debate, there is a whole subforum devoted to this topic. But our HD programming has dwindled down to just about four or five "unique" not found on terrestrial in this market signals and they are:

97.1 HD2 "The River's Edge"- pretty AWESOME and if this were on a translator, it would cut into Radio 105.7's new found audience

98.5 HD2 Simply NOTHING like it anywhere the FM dial in Atlanta. Think "WSB 99 FM" or Peach in the latest 1980s.

103.3 HD2 Neo Soul
104.1 is "adult" hip-hop...when it's on.
105.7 HD2 Pride Radio, some of you wanting a dance station in ATL would like this.

that's pretty much it. The following stations use their HD2/HD3 to feed translators:
94.1, 96.1, 99.7...not really any choice there.

Others who broadcast FM in HD don't have any subchannels.

The biggest two offenders are 92.9 and 106.7, both HAD unique and different formats BEFORE they switched to spoken word: 92.9 had Dave Roots (really deep AAA) and 106.7 had Smooth Jazz. Both stations kept their HD1 up but DROPPED the subchannels. Why? I can see turning off HD like WSBB-FM did to eliminate interference, but if you're going to have HD on a talk station, why NOT put some music on HD2/HD3?

Especially for 106.7, why NOT have the Smooth Jazz on HD2, and say, put Atlanta's Greatest Hits back on HD3? Would be really great, get tired of the same 10 minutes of "news, weather and traffic" just hit the HD Seek button and hear music.

No I did not include the non-comm HD operators, the only two are WABE and WREK, both have something slightly different on their HD carriers.

With all the money broadcasters have put into HD, now that there are more receivers in the dash it would make sense to make some use of it.
 
I don't have any figures to support this but I think the problem is that there's just not enough listeners to generate ANY real revenue. Even the HD channels that are on translators have almost zero ratings.

The problem is that between cars being equipped with satellite, HD and now internet radio, HD radio just never really caught on. And at this point, it would appear that internet based radio is probably going to be the winner.
 
Alternatively, could this be like FM was in the early days with everyone playing BM and/or in-store audio with a really low spot load? GM was still selling AM-only radios in cars into the 80s, and you could also still buy an AM-only transistor radio at Radio Shack at that time as well.
 
HD radio will never get any more popular until the FCC mandates HD tuners into all radios. Just like FM was mandated into tuners years ago by the FCC, the same thing needs to happen to HD radio. I like Internet radio too but it eats up my data. For terrestrial radio, HD is the direction FM needs to go in. I bring my HD radio to work and everyone is like "what the heck is that?" When I hook it up to speakers and show everyone the RDS feature, digital sound, and the sub channels, they're like "that's pretty cool." I like my Insignia NS-HD01A from Best Buy. It has a tuner almost as comparable to my car radio. Picks up really well out here in Loganville. Most HD stations in town drop HD any further out I go from here.
 
RadioDoogie said:
HD radio will never get any more popular until the FCC mandates HD tuners into all radios. Just like FM was mandated into tuners years ago by the FCC, the same thing needs to happen to HD radio. I like Internet radio too but it eats up my data. For terrestrial radio, HD is the direction FM needs to go in. I bring my HD radio to work and everyone is like "what the heck is that?" When I hook it up to speakers and show everyone the RDS feature, digital sound, and the sub channels, they're like "that's pretty cool." I like my Insignia NS-HD01A from Best Buy. It has a tuner almost as comparable to my car radio. Picks up really well out here in Loganville. Most HD stations in town drop HD any further out I go from here.
Click to expand...
When did the FCC mandate FM tuners? I think you may be confusing FM with All Channels (UHF) on TV or the AM x-band. Unlike UHF and the AM x-band, there was never a mandate for FM, unless it was too recent to matter.
 
You are correct. I am thinking of UHF not FM. With the FCC mandating DTV tuners in all TVs in 2005, I think the same should happen with all future radios. Not sure if there will ever be a sunset date for analog radio like there was with analog TV. Any thoughts?
 
RadioDoogie said:
You are correct. I am thinking of UHF not FM. With the FCC mandating DTV tuners in all TVs in 2005, I think the same should happen with all future radios. Not sure if there will ever be a sunset date for analog radio like there was with analog TV. Any thoughts?
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What I would love to see happen is FM radio get TV channels 5 and 6, which stink for DTV, which would extend the FM band down to about 78MHz. Require that FM x-band to be digital only, and require FM receivers to cover the entire 78-108MHz band digitally. Then, eventually sunset analog broadcasting on FM.

Not sure how to allocate those frequencies. You'd want to prevent a "land grab" by the four C's and other big operators, but I don't want it to be strictly noncomm, either. Could AM stations (particularly classes B and D) be given priority to migrate to the FM x-band?

The AM band could then be reallocated as only clear channels, or class A clears + class C locals. Not sure if you can really do digital on the AM band, with skywave and whatnot.
 
There is new digital technology for AM, and one of the FCC commissioners has been pushing it hard. But I've been told it would make every AM radio out there now obsolete.
 
jabba17 said:
When did the FCC mandate FM tuners?
Click to expand...

IIRC: The auto companies made AM / FM "standard" some time in the late 1970's or early 1980's. Had it been a FCC mandate, then it would have took a lot longer.

IMHO this showed the FCC the power private enterprise then they allowed to "let the market decide" and we had the AM Stereo mess.
 
Yes, let's take a new technoogical leap of faith …

Ah, yes, "FCC, the great and powerful" and the Clinton clan destroyed domestic television with the forced migration to "digital" channels. Now, unless you have one of those monstrosities on your roof, or you live within 5 miles of a transmitter, you get very little. And what you do get isn't on the air half the time (weather, mechanical, whatever). And look at the wonders those subchannels bring us: 65 year old situation comedies and B&W movies so old and out of focus you can't find them on the IMDB. And a local station that hijacks its weather radar and information to run endless loops of a (now) fairly meaningless criminal court case.

So let's just cave in a bit more, outlaw all existing radios that don't have HD tuning capabilities, and move on to the next level of mediocrity.

I wager in five years this board will be jammed with complaints about the vanilla of the HD programming in Atlanta. But, by God, there won't be any radios that can't tune it in.

Leave it all alone. Those who want HD, let 'em pay for it. Don't force it on the rest of us.

As a matter of fact, how's that Stereo AM working for you?
 
OT: I never really considered the GOP-dominated 104th congress part of the Clinton clan, but hey..whatever works, I guess.

Personally, I love the OTA DTV channels I can get and have no problem watching all those classic sitcoms and movies when I have a chance. Maybe I'm getting old, but he'll, if the target market ends up being my demo, along with those whom Malbec can't afford or don't want to pop for cable or Satellite...I say bring it on.

Ali know is that when my Satellite has been going out during the past few major storms that we've had, have access to OTA TV is a nice option.
 
The only problem with the DTV system is the lack of mobility due to no error correction in the system. You cannot go any faster than 5 miles per hour before losing the signal even if you are close to the transmitter. There is a mobile DTV system that broadcasts (streams) in standard definition but unfortunately Dyle TV has bought the rights to the system and has scrambled most of the OTA broadcasts. A great way to draw revenue by making folks pay for the mobile DTV system. The mobile DTV only broadcasts up to 20 miles away from the tower. I miss being a kid and taking the old analog TV with me in the car and no matter how fast you were going, you could still get a picture. The good ol' days. Fortunately HD radio streams so you don't loose it in the car like you do HDTV. I've also noticed that putting my portable DTV next to my HD radio, I get far better pickup at a greater distance on the radio versus the TV.
 
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