Don Juan said:
I recall owners/operators saying the same thing about FM. "Why would I want to own an FM when I have a perfectly good AM daytimer?" Heck, I remember Westinghouse selling all their FM's....I think the quote was "We're an AM company and want to focus on our AM efforts". I remember air talent saying they would "never work on FM obscurity". Sponsors who didn't want to be on FM. "Why bother"?
OK Don Juan, this seems to be the default argument for the HD boosters: analogizing HD radio to FM in its early days. Only the analogy falls flat with a thud because the circumstances and details are completely different. For one thing, FM offered (and offers) huge and obvious technical and reception advantages over AM (under most circumstances). The concept of "static-less" radio and stereo were real mind-blowers back then. And yes, I remember it being sold as that. If anything, it was the broadcaster who dragged their feet on FM. For years, FM was the location of classical music and forgotten simulcasts of AM signals. However, once it caught on with the younger generation thanks to AOR formats, the sky was the limit. That's when the owners went in with both feet.
Now, you can try to draw parallels with today's HD - but they don't work. For one thing, choices were very limited back when FM was in its infancy. In the early days, the cost of a receiver was the main issue. They were very, very expensive (not really the issue with HD). And once people could finally afford to buy FM tuners, they sold themselves with fantastically clear reception and stereo hi fi's. It was mindblowing stuff back then and there was no equivalent, aside from buying vinyl. By the late 1960s, you could buy AM/FM radios that were just as compact, attractive and useful as your former AM transistor model, The added cost was commensurate with the added value that FM brought to the table. That's why they sold so well.
Today is different. Totally different. For one thing, HD isn't all that revolutionary. To most people, it just seems like a rehash of the satellite radio concept - only with a lot fewer choices. The audio improvement on HD-1 is there, but 1000 times less obvious than FM was to AM. It's basically inaudible in most cheaper units. And, the audio on HD-2 and (especially) HD-3 signals is usually little better than a low bitrate webstream. If anything, they sound worse than most people are used to with their FM radios.
Also, you'd turn on an FM radio in 1969 and it would work without having to have a degree in electrical engineering. HD radios are frustrating devices. The digital lock requires a perfect signal or it doesn't deliver anything. You show me a person who's delighted with all of his HD choices and I'll show you a geek who spent all day designing a great antenna setup with which to receive them all. Including some sort of an AM wire or loop antenna to get HD lock on a station that spews hash over its neighbors for hundreds of miles. Then I'll show you 99
other people who are disgruntled with their new HD radios because they don't work as advertised.
I've said it before and it bears repeating. Today's crop of HD radios are big, ugly, power sucking cubes that don't fit well into anyone's lifestyles. An FM radio in the late 1960s was like an AM radio, only nicer. Not true of most HD radios in the marketplace. People love their personal listening devices. They love them to be small, sleek and to work well without having to think much about them.
Not ONE HD radio offers this as yet. Even the new models are big, UGLY, cube-shaped devices. Not compelling and not worth the $100 to $150 price tag that they generally come with. Retailers know this, which is why you have to work so hard to even find one. It's hardly an impulse buy.
Lastly, HD radio has tons of competition. Standard radio is one form of it (as in what we have now is fine), then there's satellite radio and, finally - the HD killer - internet radio. If you need to have a great selection, then nothing will beat internet radio. THAT is the technology of the future. And it's already generating more buzz with no advertising than HD is with thousands of hours of it. Screwing up our present radio stations with digital sidebands is generating buzz, but the kind that interferes with other broadcasters.
Honestly DJ, there's NO excitement out there among the public about HD radio. None. None at all. I'll repeat this once more so you get it: NO EXCITEMENT AT ALL.
THEY DON'T CARE.
What broadcasters are doing by polluting the airwaves with crap digital sidebands is the electronic equivalent of peeing in their own swimming pool. It's not forward thinking, it's just foolish. You want digital radio? Then go with a different piece of spectrum as they did in the UK. Or just forget it.
