Clear Channel radio station off the air in NYC for days!

[nd2023]

Z100 HD2 has been off the air since Friday. With the lack of IBUZ on 100.1 and 100.5, I have been able to pick up yet another AC station, Magic 100.1. But there's no place to hear Z100's New Music HD2 channel, I'm one of the 5 people who isn't able to hear it.

It's obvious they don't care about HD. If the main signal goes off the air, it would be back on in a heartbeat, even if it went off at 4AM on Sunday morning. This is a #1 market Clear Channel owned radio station, and they don't care about the listeners with HD radios, as shown by the slow response. If they did care, they would at the very least simulcast Z100's HD2 on another station's HD3 until they fix the Z100 HD exciter.

 

[musicman3355]

Clear Channel (and sometimes CBS Radio) in LA does the same thing here, have its HD2 signal off the air. Thats pretty unprofessional if you ask me...

 

[LibertyNT]

Why Be In a Hurry To Fix Something That Costs you a lot of money to use
and doesn't give you any in return.

 

[GooberVision]

The transmitter has experienced a catastrophic failure requiring shipping equipment back to the manufacturer for repair. Until that item is returned to service they will not be able to broadcast either Z100 HD nor the New Music Z100 HD2.

 

[davideduardo]

Clear Channel (and sometimes CBS Radio) in LA does the same thing here, have its HD2 signal off the air. Thats pretty unprofessional if you ask me...

In LA, many stations had HD channels off the air from the time of the record-breaking fires of late summer through very recently... damage to equipment, inaccessability of the transmitters and not fully HD enabled emergency transmitter sites all contributed, and it is very unfair to blame any station for something that is totally beyond its control.

 

[nd2023]

This is New York, not LA. There was no fire or any other natural disaster. An elevator leads right to the Empire State Building transmitters, so accessibility is not an excuse here.

My point is, if the analog transmitter has a catastrophic failure, it will switch to the backup transmitter at 4 Times Square. The HD transmitter failed, so essentially Z100 New Music HD2 is off the air. If they cared one bit about the HD2 listeners, they would put the HD2 on another Clear Channel station with a working HD transmitter as an HD3 until Z100's HD transmitter is fixed. That will not cost them anything. Otherwise, if no one notices the lack of HD, why even bother to operate the HD transmitters at all? Save the $10000 per year fee plus the electricity and maintenance, and get rid of HD. Z100 has been in HD for about 5 years, and its HD listenership has grown at about 2 listeners per year. It would be more cost effective for Z100 to not fix the HD transmitter, and Clear Channel should just operate HD on other stations till the transmitters fail.

 

[Seattleradiodude]

For as much complaining and spamming all over these boards as you do about no longer listening to HD Radio, you sure listen to it alot!

But there's no place to hear Z100's New Music HD2 channel

they would put the HD2 on another Clear Channel station with a working HD transmitter as an HD3 until Z100's HD transmitter is fixed.

Save the $10000 per year fee plus the electricity and maintenance, and get rid of HD.

First point, not true. They stream Z100 HD-2 online

The second point is pretty self explanatory, its like if Z100 switched dial positions with KTU with zero promotion. Mass confusion leading to unsatified listeners and potinally lost "return listeners", it simply would not be worth it.

iBiquity requires no fee of $10,000 per year. HD Radio is licensed one time, and Multi-cast stations have a $2,000 per year fee.

 

[nd2023]

Online radio is not HD radio. Being on the air somewhere is better than not being on the air at all. OK, so the fee is $2000 a year, for 5 stations, making it $10000 a year for stations that generate 0 revenue. If the HD2 stations are getting listeners online, by all means keep them streaming online. There are more Internet-enabled phones than HD radios, so more people will be able to hear the HD2 stations via the Internet. You won't see people rushing to the stores to buy HD radios. The iPhone came out years after HD radio, and there are orders of magnitude more iPhones than HD radios. People talk on the phone and surf the Internet every day, and also listen to the radio every day, why aren't HD radio sales following the trend of the iPhone?

Since my best portable radio happens to be an HD radio, I do listen to it. HD2 is unreliable, so the HD is only useful for song titles.

 

[musicman3355]

People talk on the phone and surf the Internet every day, and also listen to the radio every day, why aren't HD radio sales following the trend of the iPhone?

It's either the limited HD coverage, or people think that they already have analog radio so they don't need HD, so they're probably not interested.

 

[TheBigA]

The iPhone came out years after HD radio, and there are orders of magnitude more iPhones than HD radios. People talk on the phone and surf the Internet every day, and also listen to the radio every day, why aren't HD radio sales following the trend of the iPhone?

Are you really trying to make a comparison between a phone and an HD radio?

The horse has been around longer than the car. I see more cars on the road than horses.

 

[Lazy J]

The problem with HD radio is iBiquity. They should have been busting their butts to get the auto manufactures on board. If HD radio came standard in every new car, the HD radio market would be huge. Satellite radio gets the majority of their customers from new cars.

iBiquity = Fail

 

[davideduardo]

The problem with HD radio is iBiquity. They should have been busting their butts to get the auto manufactures on board. If HD radio came standard in every new car, the HD radio market would be huge. Satellite radio gets the majority of their customers from new cars.

Satellite gives money to the car manufacturers. How can free radio do that?

 

[Lazy J]

Satellite gives money to the car manufacturers. How can free radio do that?

iBiquity charges a licensing fee don't they? Earlier in this thread someone quoted about $2000 per station. Sounds like that's a start. Plus, car manufacturers will add it if it will help sell cars, so use those licensing fees to make commercials telling consumers to demand HD radio in their cars.

 

[davideduardo]

Satellite gives money to the car manufacturers. How can free radio do that?

iBiquity charges a licensing fee don't they? Earlier in this thread someone quoted about $2000 per station. Sounds like that's a start. Plus, car manufacturers will add it if it will help sell cars, so use those licensing fees to make commercials telling consumers to demand HD radio in their cars.

That amount in fees barely amounts to the kind of fees satellite pays to put radios in a few thousand cars... and the fees paid by stations to iBiquity go towards iBiquity's operation.

The HD Alliance, representing a large number HD stations, uses tens of millions of dollars worth of radio time to promote HD to consumers already.

The fees paid by stations to iBiquity would not buy any meaningful advertising campaign... even if iBiquity were the proper party to pay for that.

 

[TheBigA]

Satellite radio pays the car companies MILLIONS of dollars for the right to be in cars. I recall the line item in XM's annual report was about $30 million to GM. That's just one car company. Plus the car companies get a percentage of all new subscriptions that come from people who buy new cars and then order satellite radio after the free trial. That's a lot of money.

 

[Lazy J]

I love these debates, because it a whole lots of..."You go first...No, You go first.... No, You go first..." It seems that nobody is willing to make an investment in it. The key to my earlier comment was the auto manufactures. If you got HD radios into cars, then people would start EXPECTING it in their cars. When people EXPECT it in their cars, GM/Ford/Chrysler will have to pick-up the tab. So make the investment and get it in to the cars.

And I think poorly on iBiquity because they created this technology and they have done a piss-poor job of getting it into the main place people will use it - Their Cars. And if it doesn't start showing up in cars, iBiquity will see their brainchild fall flat on it's face.

I'm not the CEO of iBiquity, so it's not my job to see the technology grow. But if I were, I would lock iBiquity, the BIG 3, and some private investors in a room and we wouldn't leave until we had a plan for putting HD radio in every new car in America.

 

[TheBigA]

When people EXPECT it in their cars, GM/Ford/Chrysler will have to pick-up the tab. So make the investment and get it in to the cars.

After almost ten years, that hasn't happened for Sirius. It's the other way around. The car companies EXPECT the money for placement in their dashboard, and they're requiring that for all other outboard installations.

And I think poorly on iBiquity because they created this technology and they have done a piss-poor job of getting it into the main place people will use it

I agree, but unfortunately, XM Sirius made it pretty much impossible for anyone without a huge wallet to do that. And iBiquity doesn't have a huge wallet. My view has always been that they should give the technology away for free in order to hook people. But they'd need to do more than that to get into dashboards.

 

[Barry]

AllAccess reports today that WHTZ PD Sharon Dastur acknowledged that the HD2 has been off the air since last Friday. This is due to "technical issues."
She said that the technical people are addressing the problems, but did not forecast when it would be back up.
Actually, it has not been unusual for HD stations to be off the air for a while. Fortunately, this seems less common than it was a year or two ago.

 

[nd2023]

Even when HD radios are put in cars, people are complaining about the bad reception on them. That generates negative publicity for them. People will ask the dealers for cars that don't have HD radios installed.

 

[Lazy J]

Well Nick, keep in mind, the FCC just approved a big power bump for HD radio. So the reception should get better. Plus, this gives the station and listener the ability to add more niche formats to the dial.

And the major difference between between satellite and HD is the fact that HD is free. Satellite Radio pays through the nose to get their equipment into cars, only to have a small portion actually renew their subscription after the free trial runs out.

I know there is no perfect answer of how to boost HD sales, but I can't help thinking that they are not taking a very good approach. Maybe the HD Radio Alliance could work an endorsement deal with The Big 3. Maybe the Big 3 add HD radios and the HD Radio Alliance gives some free advertising talking about how the new cars come with HD.

Just a thought....