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I heard an HD radio spot!!!!!!!

S

Steven21

In spite of reading that HD radio advertising is HUGE, I finally heard/noticed an HD radio spot yesterday!

I felt so, so, honored to be one of the few who noticed this spot hiding in plain sight.

My impression of the spot?

Absolutely NOTHING about it would compel me to listen to it, no less go out and hunt down and purchase an HD receiver. NOTHING.

This begs the question: Who do the radio execs think they're fooling with all this hype?

It begs another question: Are they really THAT stupid?
 
I personally believe that if a person really wants to hear the programming that is being offered on HD, if its not offered elsewhere, they will go through all the trouble to get a HD receiver to get that programming. I rarely find any programming that I can stand on traditional radio anymore. I spend most of my time listening to Internet Radio or my MP3 Player.
 
LowPayDJ said:
I personally believe that if a person really wants to hear the programming that is being offered on HD, if its not offered elsewhere, they will go through all the trouble to get a HD receiver to get that programming. I rarely find any programming that I can stand on traditional radio anymore. I spend most of my time listening to Internet Radio or my MP3 Player.
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The odds of that happening with the general public, are smaller than the brains of the executives who thought this whole thing up.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by these very boards, radio people are often too close to the situation to realize there is NO buzz whatsoever about HD radio...and with good reason.
 
No Buzz?

HD radio creates PLENTY of buzz.

Especially on AM adjacents.

Until HD radios are available for under $50, or its included as standard on all car radios, there's little chance of impact. I believe that radio broadcasters would be better served by concentrating their dollars on talent and their Internet presence that throwing money at Ibiquity.
 
Ive been hearing spots like this for pretty much a year now... before HD was even in majority of the stations in the market. How could this be your first time hearing it??? Regardless HD is a misnomer when it comes to radio, the entire concept seems to be a major misfire for the industry rather than a saving grace :(
 
We run little HD Radio promos from NPR on WEOS fairly regularly...but we haven't been hawking it too much since it's so scarce in the Finger Lakes area; ergo, we're one of the few stations transmitting it and right now our offerings are meager. No real PAD, no multicasting...and the HD reception in Geneva proper is miserable thanks to terrain and 1st adjacent interference from WRVO.

This summer we're hoping to change a lot of that; move to 89.5, boost the ERP, move the exporter back to the studio, purchase PADapult for Enco, add multicasting, and purchasing a heterodyning HD-FM translator for 90.3 in Geneva. Then we'll start our HD marketing in earnest.

BTW, at the Public Radio Engineering Conference, there was a presentation about how despite pubradio's best efforts, the marketing for HD Radio has been almost criminally awful. One example given was that terrible HD spot with Billy West (he does Fry in Futurama and Spongebob Squarepants' voice) where it's a non-HD radio talking about how terrible HD is for it because HD does all these really cool things. It's heinous, and worse, I've heard that spot on the air in Boston, NYC, Rochester, and Wash.DC. UGH! (I've been traveling a lot lately)

FWIW, last week I got an email from iBiquity stating that Toyota has agreed to make factory-installed HD Radios standard on all Scion-brand cars "soon". Exactly what "soon" means is up in the air...and makes the announcement kinda meaningless...but assuming "soon" means something like "in time for the 2009 or 2010 models' release" then that's pretty good news. Especially since Scions are a "youth market" vehicle.
 
I just installed a Visteon add-on HD unit in my car (about $30 plus shipping on eBay), and I am pleasantly surprised by the number of HD-2 stations in Rochester. Only problem is that now I want more! Where' the HD-2 from the rest of the broadcasters? What kind of variety will they bring and when will they bring it! I guess I'm just too impatient...
 
I've never really understood how radio, already faced with too much audience and revenue fragmentation, would benefit from a couple dozen new channels in every market. If stations claim they can't afford to staff the signals they have now, and HD is going to be the budgetary stepchild in the cluster, those radios will have to get awfully cheap before I buy one.

I believe HD is just a step along a conscious path toward refarming the bandwidth. Eventually, after the analog signals are regulated away, today's radio broadcast operators will be left holding data distribution channels which may, or may not even distribute audio.
 
SSSKub said:
Ive been hearing spots like this for pretty much a year now... before HD was even in majority of the stations in the market. How could this be your first time hearing it??? Regardless HD is a misnomer when it comes to radio, the entire concept seems to be a major misfire for the industry rather than a saving grace :(
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I guess like most listeners, I tune out most spots.

There is nothing interesting about HD radio and nothing interesting about the spots touting HD radio.

The smell of desparation is in the air.
 
By the way, HD radio is FATALLY FLAWED:

The whle point of radio is to sell advertising. If you stick pots on the HD channels, you have given the advantage to ipods and satellite radio. If you don't air spots on HD radio, then what's the point of the station?

Dumb, dumb, dumb.
 
Steven21 said:
By the way, HD radio is FATALLY FLAWED:

The whle point of radio is to sell advertising. If you stick pots on the HD channels, you have given the advantage to ipods and satellite radio. If you don't air spots on HD radio, then what's the point of the station?

Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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You also said you like most listeners tune out spots. So what's the point of clients running spots on the radio if everyone is tuning them out?

Where I live the additional HD streams have given us formats we don't have on the main channels. If HD ever reaches critical mass the commercials will follow. I give radio credit for trying to do something new but I sure wish they would put more money in to the main carrier than they are doing now.
 
Mike Sheridan said:
You also said you like most listeners tune out spots. So what's the point of clients running spots on the radio if everyone is tuning them out?

Where I live the additional HD streams have given us formats we don't have on the main channels. If HD ever reaches critical mass the commercials will follow. I give radio credit for trying to do something new but I sure wish they would put more money in to the main carrier than they are doing now.
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Obviously, spots eventually penetrate, which is why FREQUENCY is so important in getting the message to stick.

As far as your hypothesis regarding the eventual placement of ads on HD....

Are you crazy?

Do you understand what is happening to the medium and what challenges lie ahead? Do you really believe that HD audiences will actually GET an audience? Do you ac5tually believe that this mircale audience will forego all these other options especially when HD adds spots?

You must have grabbed onto the AM-Stereo concept with both hands.

Again, some people are waaaaaay too close to the situation to have a clear picture and/or unbiased opinion.

HD is a desperate attemptto stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, radio is putting a bandage on the wrong leg.
 
I wonder if you would have said the same thing about FM in 1950? It drifted and was not stereo but it did get better.

I never said when the spots would appear ;D

If stations really wanted to promote HD they would give audiences a taste of the HD2 programming from time to time on the main channel.

Part of the reason HD will not catch on is retailers are more interested in technology that comes with a subscription.

Buying one HD tuner didn't kill me. I wanted to see for myself what it was like. I admit HD on AM creates more problems than it solves but at least I'm not condeming it without actually trying it.
 
Can't speak too much for commercial radio, but in public radio there is a demonstrable "rising tide lifts all boats" effect. So even if there is a "splitting of ad revenue" across multiple HD-n channels...there are more listeners in total to public radio than there would be without the HD-n channels. If managed properly, that can be leveraged to ultimately increase total net revenue.

It helps that public radio has a format and listenership that naturally lends itself to the HD-n channel methodology. Moreso than most commercial radio, anyways.
 
It's clear that if stations don't put some unique & compelling programming on their HD2 and/or 3 channels it will certainly fail. If they continue to simply stream their main channel on the HD2 channel......what good is it?

One of the FM-HD2s is all blues-all the time; Buffalo being a very good Blues town (ask WBFO) this might be a very attractive format to have out there. What ever it is needs to fill a void and be well enough programmed to be seen as an alternitive to the Sat. pay-to-listen services.

And, by the way, word of mouth promotion is not good enough.

I'm only, at this point, talking about FM-HD. AM-HD needs to clear up too many problems to be viable, and probably should be shut down until the technology is much more evolved. As it is it's only a distraction and a point of contention.
 
AM-HD is much worse than "a point of contention.' It's blowing some first-adjacents off the dial at night. Some nights WYSL can't be heard more than a mile from the transmitter site because of IBOC noise from WBZ.
 
Bob:

When I suggested that AM-HD should be shut down, you were on my mind.

I'm well aware of your situation and I think it's unconsionable (sp?) that your business should be so adversely affected simply because the FCC jumped the gun and allowed HD to be turned on before it was ready....if it ever will be.

I would imagine that you have raised some hell with them.....how do they respond when you do?
 
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