radiopilot said:
You could also filip that comment and say how many sheep bought into the HD consortium only to be fooled by it's misgivings and realized radio will never be as a viable product anymore, some of those sheep also had their experience with HD and also bought the HD radios.
XM and Sirius is not the issue but how bad the programming is on terrestial radio whether it's analog or HD.
Oh, you're right about XM and Sirius. They've been spinning their wheels and losing money since day one, but XM did launch a massive ad campaign aimed solely at smearing terrestrial radio for the first few years of their existence and people bought into it. They clearly didn't buy into it enough to actually get an XM subscription, but they did buy into the hype. When they launched, Lee Abrams actually held a party for all the new XM employees. They were encouraged to bring some treasured piece of memorbilia from some station they had worked at (station jacket, gold records, etc.) and it was all used as fuel for a bonfire. It was supposed to be symbolic and show just how different XM is from FM and AM. The new XM employees were symbolically walking away from their terrestrial radio pasts.
XM is different. In my opinion, it sucks. The audio quality stinks. Many of the channels are poorly programmed and they're all poorly imaged. They may not play commercials, but they certainly play promos for their other channels, and they're usually very boring and repetitive. I had an XM subscription for about a year and I heard many of the same bad promos the first day and the last. They have a lot of automation flubs on their talk channels. Rejoin liners (when they exist at all) are usually drowned out by bumper music from the syndicated shows they're running.
From my own listening experience, and the shared recordings of others like R.F. Burns, I can't personally discern the IBOC "buzz" everyone likes to crow about here. As far as I can tell, it's having no impact quality-wise on the existing product. It merely offers new programming choices.
Are some terrestrial stations programmed poorly? Yup! There's over 11,000 of them so naturally there's going to be a few stinkers. Are some HD2 channels programmed poorly? I guess. The ones I hear sound just fine to me. Better than XM quality-wise and much better imaging. Not much in the way of personality, but since one of the big gripes the "radio sucks" crowd has is too much DJ chatter, that may not be an altogether bad thing.
Do I think HD2 will set the world on fire? Not really - but it will continue and it will continue to grow in popularity. It will always be a bastard stepchild to the HD1 and analog channels, but it will have a fan base.
Here's a question for you. What qualifies you to make a determination on the quality or lack of it regarding the programming of terrestrial radio? Have you programmed successful stations? Do you have a long history of ratings success as a jock? Have you consulted successful stations?
I view people who come here and anonymously toss barbs much like I view kids who call request lines just to yell "YOU SUCK!" and hang up. Every station I've ever worked at has "sucked" in the opinion of some bored 10 year olds, yet most of them have dominated the Arbs and made a lot of money.
So what exactly are your qualifications?
