Boston ratings: what's missing

[4CX1000A]

I don't see any HD-2 channel listed.

I installed HD Radio on the original WCRB (102.5), and that was five years ago (January, 2006), and I added an HD-2 a couple of months later. WCRB's was hardly the first in town, and after so many years, you'd think at least one would do as well as the WBZ-FM Internet stream. But I've never seen one show up in the ratings.

That doesn't bode well for HD Radio, methinks.

 

[Jimmy128]

I don't see any Sirius XM channels or Pandora either but that dosen't seem to mean anything. I listen to HD2 all the time, although they are in other markets.
I listen to WDAS HD2 in Philadelphia. Plays R&B love songs and WLTJ HD2 in Pittsburgh plays Urban. And I have Sirius XM in my car. Goodbye regular radio.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

I don't see any HD-2 channel listed.

Not much of a surprise, given the resounding lack of interest in HD from consumers and the slowly dawning realization on the part of broadcasters that this particular tech is going exactly nowhere. The only surprising part of the HD story is that, in a down economy, broadcasters have hung on for so long to a technology with zero ROI.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I'm sure that there are far too few people with HD radios to give any measureable ratings to HD2 or HD3 stations.

There are many more people with computers and other internet listening devices than there are with HD radios, enough for an internet stream to occasionally show up, but not enough with HD radios for HD subchannels to show up.

I also listen to HD subchannels often, my favorites are the ones on 100.7, "WBCN Free Form Rock" on the HD3, and "Radio Mojo" (blues) on the HD2. I also like occasionally hearing some unusual '70s tunes on 105.7 HD2 "Nothing But The '70s", and my mom constantly listens to "WCRB All-Classical" on 89.7 HD2 because 99.5 does not come in well where she lives.

But, despite me and my mom listening, I realize that HD radio listeners are very few and far between. Most people who aren't in radio (and even some who are) still have no idea what it is, or confuse it with satellite radio.

I once heard somewhere that a bluegrass HD2 channel had shown up near the bottom of the ratings in one of the Virginias or Carolinas, but I don't have a reference for that.

 

[MarcB]

And in Hartford it's fake. You'll see in the PPM's WMRQ HD-2, but it's really its translator on 97.1 (formerly on 97.5). It's a Spanish Tropical Station known as BOMBA 97.1

 

[JustinT]

As a proud owner of an HD Radio since 2006, I think there's two areas that we'll be seeing HD succeed in the future:

1) To retransmit content for translator stations like the aforementioned WMRQ-HD2.

2) Radio stations that have audiences that are very small but very loyal. KTRU, a college radio station in Houston, is about to move to an HD2 channel. If the listeners believe enough in the programming that it's worth a $50 investment, then I believe they'll go to HD.

When smooth jazz stations in assorted markets move to HD2 channels, that seems unlikely to compel listeners to make the switch. There's just too many places to find smooth jazz online or on XM for the listeners that care about it, and the non-P1 listeners will just move to an AC station. There's no other place to find a station like KTRU. At least that's my guess...

 

[carmen]

how is KTRU harder to find online than smooth jazz?

if youre going to go to something digital, UDP multicast makes a lot more sense than HD Radio

 

[uncamark]

how is KTRU harder to find online than smooth jazz?

Like 'em or not, college radio stations are not cookie-cutter. The mix of music and specialty programs are different on each college station and depending on what part of the country where you went to school (and the size of your distaste for mainstream music), your loyalty is with that local station. I'm sure there are people from Houston who listen to KTRU because their local college station's more a learning lab (i.e. mainstream music) or a public radio station than a "free form" music station--or simply as a reminder of home.

 

[JustinT]

how is KTRU harder to find online than smooth jazz?

True. I think the HD there works to pacify folks who want to listen to KTRU in the Houston area who don't have unlimited data plans, have offices that block streaming audio, etc. Another plus is that the HD KTRU is branched off of a 100,000 watt signal that covers the entire region, while the FM KTRU is a rimshot 50,000 watt signal that's missing some of the city's quickest growing areas.

Is HD KTRU as good as FM KTRU? Doubtful. But when Rice University can run the HD KTRU for the small number of students who want to be DJs, while also having the $$$ to build a new dining hall to serve all students, it's not a big surprise to see this happening.