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HD doings

C

CTListener

Interesting developments for the few, the proud, the HD Radio listeners. WKCI's HD2 has gone all-Christmas, with a deeper than usual selection of holiday tunes going back to the '50s, almost certainly iHeart's Christmas format. WHCN's HD2 has gone '70s and '80s pop oldies, with generic-sounding iHeart jocks at least part of the time, complementing the '50s and '60s jukebox on WDRC-FM HD2. The HCN playlist is all big hits, while the DRC list has quite a few surprises. Of course, ANYTHING from the '50s qualifies as a surprise on FM these days, but '60s songs like Procol Harum's "Homburg"? The pre-Muppets version of "Ma-nah-ma-nah"? Really?

Interesting listening. Too bad the medium is dead in the water.
 
GreatCallofTheNorthEast said:
You couldn't tell the difference between a rental car and an HD radio?
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Wow, ok I will explain it too you. I could not tell a difference between HD radio and regular radio. At least not enough to want me to go out and buy a HD radio unit. Sure there are sub channels that are nice. But I really don't see a reason to upgrade. I didn't hear this huge difference in quality. Sure AM maybe sounded a little better but FM was about the same.
 
Don CT said:
Wow, ok I will explain it too you. I could not tell a difference between HD radio and regular radio. At least not enough to want me to go out and buy a HD radio unit. Sure there are sub channels that are nice. But I really don't see a reason to upgrade. I didn't hear this huge difference in quality. Sure AM maybe sounded a little better but FM was about the same.
Click to expand...

The only value to me is the subchannels, two of which (WDRC and WWYZ) play music that I like that isn't heard anywhere else on the FM dial. Agree fully about the audio. It's nothing special.
 
CTListener said:
The only value to me is the subchannels, two of which (WDRC and WWYZ) play music that I like that isn't heard anywhere else on the FM dial. Agree fully about the audio. It's nothing special.
Click to expand...
What is the percentage of listeners on HD radio? Has is ever gained traction?
 
Don CT said:
What is the percentage of listeners on HD radio? Has is ever gained traction?
Click to expand...

Probably lower than the percentage with satellite, which is in the low/mid 20 millions nationwide. Although, really, who knows? There are no public sales figures or user numbers available, and while HDs sometimes show up in ratings, it's only in markets where they're simulcast over low-power translators, so there's no way to know how many are using an HD radio. I know of a couple of non-radio geeks who went out and bought one for the content -- one for oldies, the other for games of a minor league hockey team that put them on HD only for a season or two. So there are probably many more listeners than the snarky "dozen or so" that the anti-HD brigade (mostly DXers bemoaning loss of out-of-market adjacent-channel signals) so often cites on these boards, but how many more is anyone's guess. It's safe to say the technology never really gained traction, either with radio listeners in general or the radio stations that chose to offer HD streams, then programmed them in the cheapest way possible.
 
I am one of the original HD listeners since my new car had that capability. One FM here in Phoenix put a 70's playlist on their HD2 and I was a faithful listener until several months later when they flipped it to something else which included a lot of music I was not fond of so.....no more HD in Phoenix. Then I found a couple of Oldies stations on the 'Net that had perfect playlists for me. The best one recently restricted its online signal to its geographic area so now I'm down to one. That one is an OTA AM in the Midwest and is pretty good but then I found KOST HD2 online and I am back to HD (although not OTA).

Like others have noted here, I can find no significant difference between a good analog FM and a digital FM however I am listening through 70 year old ears. I think the biggest advantage HD had was that the base stations can service additional genres with their digital signals. Whether that results in additional listeners is probably more a function of their individual markets than any advantage of technology. For those people who can get their favorite music from analog sources HD is a non-starter.
 
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