HD Radio

[boombox4]

I completely agree. I am in the RF industry (Part 90 public safety LMR) and my consumption of broadcast consists of mostly just DXing. I love the broadcast industry and am fascinated by broadcast. That said our entertainment its typically Sirius (although their music selections on most channels gets tiring) and streaming either my own collection of MP3 or spotify/pandora. During storms I might tune into the local news AM outlet (KTRH). My wife couldnt tell you the last time she tuned in to FM and never has listened to AM. We are in our 40s. My son probably has no idea he has a radio in his truck that could pick up AM/FM and hes in his 20s. Him and his wife dont even have Sirius. Its all streaming. Once streaming made it to the dashboard as an app, it was just too easy to log on. No more clunky bluetooth or tethering a phone to the entertainment system. In car celluar makes streaming to appear as just another "band" adjacent to the radio. Add to that the abilty to tell Alexa or Google at home to play from streaming services, there is no need to put a radio in the house. Yes, sure we can ask them to stream our local FMs, but why would we do that when we can just say "Alexa play music by so and so and get the genre and similar artists".

I think that -- although your post is anecdotal -- what you say reflects the problems that Radio will have once it goes all online. There are so many streaming channels that are already more popular than either local radio streams or the big Radio streaming platforms.

"Alexa play some Soundgarden." Trumps FM radio streams every time.

The saddest thing about HD Radio's failure to capture the general public's appreciation is that it does offer stations higher fidelity reception, extra channels, etc. Of course, the digital royalties and some other issues get in the way of stations being able to fully utilize the HD2's and 3's as much as they would have been, had HD been rolled out differently. Streaming probably would have cut into HD even if HD had taken off, though. It's so easy to tap an icon on your phone and choose a streaming channel (although in my case, using Pandora -- which came installed on my phone -- it's not as easy as it should be. I should be able to access a channel in two or three presses, instead 6 or 7).

 

[boombox4]

I get all this....I really do. There are still plenty of people listening to radio.

But there is a considerable percentage of people, growing every day, that are not listening to conventional broadcast radio.....I offer Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, Sirius/XM, and legions of podcasts that are taking up "ear-hours" (hmm...did I just invent a new metric?) that used to be pointed at radio.

That is a big problem, and consolidations, voice tracking, dollar-a-holler spots, and more is not making it any better. The radio industry recently pointed gleefully that "only" 30% of young people get their music from streaming. That is supposed to make us feel BETTER?

Here on Radio Discussions we are an extract....a subset....a microcosm of the world at large. If people everywhere were increasingly dissatisfied with ice cream, and the overall consumption of ice cream was dropping world wide, if you visited the Ice Cream Makers and Eaters Forum, you would see it argued against. That is happening here.

According to Pew Research, Radio listenership dropped by 10% between 2012 and 2022, a gradual drop (they used Nielsen figures), probably mostly lost to streaming. Obviously, there is an issue if your medium (or business) is losing its consumers (92% of Americans to around 82%).

Radio still has a lot of ears, but their work is also cut out for them.

 

[Kent]

Clock radios probably still sell for a few people GenX and older. Most use their phones as an alarm. I know my former GF's 16 year old used his phone as an alarm, and that was in 2011. It was a flip phone.

This goes back to radio's ubiquity. People aren't buying radios; they're buying clocks that happen to have radios included with them. Don't know what the sales rates on them are these days, though. I don't use one anymore myself, but, so long as you remember to set them and keep them up-to-date, alarm clocks are easy and reliable. I use an Amazon Echo on a recurring weekday alarm to wake up now. Just-in-case I have power or internet problems or otherwise sleep through the smooth jazz music on my alarm, I have a backup alarm five minutes later on my Apple Watch. Despite my preference for the Alexa device to wake me up, I didn't need any backups when I used the standard alarm clock. I had to remember to turn it on every night, but it had batteries in case the power went out and worked fine every morning.

 

[BruceB]

Clock radios probably still sell for a few people GenX and older. Most use their phones as an alarm. I know my former GF's 16 year old used his phone as an alarm, and that was in 2011. It was a flip phone.

Clock radios are also cheap enough that you can buy several of them and scatter them through the house to serve as radios and clocks.Someone said earlier that you use your phone to see what time it is. that's true , but you have to get the phone out of your pocket or bag, activate it and then look at it to see the time as opposed to just glance at the clock radio as you walk through the room

 

[Don CT]

Clock radios are also cheap enough that you can buy several of them and scatter them through the house to serve as radios and clocks.Someone said earlier that you use your phone to see what time it is. that's true , but you have to get the phone out of your pocket or bag, activate it and then look at it to see the time as opposed to just glance at the clock radio as you walk through the room

So you sleep with your phone in your pocket? Mines on my nightstand right next to my bed.

 

[Kent]

So you sleep with your phone in your pocket? Mines on my nightstand right next to my bed.

I still wouldn't be able to see it without moving the phone or moving my head. The print's too small for my eyes, and I don't sleep in my contacts or glasses. I could, however, see the typical alarm clock on the nightstand just by looking over, though I just ask Alexa for the time if I wake up in the middle of the night and want to know.

I sleep with my emergency glasses next to my bed. I was a junior in college when the apartment two doors down from mine had a dishwasher fire one night. The people living there were third shifters, and they were running the dishwasher overnight when the fire happened. I woke up to the fire department banging on my door telling me to get out NOW. I was completely naked, and my glasses were in my luggage since I usually took my contacts out right before bed and put them on immediately after getting out of bed. After ending up in the parking lot wrapped in my blanket barely able to see, I made sure to start keeping at least a pair of shorts and a pair of glasses next to my bed!

 

[Don CT]

I guess what I’m getting at is people want to grow HD radio. It seems difficult to get basic radios with HD equipped. People are either buying a cheap alarm clock and don’t care about the radio in it or not buying radios at all.

 

[BruceB]

So you sleep with your phone in your pocket? Mines on my nightstand right next to my bed.

Lol, I get your point but you still have to pick up the phone wake it up and then check the time as apposed to just glancing at the clock radio. ⏰️

 

[vchimpanzee]

Clock radios probably still sell for a few people GenX and older. Most use their phones as an alarm. I know my former GF's 16 year old used his phone as an alarm, and that was in 2011. It was a flip phone.

I started to get one today, but for now the old one beeping isn't a problem. The lights are mostly out on the clock but the clock on the other works even if it doesn't seem to make anything happen.

 

[BruceB]

I started to get one today, but for now the old one beeping isn't a problem. The lights are mostly out on the clock but the clock on the other works even if it doesn't seem to make anything happen.

Lol! Clock Radios are cheaper than dirt!
You must be a frugal guy. Good for you.
I wish I could stop buying stuff I don't really need.

 

[boombox4]

I guess what I’m getting at is people want to grow HD radio. It seems difficult to get basic radios with HD equipped. People are either buying a cheap alarm clock and don’t care about the radio in it or not buying radios at all.

True. Radio stations generally don't promote their HD/HD2's. But they pound away on their app. "Get the app!" I suppose some of it is that younger demos use their phone for everything. Another reason is that HD2's won't monitor your phone's activity, and/or mine your data, for resale elsewhere. I'm not saying all stations' and radio apps do that, but the potential is there.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

Surprises me too.Seems like back in the 70s.Every FM station in Cincinnati had their own stick.Was that by choice or were they just ignoring the regulation

The regulation was very specific. I have reproduced the text (as it was amended in 1963 until the 2020 repeal) below:

No FM broadcast station license or renewal of FM broadcast station license will be granted to any person
who owns, leases, or controls a particular site which is peculiarly suitable for FM broadcasting in a particular
area and (a) which is not available for use by other FM broadcast station licensees; and (b) no other comparable
site is available in the area; and (c) where the exclusive use of such site by the applicant or licensee would unduly
limit the number of FM broadcast stations that can be authorized in a particular area or would unduly restrict
competition among FM broadcast stations.

(There was a similar rule for TV licensees)
I believe the way this is written, it would have primarily applied to skyscraper sites like Empire State Building.

If you imagine, in the 1960s, CBS had an exclusive contract to broadcast WCBS-FM and WCBS-TV from Empire, and NBC had an exclusive contract to run WNBC-FM and WNBC-TV from the Chrysler Building, and ABC had an exclusive contract to run WABC-FM and WABC-TV from the Manhattan Company Building (now known as the Trump Building, or 40 Wall Street), you could imagine the "independent" broadcasters having to settle for much lesser facilities. Keeping in mind that the ownership rules back then limited an owner to one AM one FM and one TV per market, so the whole market could have consisted of dozens of licensees.

In most other markets, competitors would have had a much easier time building their own steel lattice towers to fully serve the market, and no site could be described as "a particular site which is peculiarly suitable".

 

[fybush]

Ironically, you've identified exactly the situation that the FCC was addressing - just in reverse! When Empire went up in the 1930s, it was NBC that held exclusive broadcast rights there. As other broadcasters began to launch TV and FM, they had to find other, lesser sites. It was CBS that had the Chrysler Building, DuMont was at 515 Madison Ave, ABC at the Hotel Pierre, WOR built its own big self-supporter in North Bergen NJ for channel 9, WPIX used the Daily News Building on E. 42nd for both studios and transmitter, and channel 13 operated from West Orange.

By the early 1950s, the FCC stepped in to break NBC's exclusive hold on Empire and all seven of the VHF TV stations soon were transmitting there, with FM migrating there more slowly. It wasn't until the Alford master FM antenna was built there in 1965 that most of the FMs without sister TV stations were able to move to Empire.

 

[Kent]

In most other markets, competitors would have had a much easier time building their own steel lattice towers to fully serve the market, and no site could be described as "a particular site which is peculiarly suitable".

I suspect part of the logic in repealing it had to do with how few broadcasters own their own towers now. The big four have sold all their tower sites that can be used by multiple stations. A few smaller broadcasters might still own their own towers, but it's probably a very small minority.

 

[Don CT]

True. Radio stations generally don't promote their HD/HD2's. But they pound away on their app. "Get the app!" I suppose some of it is that younger demos use their phone for everything. Another reason is that HD2's won't monitor your phone's activity, and/or mine your data, for resale elsewhere. I'm not saying all stations' and radio apps do that, but the potential is there.

They could promote it all they want, if you can’t get a radio with HD in it what’s the point.

 

[BruceB]

They could promote it all they want, if you can’t get a radio with HD in it what’s the point.

I don't understand why people keep saying you can't get HD radios.I just did a Google search Amazon, Best.Buy,eBay, crutchfield and others.You can even get them online from Walmart.I mean, where do you live? on Jupiter?On this planet you can get HDradios.

 

[Don CT]

I don't understand why people keep saying you can't get HD radios.I just did a Google search Amazon, Best.Buy,eBay, crutchfield and others.You can even get them online from Walmart.I mean, where do you live? on Jupiter?On this planet you can get HDradios.

Walk into Target or Walmart and look for an HD radio.

If I’m shopping on Amazon it’s for a Bluetooth speaker not a radio.

 

[BruceB]

Walk into Target or Walmart and look for an HD radio.

If I’m shopping on Amazon it’s for a Bluetooth speaker not a radio.

That is your personal choice.That's not the same as saying.People can't get an HD radio because that statement is simply untrue.
I have a hunch that you've never even owned an HD radio.You just decided you didn't like it because it was something new

 

[speer360]

By Far the large majority of HD radio Chip sets are being used in Cars as OEM infotainment equipment.

People just don't buy standalone radios, let alone seek out a HD one.

 

[BruceB]

By Far the large majority of HD radio Chip sets are being used in Cars as OEM infotainment equipment.

People just don't buy standalone radios, let alone seek out a HD one.

I completely agree with you.But the guy said people can't get them.And that's simply not true.