Storm Clouds on the Horizon

[davideduardo]

Why were those in a position to make the big decisions so clueless about this?

iBiquity was founded with venture capital from some VC guys and from nearly all the major radio groups. When you have a vested ownership interest, things seem to look different.

HBC was an investor. At an early HD meeting with all the managers and executives that we had in Miami, iBiquity did a presentation. I asked about when portable radios might be available and Struble said "that is still in the planning stage". The fact was that the necessary DAC chips back then were so power hungry that battery life would have been just a few hours. I realized that the whole thing was DOA. Then I heard AM HD at a convention, back when it sounded like a backed up sewer...

But we were investors, so we built them. But nobody came.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The only place HD has been a success is as a pipeline to feed translators. It's expanded the programming offerings in some markets - for better or worse. As a medium itself it's an abject failure - especially on AM. Bringing back AM stereo would be a better answer for stations that can't squeeze in an FM translator. Cumulus doesn't appear to be pursuing that option - likely because the FM band in Buffalo is already saturated.

 

[Element9]

iBiquity was founded with venture capital from some VC guys and from nearly all the major radio groups. When you have a vested ownership interest, things seem to look different. HBC was an investor. At an early HD meeting with all the managers and executives that we had in Miami, iBiquity did a presentation. I asked about when portable radios might be available and Struble said "that is still in the planning stage". The fact was that the necessary DAC chips back then were so power hungry that battery life would have been just a few hours. I realized that the whole thing was DOA. Then I heard AM HD at a convention, back when it sounded like a backed up sewer. But we were investors, so we built them. But nobody came.

Fascinating "inside baseball" perspective. Thank you. BTW, Bob Struble, the recognized inventor of HD, grew up in Buffalo. He probably spent a lot of time listening to Buffalo FM radio. That Cumulus is dropping HD in Buffalo (and perhaps other markets of Buffalos's size and revenue) may speak more to the company cutting expenditures, Kia or Cadillac size, wherever possible in an attempt to remain viable. It may be that Mary Berner prefers cutting superfluous items like HD rather than cutting on-air talent. If such is the case, good for her.

 

[davideduardo]

Fascinating "inside baseball" perspective. Thank you. BTW, Bob Struble, the recognized inventor of HD, grew up in Buffalo.

Struble, if he invented anything, created the "iBiquity" brand and the "HD Radio" marketing name. Although he did his undergraduate studies at MIT, he became a manager after he got a Harvard MBA.

The technology came from a variety of totally prior developments, including Lucent (the old Bell Laboratories) which were pieced together, with enhancements like newer codecs, by iBiquity's engineers. iBiquity essentially put lipstick on the pig...

 

[davideduardo]

The only place HD has been a success is as a pipeline to feed translators.

... and in providing traffic data to cars and offering services to smaller ethnic communities.

 

[TheBigA]

Keep in mind that all of this was being developed in the 90s, back when the big talk was about satellite radio and it's 100 national channels, compared to OTA's 40 stations per market. This was seen as a way to add some additional formats to markets where they didn't exist. In a lot of cases, it's still how the technology is being used, with fringe formats that wouldn't attract a sellable demographic. The bigger companies offer stations lots of options to use, and NPR has lots of content available.

But the biggest drawback is that users needed to buy HD-capable radios at the same time that they could buy phones with lots of content options. Couple that with the lack of interest by foreign radio manufacturers, and it was a complete failure. If there had been more manufacturer interest, it might have inspired some consumers. But manufacturers were required to pay iBiquity a royalty to install the technology, and that made no economic sense to the radio makers. We'll see if there's more interest once the patent expires, and the technology is available for free.