Boo..hiss..to Audacy

[TheBigA]

Have they put time and effort into those signals since HD radios became widely available?

You didn't answer my question.

Also, how have HD Radios become "widely available?" Really? There may be a million of them in service.

It really doesn't matter, since consumers aren't buying new radios of any sort.

The HD Alliance went away almost 20 years ago. The new owner of HD doesn't spend any money promoting the service it owns.

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

You didn't answer my question.

Also, how have HD Radios become "widely available?" Really? There may be a million of them in service.

It really doesn't matter, since consumers aren't buying new radios of any sort.

The HD Alliance went away almost 20 years ago. The new owner of HD doesn't spend any money promoting the service it owns.

Honestly, the whole thing was handled poorly. They rolled out the promotion before they had a unit capable of receiving the signals. When the product (and we're talking about two products here...the actual radios and the content that they deliver) was made available, it was not compelling.

My point is that without compelling content, the HD radio "revolution" they hoped would happen was dead in the water from the get-go.

It's a bit like if the gaming industry hyped a "coming soon" new console that was allegedly miles miles ahead of the ones consumers had, and when the console finally dropped...there were no new games that took advantage of it's capabilities. Instead they just repackaged some already available games, then were left scratching their heads when the console didn't sell.

With a few local exceptions, the players in the industry both major and minor basically said "um...here's a couple more HD stations for you to listen to if you want. Or don't. We don't really care."

Why would anyone buy an HD radio for that?

 

[Kent]

Around 2010, I found one of those HD Radio iPhone dongles on clearance for less than $20 at Radio Shack. I went ahead and bought it and didn't find it to be a bad product in the least. It did drain the phone's battery more quickly, but not usually quickly enough to drain it all the way down before the end of the day. It was also a little clunky in that I couldn't put the phone in my pocket without it disconnecting. I had to either hold the phone in my hand or buy an accessory to put it on my belt when I was walking the dog. When Apple went from the original connector to the lightning port, it mostly worked fine through the adapter. Seems like the song tagging feature didn't work as it previously did, but it otherwise worked fine. I was disappointed when Apple got rid of all the 32-bit apps from the App Store, and the tuner app was never upgraded to 64-bit to run on the newer iOS versions.

For just over $10, it was quite a good product. Plus, with regular FM built-in as well, I was able to listen to sports play-by-play on my phone that I couldn't stream for rights reasons. I seem to remember that HD Radio dongle was around $75 when it was new. I wouldn't have paid that price for it, but it would've been worth it to me for half that for the FM tuner alone. If the developer would ever update that tuner app, I'd start using it again, but I know it's not going to happen.

 

[TheBigA]

My point is that without compelling content, the HD radio "revolution" they hoped would happen was dead in the water from the get-go.

You again didn't answer my question.

Without the ability to hear the stations, the content doesn't matter. It took years to get radios into stores, and even more years to get radios into cars.

This was a failure by iBiquity. Nothing else matters. If people can't hear you, the product doesn't matter.

Why would anyone buy an HD radio for that?

Once again, you COULDN'T buy an HD radio, because they weren't in stores and they weren't in cars, because iBiquity never made any deals. There was nothing any of the radio companies could do to fix that most basic problem. Can't you even admit to that?

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

You again didn't answer my question.

So basically, you want me to admit that the only problem was that - at first - people could not buy an HD radio and nothing else matters. Had the radios been on store shelves/in cars right away, it all would have worked perfectly. Is that what you're saying?

Because it is my contention that WHEN the radios were finally available, there was nothing on them that was compelling enough to make people interested in buying the product (and you seem to be denying that content is a product, or even important for that matter).

You seem to think there was no overlap between the time that the HD Radio Alliance spots started, and the time that the equipment was made available to consumers, and that had they coincided, HD Radio - no matter what programming was on the "extra" channels - would have been a smashing success.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

The fees for broadcasters are not terribly high, and it's only a small amount per vehicle for cars. The real issue is that radio wanted to be able to say "digital" back in the 1990's and they got HD. But soon after HD was introduced, we got smart phones and the interest in having a separate radio device disappeared.

The first iPhone wasn't introduced until 2007. Both Spotify and the iHeartRadio app with its competing features were introduced in 2011.

Apple CarPlay wasn't introduced until 2014. Prior to that, there wasn't even a very user friendly way to hook your phone into your car audio system to stream music on the road. It would take even longer for the uptake of CarPlay and Android Audio to really start kicking in. Keep in mind the 4G network was not as robust during those buildout years either. The transition to streaming has been gradual and it's essentially still a work in progress.

HD Radio had many years to gain a foothold during this whole time period but they pretty much blew it.

 

[TheBigA]

So basically, you want me to admit that the only problem was that - at first - people could not buy an HD radio and nothing else matters.

Do you know of any other way that the general public could have heard the content? Maybe I'm missing something.

Because it is my contention that WHEN the radios were finally available, there was nothing on them that was compelling enough to make people interested in buying the product

It depends on the station or the market. Because NPR spent a lot of money creating new content for HD. I know for a fact that some CBS stations (particularly WUSN in Chicago) created original content. Clear Channel had its format lab working on stuff. But after waiting years for consumer radios to be available, most of the radio industry had moved on to streaming. People already had phones. No need to wait for electronics manufacturers to make them. They were already in people's hands. The HD window of opportunity had passed. The loss was iBiquity's.

You seem to think there was no overlap between the time that the HD Radio Alliance spots started, and the time that the equipment was made available to consumers, and that had they coincided, HD Radio - no matter what programming was on the "extra" channels - would have been a smashing success.

Did I say that? No. If you go back through these boards to when I joined, I've always expressed the view that any new service that required the public to buy new radios was going to be dead in the water. I feel the same way about DAB.

 

[EricStein]

Honestly, the whole thing was handled poorly. They rolled out the promotion before they had a unit capable of receiving the signals. When the product (and we're talking about two products here...the actual radios and the content that they deliver) was made available, it was not compelling.

My point is that without compelling content, the HD radio "revolution" they hoped would happen was dead in the water from the get-go.

It's a bit like if the gaming industry hyped a "coming soon" new console that was allegedly miles miles ahead of the ones consumers had, and when the console finally dropped...there were no new games that took advantage of it's capabilities. Instead they just repackaged some already available games, then were left scratching their heads when the console didn't sell.

With a few local exceptions, the players in the industry both major and minor basically said "um...here's a couple more HD stations for you to listen to if you want. Or don't. We don't really care."

Why would anyone buy an HD radio for that?

That reminds me of the saga with Radiosophy, which was founded by a couple ex-Gateway computer executives to market HD radios. They thought with their connections to Chinese OEMs, they could get in on what they thought would be a winning product. Their first radio, the Multistream, took about a year to release, and once it was out, the receiver was cheaply made, didn't have good sensitivity or sound, and was just completely buggy. I happened to send mine back, and I think a lot of people who bought into their hype did so as well. They quickly found another OEM for their second product, the HD 100, which was slightly better. It wasn't enough to save them from going out of business soon after.

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

Do you know of any other way that the general public could have heard the content? Maybe I'm missing something.



It depends on the station or the market. Because NPR spent a lot of money creating new content for HD. I know for a fact that some CBS stations (particularly WUSN in Chicago) created original content. Clear Channel had its format lab working on stuff. But after waiting years for consumer radios to be available, most of the radio industry had moved on to streaming. People already had phones. No need to wait for electronics manufacturers to make them. They were already in people's hands. The HD window of opportunity had passed. The loss was iBiquity's.


Did I say that? No. If you go back through these boards to when I joined, I've always expressed the view that any new service that required the public to buy new radios was going to be dead in the water. I feel the same way about DAB.

Well working backwards here, no, I have not gone through your entire posting history trying to glean what your opinion might be on this or that topic. I have a general sense of some user's opinions, but scrolling through past posts thinking "I'd better read up on what The Big A thinks about X before I jump in" would be...a little weird.

As for your (sorry I didn't see it before) opinion that people having to buy a new radio was what killed the beast, I would counter that this has happened before. FM required everyone who wanted to hear it to buy a new radio. Everyone who wanted to hear that sweet CD quality sound had to buy not just a CD player, but replace a good portion of their music library with CDs. The VCR was replaced by the DVD, the DVD was replaced by the Blu-Ray. And as I alluded to earlier...video game consoles.

And while it took awhile for the equipment to get to market, they are on the market right now and have been so for quite some time. My rickety old 2016 car has an HD radio, and just this morning as I was sitting in the drive thru at Whataburger (the one near me is very slow) I was flipping through the various HD2 and 3 offerings of our local stations. "Oh, this one has Dan Patrick's show! Where else could I possibly find that?!" I didn't have to buy any extra equipment. The car already had what I needed to find out that HD2 and 3 channels aren't worth the effort. *

And yes, phones came along, and streaming services, and those things have made HD radio irrelevant for the most part, but that's happening for FM as well. In another thread it was pointed out that AM radios are starting to disappear from some cars. I have pointed out on a few occasions that younger people today don't even think of the thing in the middle of their car's dash as a "radio." For them it's the "infotainment."

Yet for a moment, there was a chance that HD radio could have had something to offer. Yes, the radios weren't ready when the promotion started, but when they were (and they've been available for a long time now), there was nothing of value on them. Perhaps things would have turned out different if companies had put more effort into them, but more effort is something the business gave up on long ago.

*I listen to The Wow Factor on the HD radio because the signal and sound are better.

 

[TheBigA]

FM required everyone who wanted to hear it to buy a new radio.

The difference was that FM was freeware by 1966, so there were no royalties to pay for radio manufacturers adding it to their devices. HD Radio is a trademarked technology. Also, there was a marked difference in audio quality between AM & FM. It was an easy decision. The content wasn't more compelling. The best talent in the world was still on AM, and consumers didn't care. They walked away in order to hear stereo music. This was at a time when there was a personal stereo boom in the country. Everyone wanted to buy the best home stereo. That boom was over by the time HD came out. By then, everyone was buying PCs. I remember going to CES that year and there were no displays for HD radio. It was all about PCs.

But you continue to ignore the fact that radio companies were hawking this new technology, and consumers couldn't hear it. That didn't happen with FM, CDs, DVDs or any technology you can name. Only HD Radio.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

You again didn't answer my question.

Without the ability to hear the stations, the content doesn't matter. It took years to get radios into stores, and even more years to get radios into cars.

This was a failure by iBiquity. Nothing else matters. If people can't hear you, the product doesn't matter.

Tabletop HD Radio receivers were widely available (at least, as widely available as they ever became) by Christmas 2006. Radio Shack sold them. Best Buy sold them. Circuit City sold them. Yes, it was probably at most two models in any given store. And no one paid to give the HD Radio receivers the same grandiose displays as Sirius and XM had established.

But the universe you describe, where the HD alliance was spending millions (in-kind) on advertising while the units did not exist is a fictional universe. We don't need to invent fictions to make the HD Alliance look bad, they did enough of that on their own.

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

The difference was that FM was freeware by 1966, so there were no royalties to pay for radio manufacturers adding it to their devices. HD Radio is a trademarked technology. Also, there was a marked difference in audio quality between AM & FM. It was an easy decision. The content wasn't more compelling. The best talent in the world was still on AM, and consumers didn't care. They walked away in order to hear stereo music. This was at a time when there was a personal stereo boom in the country. Everyone wanted to buy the best home stereo. That boom was over by the time HD came out. By then, everyone was buying PCs. I remember going to CES that year and there were no displays for HD radio. It was all about PCs.

But you continue to ignore the fact that radio companies were hawking this new technology, and consumers couldn't hear it. That didn't happen with FM, CDs, DVDs or any technology you can name. Only HD Radio.

I have said several times in this thread that the technology was not available when they started hawking it. I have conceded that this was one of the mistakes that were made. Yet you continue to ignore the fact that I've mentioned this. I'm not expecting you to go back through my posts from way back, but at least read what I'm saying now.

Since you're not: No, the HD radios were not ready for market when the marketing started. There. I've said it again. But again, that was not the only thing that killed HD radio.

As far as FM vs AM, there was a long time when FM was just this "weird new thing" that only a few people - what we'd call "early adopters" now - listened to. It was years before "the best talent in the world" started migrating over.

And speaking of HD and CES, way back in 1987 a college professor of mine came back from that year's CES raving about this new technology that was going to change TV forever. The picture was so clear, it was like a movie...better, even! How long did it take for that to go to market? Years. Because in addition to consumers having to swap out their TV "sets" for the new models, the entire system all the way up and down the food chain had to change.

Consumers...hell, even entire industries can be motivated to change...if you give them a compelling reason. Yes, the HD radios were not available when the HD Radio Alliance started hawking them, but - again - when they were available, the content wasn't there. When DVDs came out, they were filled with "extras." Director commentary. "Making of the movie" features. Interviews with cast members. Blooper reels.

Content. Yes, the quality was better, but the real selling point was the content. The radio industry failed to understand this back when they tried to foist HD radio on the public, and they don't seem to understand it now.

 

[TheBigA]

But the universe you describe, where the HD alliance was spending millions (in-kind) on advertising while the units did not exist is a fictional universe.

You say the radios were available by Christmas 2006. But the Alliance began a year earlier, in 2005:

The HD Radio Alliance - AVC

Today in NYC, seven of the largest radio broadcasters announced the formation of the HD Radio Alliance. According to Radio World, the HD Radio Alliance will be run by Peter Ferrara, formerly a VP at Clear Channel. The Alliance’s major efforts will include "the coordination of formats on a new...

avc.com

That's when the promotion campaign began. At the time, they admitted in the release that they had no HD radios in cars. It took at least 5 years to get their first car company to install HD as standard equipment. So yes, one year after launch, there was really only one model: A table radio, similar to the KLH table radio selling for $200. As I recall, it was mono, not stereo. No clock radios, no portable radios, no audio receivers. and no radios in cars. Meanwhile, every major radio company was promoting it as thought these things were as available as AM/FM, and that was false.

Here's an article in Radio World from 2006:

https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/confusion-reigns-about-hd-radio

 

[TheBigA]

Yes, the HD radios were not available when the HD Radio Alliance started hawking them, but - again - when they were available, the content wasn't there.

You keep saying this as though it's true, and it's not. Maybe at your station, but as I said, WUSN in Chicago had an HD station that only played new country releases. NPR had an entire division that created content for HD. Clear Channel used its format lab to develop formats for HD. You may not have known about it, but it was happening. You use this term "compelling content." What does that mean? Some people clearly find the Jack format to be compelling. You seem to find The Wow factor to be compelling, even though it's just a jukebox with no local hosts. The same kind of thing was being done on HD Radio in 2005.

 

[Larry]

saying?

Because it is my contention that WHEN the radios were finally available, there was nothing on them that was compelling enough to make people interested in buying the product (and you seem to be denying that content is a product, or even important for that matter).

I disagree as after buying an HD radio for myself I bought 2 more as gifts for friends, as there was HD content I knew they would enjoy, both different content and simulcast of AM stations in town. But by then I think the big publicity campaign for HD radio had stopped somost people were no longer thinking of HD radio as an option and the promotion I think was limited to local stations promoting their additional HD options

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

You keep saying this as though it's true, and it's not. Maybe at your station...

Thanks for confirming that you're ignoring what I've written in this thread. When our HD2 channel launched, myself and the MD created not just a separate version of our main station, but an entirely new concept. As another poster called it, a "passion project." Something we did in our spare time because it was something we'd always wanted to do. The station we wanted to hear.

We were given a little rope, but before long the HD2 channel became "shit, it's Friday at 5. Can someone schedule the music logs for the next month? Hand it off to an intern...I don't care."

 

[TheBigA]

We were given a little rope, but before long the HD2 channel became "crap, it's Friday at 5. Can someone schedule the music logs for the next month? Hand it off to an intern...I don't care."

As I said, because no one could hear it. The example I gave at WUSN continued for years.

 

[nd2023]

Thanks for confirming that you're ignoring what I've written in this thread. When our HD2 channel launched, myself and the MD created not just a separate version of our main station, but an entirely new concept. As another poster called it, a "passion project." Something we did in our spare time because it was something we'd always wanted to do. The station we wanted to hear.

We were given a little rope, but before long the HD2 channel became "crap, it's Friday at 5. Can someone schedule the music logs for the next month? Hand it off to an intern...I don't care."

95.7 WBEN-HD2 in Philadelphia has had the same playlist since the summer of 2007. They are a “rhythmic variety hits” format. I listened since I got an HD radio in 2006. They played some current rhythmic CHR hits. They added new hits often. Until the summer of 2007 when they just stopped updating it. You can hear some lost hits from 2006/2007 like Paula DeAnda - Easy, Pussycat Dolls - Buttons, Kat Deluna - Whine Up, Fergie - Glamorous, Akon - Smack That, Rihanna - Break It Off, etc. still in heavy rotation. But nothing newer.
I have been listening to this station since then and nothing has changed, they’re not intentionally doing a throwback format, they just haven’t cared to update it. I don’t mind it because 2006 and 2007 was a good time in my life, my freshman year of college. I’m hoping that they never change the playlist or get rid of the HD2, because I want my future kids to enjoy it too.

 

[KeithE4]

In an effort to save $$$ for licensing and other fees, the HD2 and HD3 channels on KOOL-FM, Big 945 have been shut down.
No more Rock of the '80's or the 70's channel. Apparently this decision affects multiple markets.

But not on on KALV/101.5 and KMLE/107.9. HD continues on both. KALV is airing programming on HD2 (Channel Q per Wikipedia) and HD3 (CBS Sports). KMLE is airing what had been KOOL's 1970s music on its HD3, although the display shows Audacy/BetQL. Nothing on HD2.

 

[kfbkfb]

IMHO, the radio "industry" should have worked on improving analog FM reception (in vehicles) rather than devising HD...maybe called the improvement (wait for it)...FMax.


FMax (proposal):
The diversity antenna tech is time proven to improve FM reception in vehicles
and
the tech in the Carver TX-11 FM stereo tuner:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/80s/Audio-1982-12.pdf#page=50

^^^
"In my area, 10 or 12 stations are too noisy for stereo. Pressing the buttons made every one listenable and acceptable!"


The Carver FM tech could (and should) have been used in vehicle FM radios (probably still could be, maybe DSPized).


Kirk Bayne