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Ford Exec Writes Open Letter to Broadcasters...

IIRC Ford is an investor in iBiquity.

Perhaps Ford would like to help by establishing a compensation fund for broadcasters who suffer from IBOC interference. Or putting it another way, perhaps Ford would be interested in a bright idea radio broadcasters have which would in effect close half their dealerships for six hours every Saturday.

As hair says: nice try. Go make and sell your cars and let us worry about the broadcasting business. If "your customers are PO'ed," don't blame the radio industry because Ford didn't do its homework and realize how defective HD Radio is. Not for nothing, but the vast majority of radio has been against this thing from the start.
 
React?? By doing what, bursting into a huge gale of laughter? :D

Oh, yeahhh - I can hear it now at the big-radio management meeting!! "Hey, PD, sales, accounting and CE! Nobody's installed HD Radio for 6 months. The system is a total failure in the marketplace. Nobody's even bothering with the tenfold increase in digital power they lobbied for. It will run up our electric bill and cause all kinds of maintenance headaches. You can barely buy an HD Radio any more. But some Ford suit said he needs us to go HD. Let's blow 20 or 30 or 50 grand!! Get it done!!"

And the clincher: the economy sucks. When Greece and Italy are teetering on the brink and Wall Street is scared, does anyone honestly think Ford's mouthpiece is going to have a motivating effect on radio managers? (That is - ones who would like to actually keep their jobs??)
 
I'd love to know why any radio management should give a nickel for any opinion from the Ford Motor Company that is encouraging them to spend money on a product that has been rejected by the marketplace and will be a net revenue loser for years to come.
 
How will this make customers mad unless there are the small minority of the population who actually know what HD Radio is and want it. HD Radio isn't going to bring back the crowd that switched to iPods and smartphones for their music.

In fact, the lack of HD Radio stations will keep more customers happy. People who don't know about HD Radio and its flaws will wonder why their station keeps dropping in and out of HD. While some people may not even notice, if the station's HD and analog are out of sync they will notice quickly. They will think this is a Ford problem and complain to the dealer that they were sold a defective radio.
 
Yes, excellent point, spunker. If I were Mr. Ford Suit, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the potential of being confronted by "PO'ed" customers demanding their HD Radio! ::) :D

What, hasn't the complete absence of HD Radio receiver sales gotten anyone's attention in Detroit??? I thought these were supposed to be the New Smart Breed of American carmakers?? Kinda scary...
 
People know what HD radio is. They don't care. Radio stations play the same 12 songs by the same 10 artists over and over. It's no fun listening anymore when you can predict with 90% accuracy what the next song/artist will be. So, now i'm supposed to go out and buy an HD radio for $50 to hear the same 12 songs by the same 10 artists over and over? Why? I can hear that on free radio. Let me give you an example:

Out here in Los Angeles we have a classic rock station, KLOS. A friend of mine who relocated to Utah 6 years ago recently came out to visit friends and family. He listened to KLOS for 20 minutes, shut it off and said "They're playing the same songs, in the same order as they did the day I left." I myself have set a clock to within minutes of accuracy based on their playlist. Classic Rock from the '60's on up and they play the same stuff over and over? There is no "Man, I haven't heard that song in ages" putting a smile on the listeners lips and a bounce in their step, and keeping them tuned in to see "...what they're going to play next..." It's "Oh god, their playing the Who/Led Zeppelin/ Rolling Stones/ etc. again!" And you wonder why people are tuning out radio and listening to IPODs?

Radio is missing the boat the same way record companies missed it with the internet. When the internet was in it's infancy I thought "You couldn't ask for a better promotional tool for your bands than the internet." But needless to say the record companies did not embrace it and they are suffering because of it. The same way Radio is going to miss out on HD. Instead of having the same people do the same thing on HD that they are doing on "free" radio, do it as a brand new station. Hire new talent. Fresh voices, fresh ideas. (In both on air and programming) Give people a reason to WANT to listen. Word of mouth will get out. And people will WANT to hear what is going on. But instead it's "Hey, let's do the HD thing. We'll play the same stuff we're playing on our regular station." How is that supposed to get people listening? If KLOS has an HD station what would make me tune in when their regular station made me tune out?

The thing that you have to remember is people aren't going to pay for something they can get for free elsewhere. I remember years back when a lot of news sites on the internet tried to make you register for their site to get the news, or would even charge you for it. That didn't last long because people got the same news from other sites without paying or registering. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER ME THAT I CAN'T GET SOMEWHERE ELSE! That goes for ANY business.

I actually remember a time when radio was fun to listen too. It's not fun to listen to anymore, at least on the music side. It's too predictable, their are very few personalities. I could go on and on. As for Ford ........ if Ford wants everybody to do the HD thing they should withdraw ALL advertising from the over the air stations and only advertise on the HD stations. Let's see who wins that one.
 
Here's a hint.....it wouldn't be Ford....

I do agree with you about corporate-programmed radio, Unk. Again, we're talking about the music side of things. Part of the problem is what is largely dreck which passes for CHR these days, utterly devoid of the mass appeal of Top 40/CHR as recent as the 1980s, and a universe away from the dayparted fun-to-hear stations that made music radio so ubiquitous and indispensable in the 60s and 70s.

Take the lousy "music" and the remainder of the stations are devoid of any other content - and you get - what we have. It's sad.

A minor point: HD is "over the air," but I think I know what you mean.
 
You can almost hear Bob Struble say to Jim Buczkowski, "I can't talk anymore to these holdout broadcasters. Here, you talk to them."

But as RBR observes, radio is a business and station brass will only make decisions, and rightly so, that will benefit the bottom line. Plus the, 'go digital because it's the right thing to do', argument has got to be the worst reason to convert to HDR. Ibiquity is not a charity--at least not yet.

I might mention that here in Los Angeles, KSWD does a feature in which they will play entire sides of LPs--and I do mean vinyl LPs. It's one of the most popular shows on KSWD. When will the HD Radio cheering section learn that listeners have no problem with analog. And it is truly a sweet experience to hear analog-on-analog--LPs broadcast on analog FM.
 
Carmine5 said:
You can almost hear Bob Struble say to Jim Buczkowski, "I can't talk anymore to these holdout broadcasters. Here, you talk to them."

But as RBR observes, radio is a business and station brass will only make decisions, and rightly so, that will benefit the bottom line. Plus the, 'go digital because it's the right thing to do', argument has got to be the worst reason to convert to HDR. Ibiquity is not a charity--at least not yet.

I might mention that here in Los Angeles, KSWD does a feature in which they will play entire sides of LPs--and I do mean vinyl LPs. It's one of the most popular shows on KSWD. When will the HD Radio cheering section learn that listeners have no problem with analog. And it is truly a sweet experience to hear analog-on-analog--LPs broadcast on analog FM.
Click to expand...

But doesn't KSWD broadcast HD signals? I wouldn't say it's 100% analog FM if that were the case.....
 
I seriously doubt any of the LA FM stations broadcast a 100% analog chain regardless of HD adoption, and that includes the Hispanic religious thing on 87.7. That ship has sailed.

It may not be wise for stations to start installing HD again, but that's no reason to turn off the ones that are operating now or neglect the HD-2/3 streams like so many do. The opportunity to break out of the 12-song mold (that sells commercials) for the deep playlist (that gets no ratings but has passionate followers) is a good fit for an HD-2 subchannel.

Instead, the corporate radio backers of HD put a PC in a closet and set it one playlist to 'repeat all' for eternity. When I stumbled on K-EARTH HD-2 while on vacation, I listened to it off and on for the whole week I was out there, enjoying the "oh wow" factor of some of the songs, and kind of sad that I was saying "oh wow" to stuff that was common fodder for the 80's oldies stations I grew up on.

When I got home, I fired up the HD-2 feed on my cell phone/PC and listened and realized it's a big loop with little to no randomization. How disappointing! There may be only so many "hits" to be played on a classic format, but that doesn't mean someone can't hit the shuffle button once in a while. Grr.

What makes me mad is, you've invested in this boat anchor and at this point it's just sucking down a little extra juice. Why not maximize it and promote the hell out of the online streams and/or put them on FM translators? Birmingham is chock full of HD-2-to-translators now and they are being warmly welcomed.

Don't just shut it off. Make something of it. An idea most of radio has forgotten, small town stations included. :mad:
 
Savage said:
A minor point: HD is "over the air," but I think I know what you mean.
Click to expand...

Yea, but I'd have to buy a $50 radio to pick it up. Why would I do that when they are playing the same things on the HD Channels as they are over the "regular" stations? Satellite Radio I can see doing that for because they offer stuff you can't find on the radio dial. (Big Band, Old Time Radio Shows, Comedy Channels, etc..) But I can hear The Who, Zeppelin, The Stones, Boston, on the regular FM feed. I don't need to buy a new radio to hear that when I can hear them just fine on my current radios. And as for the sound, it might wow you once, but when you hear the same song with such frequent repetition that you can set a clock to it, it gets old quick. And THAT is why HD won't work.
 
Ford is also a business, and rightly so makes decisions that benefits their bottom line. Though while radio focuses on this month, this quarter, Automotive will plan years in advance. Consumers will listen to analog, but what they want most is the ability to choose content. And not just what station, but down to the actual song. Pandora, Spotify and alike are coming to dashboards and all manufactures will offer technology their consumers want to buy. Do they want HD? Only time will tell.




Carmine5 said:
You can almost hear Bob Struble say to Jim Buczkowski, "I can't talk anymore to these holdout broadcasters. Here, you talk to them."

But as RBR observes, radio is a business and station brass will only make decisions, and rightly so, that will benefit the bottom line.
Click to expand...
 
It's a generalization that HD stations are simply duplicating main channels, or playing the same 12 songs over and over. There are some HD stations that play deep cuts. In markets where the college stations have been sold, the former OTA college stations are now available as HD stations. NPR is using HD for lots of alternative programming. Bluegrass, Americana, and jazz. CBS and CC are using HD for alternative and fringe format music channels. The fact is that programming is not going to sell HD radio. So it's not about programming.

Regarding Ford, I rented a Ford last week. The model I got didn't have HD radio. But it DID have SiriusXM. I turned it on and guess what? It didn't work. Why? No subscription. If Ford is so concerned with its installed devices working, they should also complain about the concept of satellite radio. Because for lots of Ford owners, those satellite radio buttons don't work. Then again, I noticed a lot of blank buttons on my dashboard.
 
TheBigA said:
Regarding Ford, I rented a Ford last week. The model I got didn't have HD radio. But it DID have SiriusXM. I turned it on and guess what? It didn't work. Why? No subscription. If Ford is so concerned with its installed devices working, they should also complain about the concept of satellite radio. Because for lots of Ford owners, those satellite radio buttons don't work. Then again, I noticed a lot of blank buttons on my dashboard.
Click to expand...

I rented 3 cars from Enterprise in May & June - a Ford, a Dodge, and Kia. All had SiriusXM; it worked in two of the cars - the Ford and the Kia. The Dodge only had the "barker" channel enabled. I don't think Ford is to blame in your case, but the rental company probably is.
 
KeithE4 said:
I don't think Ford is to blame in your case, but the rental company probably is.
Click to expand...

So when will Ford write a letter to the rental companies?

Methinks they're being selective. As someone whose worked with Ford's ad agency, it's been my sense that they're not big fans of OTA radio. On the other hand, GM, Toyota, and Chrysler are.
 
KeithE4 said:
TheBigA said:
Regarding Ford, I rented a Ford last week. The model I got didn't have HD radio. But it DID have SiriusXM. I turned it on and guess what? It didn't work. Why? No subscription. If Ford is so concerned with its installed devices working, they should also complain about the concept of satellite radio. Because for lots of Ford owners, those satellite radio buttons don't work. Then again, I noticed a lot of blank buttons on my dashboard.
Click to expand...

I rented 3 cars from Enterprise in May & June - a Ford, a Dodge, and Kia. All had SiriusXM; it worked in two of the cars - the Ford and the Kia. The Dodge only had the "barker" channel enabled. I don't think Ford is to blame in your case, but the rental company probably is.
Click to expand...

Satellite radio is a niche product.Years ago rental car were among the first to have A/C installed which was not, a rental company who usually only keeps a car two years if that, is not going to spend money on anything that consumers are not clamoring for, that's money off the bottom line.
 
KB1OKL said:
Satellite radio is a niche product.Years ago rental car were among the first to have A/C installed which was not, a rental company who usually only keeps a car two years if that, is not going to spend money on anything that consumers are not clamoring for, that's money off the bottom line.
Click to expand...

I can't say I was all that impressed with it. It's certainly not something I'm going to put in my car. I already have radio apps (TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Radio.com, NPR, and CBC) in my Android. They work well enough through my FM radio. Don't need satellite.
 
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