Study Indicates Most People Are Clueless About HD Radio

[WNTIRadio]

the best picture quality on a tv set doesn`t mean much when with OTA reception to those who struggle to get a consistant signal

That's not a lot of people. Most everyone I know has cable or satellite for their HD needs. I have a small log periodic antenna on the roof with a 25dB amp and can get all of the Philly stations, 80 miles away (I'm in a valley too) except the boneheads who stayed on channel 6. But I'll bet I'm the only one in the neighborhood, or even town, that does that!!

It would be cheaper for the TV stations to shut it off and buy each OTA viewer a satellite receiver set up to receive the basic OTA channels only. Cut a deal with DirecTV to pay them what the electric bill would cost, and the stations can save on tower rent.

AM isn't dead. FM isn't dead. 93% of the population still uses analog radio. OTA TV is on life support, and has been before the switch to digital. 15% at best use OTA. But the demand for better picture, no matter what the delivery method, was there. It isn't for radio's case. And the "extra channels" would have been cool in 1990. Now, there's 1,000's of "extra channels" on Sirius/XM and the internet.

 

[hubcity]

This is surprising? Most people are unaware that you can get free TV over-the-air! Ask someone that is under 45 yuears old.

Back during the Fox/Cablevision dispute, I loved the reaction I got out of a kid who was watching me put up an antenna so that we could catch the Giants game...

"So, where do the pictures come from?"

"Well, there's an antenna on the top of the Empire State Building..."

He looked at me like I had two heads when I said that...

 

[badjef]

This is surprising? Most people are unaware that you can get free TV over-the-air! Ask someone that is under 45 yuears old.

Back during the Fox/Cablevision dispute, I loved the reaction I got out of a kid who was watching me put up an antenna so that we could catch the Giants game...

"So, where do the pictures come from?"

"Well, there's an antenna on the top of the Empire State Building..."

He looked at me like I had two heads when I said that...

I have an antenna aimed towards Ft. Myers. While the Tampa Bay Buccaneer football games were blacked out, I was watching the game from my slingbox at home while driving around in Tampa!

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[fybush]

It would be cheaper for the TV stations to shut it off and buy each OTA viewer a satellite receiver set up to receive the basic OTA channels only. Cut a deal with DirecTV to pay them what the electric bill would cost, and the stations can save on tower rent.

Depends on the market. Cable/satellite penetration in my market is somewhere between 85-90%. That means something like 40-60,000 households in the market that are OTA-only. (And that's just counting primary sets.) Even if you could cut a $10/month bulk deal with DirecTV or Dish, that's somewhere in the $5-7 million/year range for service alone, never mind the cost of the equipment. I don't know what your power and tower rent bills look like, but I'm pretty sure ours in Rochester are several orders of magnitude lower than THAT.

 

[davideduardo]

Depends on the market. Cable/satellite penetration in my market is somewhere between 85-90%. That means something like 40-60,000 households in the market that are OTA-only. (And that's just counting primary sets.)

Nationally, the OTA household count is, indeed, somewhere under 20%, but it includes a large number of homes in lower income groups where the most basic of cable services amounts to a large expenditure.

These same factors are part of the reason why not everyone has a smartphone or a wireless internet account.

 

[wadio]

Put some kids that are into radio (I mean in their mid 20's) on the air for cheap on these HD-2's and let them experiment. Hell, that's how we got progressive formats on FM in the 60's and 70's. That's also what started to attract people to FM, the programming. Have the generation program for the 18-25 generation, where the stakes are low and the potential returns could be decent. What do they have to lose? It isn't like any of those HD-2's are cash cows anyway.

That is an excellent suggestion! One problem, though -- who'd want to be on an HD2 or HD3 channel that few people know about or have the equipment to receive? Yeah, the stream would be on the Internet too, but why not just go there to begin with?

 

[WNTIRadio]

As far as my satellite idea to replace OTH TV, I think the dish receiver should be bought by the station. Other than that, the service is free. It doesn't cost DirecTV any more if there are more dishes out there. Cut a bulk deal on the equipment, or have the NAB TV members subsidize it.

If they like the free OTH service, then I'll bet a good many of them would pony up a few bucks a month for the additional channels. So everybody wins here.

If the FCC wants to s*** can OTH TV, then something will have to be done.

Personally, I would prefer if they keep OTH TV. The HD picture is wayyyy better when directly received.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

"Here's the biggest problem with "HD" radio: There is not much noticeable improvement!!"

That is a lot of the problem... at least for the HD-1 channels. Same reason that FM was a huge yawner until stereo (it was slightly better fidelity with a receivers that constantly wandered off-frequency)... that quad and AM stereo failed. The sound improvement is negligible. You make a good point about the additional stations... but that's where the growth will come IF owners make the investment in product. I do think, even with the noticible improvement, that digital HD TV would not have grown so fast had the government not mandated a switch to that format by a certain date.

I'd take it a step further. The sound improvement is irrelevant. It makes absolutely zero difference for voice-only formats, as long as the voices can be clearly understood. For music, much of the listening is now done to bit-rate-compressed MP3s heard through ear buds and/or in cars (i.e., a noisy environment). This is no longer the 1950s-1960s era of high fidelity. Trying to sell HD as an improvement in quality is a non-starter...not to mention, of course, the outright lie being perpetrated by iBiquity that HD on FM sounds as good as a CD does. That one doesn't even pass the smell test, let alone the math test.

 

[Ai4i]

The simple truth, which does not apply to non-coms, is that all the commercial FM's we have heard, process their HD-1's audio so that receivers can flip between digital and anal og with zero change in audio. In such cases, the only advantage of an HD-1 is the zero noise floor it affords.