Still Beating a dead horse?

[yugoidar]

Has anyone noticed the proliferation of commercials promoting HD Radio in recent days?

I have heard at least a half dozen in my casual listening over the past week or so. (All Access lists HD Radio as the number one advertiser for the week as well). It’s amazing to me how an industry that has the number of major issues that are discussed so frequently on these boards continues to beat this dead horse. A horse that was DOA!

From all that I hear, after a few years now, penetration is still very low, prices are high, signals are spotty and most consumers weren’t necessarily looking for “improved audio quality”.

Note to industry leaders: It’s quality programming…just like it’s always been, it’s what comes out of the speakers that counts!

If anything, HD radio can only dilute main channel listening (ratings) and is not likely to develop a significant revenue stream for years, if ever.

Talk about taking your eye off the ball! What are these people thinking?

 

[Element9]

Talk about taking your eye off the ball! What are these people thinking

They're thinking they can create a market where non exists. HD is destined to join AM Stereo or FM Quad on the junk heap of unexecuted bad radio ideas. When a product is introduced, the marketplace dictates a need by virtue of how consumers perceive the product and its usefulness or attractiveness. With new technology products such as HD, 10-34 year olds often drive the market. This particular demographic has little interest in HD and that isn't likely to change. Radio (like the general economy) is in crisis mode. Witness the reported Regent sales offering. It seems many operators are trying to put a new suit on a body that needs a heart bypass.

 

[Savage]

I know - isn't it absolutely unbelievable? Dumber and dumber with each passing day. The only thing the incessant, repetitive HD Radio promos is generating is: listener complaints. We aren't even playing them and are getting annoyed listener comments to the effect of, "what the hell is all this about HD Radio anyway?"

The creative is actually offensive.

Whatever radio listeners are looking for, we KNOW it isn't improved audio quality. It's programming that actually doesn't suck. For a change.

HD Radio is "unexecuted?" Well, it ought to be. Before it gets a chance to cause any MORE damage.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Dead from the Shoulders Up

The best part is that these owners will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, engineering time, licensing, and promotional inventory for a technology that yields less return than on-line streaming. Yet, they're cutting $40K/year jobs, and shoving salary cuts down the throats of other talent who provide the part of their product that attracts listeners to radio in the first place - the value added that differentiates radio from an iPod or satellite feed.

Then they wonder why TSL is down, and why there's little listener loyalty.

 

[ThePickleReport]

The radio industry is becoming like the recording industry, shrugging their shoulders at things they should care about until it's too late.

I heard Howard Stern mention this morning a figure in the many millions of dollars that the NAB has spent lobbying against the satellite merger. In reality it's only the big guns and/or politically connected that probably care. The little guys in smaller markets, by recent count, are outperforming the big markets by keeping their eye on the ball---local revenue.

Another case in point.

RANT ON: I read on Scott Fybush's website (something I heard a rumor about awhile back) that daytimer WCJW-AM in Warsaw is getting an FM translator which will in fact make them a 24-hour station and the only one originating in Wyoming County. THAT'S GREAT! And it's probably 20+ years too late!!! Most of the stand-alone AM's are dying and or already dead. That should have been priority #1 well before duopoly, LPFM, etc.

 

[JohnGault]

Yet, they're cutting $40K/year jobs, and shoving salary cuts down the throats of other talent who provide the part of their product that attracts listeners to radio in the first place

...Not to mention voicetracking, sterilizing the product, and not allowing any new talent to be interesting or speak up and get noticed!!!

I wish they were "wondering why TSL is down". They're not. They are bragging that it's only down 3% and just squeezing as much out of every quarter as they can while making long term losses all but certain.

And now it looks like HD will end up as a data stream to send traffic to devices nobody has designed yet, that will also be outmoded by Wifi before they can be in cars. These guys are spinning!!! It hasn't occurred to them that HD with no content is nothing. There are NO CHANNELS on HD with anything other than automation.

The ride will be very rough, and most will be thrown from the Bull.

 

[Steven21]

I believe that in many cases, HD is an attempt by those at the top, to make it seem as if the industry is doing SOMETHING about all the problems that have popped up in recent years---whether it be alternate audio sources or the systematic degrading of mainstream programming for cost-cutting purposes.

HD may in fact be nothing more than a somewhat feasible idea in appearance only, that is really meant to distract from the dark cloud that has settled over the industry.

Wall Street interests have no concern for the long term. That explains a lot about the direction things have gone.

HD is a great thing to tout---as long as those you're telling, don't understand the state of this medium and the unlikelihood of HD actually finding it's way into the American consciousness.

AM Stereo was more viable, mainly because there were still plenty of people relying only on broadcast radio for their audio entertainment.

HD is fatally flawed, because it plays to broadcast radio's weaknesses, not strengths. If people want niche music programming (commercial free), they will (and can) program it themselves, PERIOD.

The biggest strength that broadcast radio has, is the ability to showcase personalities that can relate to and/or entertain an audience. Of all the things to de-emphasize, leave it to terrestrial radio to target and undermine the only thing they really had going over all the other audio options.

Those at the top are either alarmingly out of touch with the reality this industry is facing, or they just don't give a $hit.

 

[NeedsMoreCowbell]

Again, let me point out that just like HD TV, HD Radio is going to be the standard. It's digital radio, what's wrong with that? People liked vinyl better, there were complaints about how compressed CDs sounded at first, but that didn't stop it from taking over.

Time marches on - in a few years all radios will be HD. If the "suits" want to spend marketing money touting new technology before everyone adopts it, let them.

God, the whining on this board.....

 

[alw]

HD Radio is going to be the standard. It's digital radio,

God, the whining on this board.....

Dear Mr. Cow:

I have no dog in this fight, but for reasons of my own, I would like to see HD Radio get some legs. (at least HD FM) But I'm not so sure that HD will becme the standard, in the end.
HD AM seems to be dead in the water, if things don't change. The FM version seems to be less troublesome.(?)

The whining you refer to is not empting bitching, but rather radio pros, some of whom actually have large investments at stake.
Mr. Savage has invested blood sweat & tears (sounds like a good name for a pop group) into a stand alone radio station that is now being negatively impacted by a half baked IBOC-AM scheme that doesn't work right.

I think he's earned the right to do a little whining.

I'll admit that some folks have become a bit obsessed, and take it a tad over the top.
But, it's not without some reason.

If the system worked, I don't think it would garner so much whining.

 

[Steven21]

Again, let me point out that just like HD TV, HD Radio is going to be the standard. It's digital radio, what's wrong with that? People liked vinyl better, there were complaints about how compressed CDs sounded at first, but that didn't stop it from taking over.

Time marches on - in a few years all radios will be HD. If the "suits" want to spend marketing money touting new technology before everyone adopts it, let them.

God, the whining on this board.....

What people have a problem with, is not a vinyl vs. CD situation. This has to do with the lack of investment and foresight in current programming, vs. money spent on something that will give NO RETURN. Let me repeat: NO RETURN.

Putting even 1 cent into HD programming at a time when regular programming has been cut so dramatically, is foolish.

NO ONE cares about HD stations or programming. If this had been persues 20 years ago, they might be onto something, but as is usually the case in this biz---it's a day late and a dollar short.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

As I remember it personnel costs can only be written off for a year. However technical improvement costs can be written off for 5 years.

 

[Savage]

I've got to disagree with Cowbell. It remains to be seen whether HD will indeed be "the digital radio standard." Five years of experience with HD seems to indicate otherwise. The system represents a seemingly endless parade of technical faults, gaffes and embarassments and has totally failed to connect with the public or even the broadcasting industry, as witnessed by posters on this and the HD radio board. As two recent (and reliable, Alliance-spin free) market surveys, one by Arbitron, have shown, consumer awareness of HD is very low and declining.

Literally the ONLY supporters of HD are Alliance-captive big-group operators - even on FM, a tiny fraction of the station population - iBiquity and the NAB. The radios are invisible at retail. There is NO listener interest. The system doesn't work well in the field. Any reasonably objective observer will concur: the interference is unacceptable. Even if HD-booster-detested analog AM were abandoned tomorrow it wouldn't help HD-AM work any better because roaring skywave interference would still wipe out reliable night coverage.

Perhaps worst are the HD radio promos referred to in this thread. The endless repetition of dubious-at-best creative, which in some versions actually insults main-channel analog programming, conveys one of two equally destructive messages: (a) radio is so stupid it keeps promoting a "dead-issue" technology, suggesting extreme desperation; (b) radio advertising doesn't work. They've been hammering HD for two years now and still nobody is buying the radios.

Radio badly needs to learn the lesson the HD debacle teaches: cynicism, bribery and power don't help when trying to force defective technologies on the marketplace. Which never works anyway.

 

[SirRoxalot]

How Dead?

HD will become completely superfluous as WiFi radios drop in price and access expands, especially in areas with high population density (i.e. "where the customers are"). Best Buy already has a WiFi radio available for under $200.00 - or the same price as HD.

We're already seeing phones that can use WiFi Internet connections to make and receive calls, access the Internet, and stream audio. If you're a manufacturer of phones or MP3 players, and you have a choice of including either WiFi or and HD radio tuner into your device, which one are YOU going to pick?

Radio may go digital at some point, but IBOC will not be the technology - at least in the AM band.

 

[Element9]

God, the whining on this board...

I'd prefer the word "prescience," especially as it refers to my comments regarding HD and my experience, to say nothing of my observations of the three highly aware and well educated nephews and a niece who are between the ages of 16 and 28, feeling a bit like Oscar Wilde in this regard, they care nothing about HD, especially as it compares to mp3 or iPod technologies. Apologies to Mr. Savage and AM proponents, but they care not a whit for Amplitude Modulation. I'd advise reading Sir Roxalot's post and link.

 

[Steven21]

WTF?

MEDIA MONITORS reports that the top-10 radio spots aired nationally for the week of 4/7-13 were as follows:

1. HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE
2. HOME DEPOT
3. GEICO
4. WAL-MART
5. VERIZON
6. MCDONALD'S
7. H&R BLOCK
8. TURBOTAX
9. FORD LINCOLN MERCURY
10. STATE FARM

 

[Savage]

And to promote the purchase of radios that don't work, and for which you practically need an internet search and a private investigator to find at retail, to an audience that will never care, a product which was irrelevant when conceived and which is impossibly, laughably so today.

It's absolutely un-freaking-believable.

Is there NOBODY in the radio industry with the cajones to step up, speak up, and stop this march of lemmings to the sea?

Someone, that is, other than Martin Stabbert?

 

[SirRoxalot]

The List

That list of Top 10 advertisers tells you all you need to know about radio revenues...

 

[JohnGault]

For all you need to know about HD, just look at the top ten list of personalities you can only hear on HD. Ooops. How about the amount of revenue HD generates? Oops. Wait I can maybe come up with ten people who listen, mostly chief engineers.