Let me clarify, RF - what I meant was, the RATE of HD installs is declining. After the initial spurt of Alliance-owner big-group stations and NPR outlets (subsidized by federal funding for HD installs) the rate slowed to a trickle. Everybody knows this. Look at the regularly-published HD Scorecard (actually a house ad for Broadcast Electronics) which appears regularly in RW.
WINS and WQEW? Both are Alliance-affiliated owner stations (CBS, the perpetrators of IBOC, and Disney which for some inexplicable reason thinks its subteen AMs should be in HD - I would suspect some kind of typical blanket corporate mandate operating here.) Check Barry McLarnon's station list for HD-AM at
http://topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html - arguably the most accurate, most-frequently updated tabulation of HD-AM operators. Some high (low)-lights:
260 operating HD-AM - after over FOUR years of implementation, and most are "digital daytimers," with only 87 on with HD at night! That's TWO PERCENT of AM stations running HD fulltime (including, to be extra-charitable, SIXTEEN stations listed as "intermittent operation.")
And please, please spare us the oft-repeated argument "but those 260 stations cover 93% of the US population" (or 98% or 88% or whatever this week's claim is.) That's ridiculous and everyone knows it's ridiculous. Coverage of landmass or population doesn't mean anyone's actually listening. Looking at the McLarnon list, I would bet the total of HD-AM operating stations comprise less than 20 percent of all AM listening in the US including both analog and digital, with HD-AM digital-only audiences "negligible," or "too small to measure."
Add to this how you can't buy the dopey radios any more at retail - most major electronics stores have bailed including Radio Shack - and it's hard to see how anyone can seriously argue that HD-AM is a meaningful answer for the band's ailments, even if IBOC worked, which it doesn't.
On the FM side, we now have the abrupt reversal of HD proponents who have told use tirelessly, tiresomely, against massive evidence in the field, that the digital coverage is "as good as" the analog - that there now needs to be a TENFOLD hike in digital power for the system to work reliably. Make no mistake - this time, HD has worn out its welcome. The 10db proposal has a lot of opposition. NPR doesn't support it, and neither does the legal arm of the NAB.
Either HD Radio is going to fly or it isn't. With carmakers firmly not-on-board with HD (unless you guy a $4000 electronics package in a freakin' Hyundai) and internet radio making immense strides - WYSL's streaming audience has quadrupled over the past year - I'm betting on the latter.
