Re: Standard HD Radio for Volvo 2009?
Volvo/Ford: another former HD Radio proponent, quietly backing towards the exits, and hoping nobody notices.
You can't blame them. There comes a time in the attempted launch of every failed concept when boosters have their moments of clarity and decide to move on. You saw it when the Alliance essentially abandoned stations and you're watching it as iBiquity redundantly launches "developments" like the laughable "HD Radio University." What's next? An "announcement" about "i-Tunes tagging??"
The NPR HD-FM interference study could well be the death knell. Who in their right mind would install HD after that information was released? FM stations stand to lose a third of their in-car audience to HD interference. That's just stupid, even if you could still buy radios at retail which would actually work reliably, which you can't, and which they don't. And of course there is the unsustainable HD-AM mess. There are fewer than 20 new HD-AM signals on the air since the Great 9-14-07 HD Nighttime Rollout. That's in a universe of 4700 AM signals; if that's not a resounding flop, I don't know what is. Most of the HD-AMs are "digital daytimers" with at last count only 85 stations on with HD-AM at night. And even that tiny minority is causing huge skywave interference problems, to say nothing of creating their own local self-interference shots-in-the-foot. KDKA has lost more than half its metro Pittsburgh coverage from idiotic self-interference and roaring adjacent skywave interference from co-owned WBZ. 1020 can't be heard clearly in Washington (PA) or Greensburg or New Stanton any more. Trashing their own CBS properties presumably continues in order to preserve the egos of former iBiquity execs/now CBS dolts Dan Mason and Glynn Walden, the poster children for the Criminal Stupidity Which Is HD.
In answer to the obvious question - "is there a government agency which should be investigating iBiquity?" On an emotional level, I would say "of course," but legally it's unclear what Justice or the FBI or the OMB should be probing - unless, of course, somebody like a whistle-blower comes forward with actual hard evidence that somebody at the Commission was bribed. Or that somebody from iBiquity tried to bribe somebody. These situations would give rise to corruption and conspiracy probes.
Volvo/Ford: another former HD Radio proponent, quietly backing towards the exits, and hoping nobody notices.
You can't blame them. There comes a time in the attempted launch of every failed concept when boosters have their moments of clarity and decide to move on. You saw it when the Alliance essentially abandoned stations and you're watching it as iBiquity redundantly launches "developments" like the laughable "HD Radio University." What's next? An "announcement" about "i-Tunes tagging??"
The NPR HD-FM interference study could well be the death knell. Who in their right mind would install HD after that information was released? FM stations stand to lose a third of their in-car audience to HD interference. That's just stupid, even if you could still buy radios at retail which would actually work reliably, which you can't, and which they don't. And of course there is the unsustainable HD-AM mess. There are fewer than 20 new HD-AM signals on the air since the Great 9-14-07 HD Nighttime Rollout. That's in a universe of 4700 AM signals; if that's not a resounding flop, I don't know what is. Most of the HD-AMs are "digital daytimers" with at last count only 85 stations on with HD-AM at night. And even that tiny minority is causing huge skywave interference problems, to say nothing of creating their own local self-interference shots-in-the-foot. KDKA has lost more than half its metro Pittsburgh coverage from idiotic self-interference and roaring adjacent skywave interference from co-owned WBZ. 1020 can't be heard clearly in Washington (PA) or Greensburg or New Stanton any more. Trashing their own CBS properties presumably continues in order to preserve the egos of former iBiquity execs/now CBS dolts Dan Mason and Glynn Walden, the poster children for the Criminal Stupidity Which Is HD.
In answer to the obvious question - "is there a government agency which should be investigating iBiquity?" On an emotional level, I would say "of course," but legally it's unclear what Justice or the FBI or the OMB should be probing - unless, of course, somebody like a whistle-blower comes forward with actual hard evidence that somebody at the Commission was bribed. Or that somebody from iBiquity tried to bribe somebody. These situations would give rise to corruption and conspiracy probes.