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The Breeze

I have an HD radio in my kitchen. I had been dividing my listening between The Breeze on 103.5 WKTU-HD3 and Smooth Jazz on 102.7 WNEW-HD2. With no more Breeze, it goes back to Audacy's Smooth Jazz. Sometimes I listen to Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel on 101.1 WCBS-FM-HD3.
 
I am glad that I have Sirius in the car and listen to Spotify at home.Idiocy and iHeartless messed up my presets---I am seventy, but I SPEND $ as a consumer.My 61 year old wife still misses her WPAT.WE support real radio while most young people do not.Also, I am angry at the FCC for doing nuttin' re the 106.3 pirate in Flatbush.
 
I am surprised iheart kept the breeze on HD radio. Iheart has seemed to have given up on HD radio. Like here in SF there is only pride radio and Bloomberg radio left on HD radio.
 
>>>I am surprised iheart kept the breeze on HD radio. Iheart has seemed to have given up on HD radio. Like here in SF there is only pride radio and Bloomberg radio left on HD radio.<<<

I don't think iHeart has given up on HD Radio, even though it has given up on The Breeze. I suppose iHeart will little by little eliminate The Breeze from all HD outlets, if it did that in New York. The exception is KSNE-HD2 Las Vegas, which is the broadcast outlet it uses to feed the app and website. That has to remain to get the better broadcast rate from ASCAP and other music licensers. Internet-only services pay more for music.

But iHeart seems to be committed to Pride Radio, BIN-Black Information Network and a few other HD projects. In some markets where Country Music is popular, it is replacing The Breeze with a new Country service.

In NYC, we have...

--103.5 WKTU-HD2 - Pride Radio
--104.3 WAXQ-HD2 - WOR Talk Radio 710
--105.1 WWPR-FM-HD2 - Russian programming and HD3 - BIN outlet WWRL 1600
--106.7 WLTW-HD2 - Broadway Music

I don't think 100.3 WHTZ has ever had an HD subchannel.
 
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>>>I am surprised iheart kept the breeze on HD radio. Iheart has seemed to have given up on HD radio. Like here in SF there is only pride radio and Bloomberg radio left on HD radio.<<<

I don't think iHeart has given up on HD Radio, even though it has given up on The Breeze. I suppose iHeart will little by little eliminate The Breeze from all HD outlets, if it did that in New York. The exception is KSNE-HD2 Las Vegas, which is the broadcast outlet it uses to feed the app and website. That has to stay to get the better rate from ASCAP and other music licensers.

But it seems to be committed to Pride Radio, BIN-Black Information Network and a few other HD projects. In some markets where Country Music is popular, it is replacing The Breeze with a new Country service.

In NYC, we still have a Broadway music channel on WLTW-HD2, Pride Radio on WKTU-HD2, WOR Talk Radio on WAXQ-HD2. I don't think WHTZ has ever had an HD2 subchannel.

iHeart has been shutting a lot of them off. WHTZ did have an HD2, most recent was Nick Radio (Nickelodeon, pop for kids) The rumor is Bob Pittman got in a cab, the driver was playing the HD2. He asked the driver if he liked the HD2 and the driver said he didn’t know how to change it back to HD1, so Bob ordered a mass shutdown of HD subs. That of course is a rumor.

A lot of the iHeart stream simulcasts seem to have been shifted to smaller markets. Milwaukee had Real Oldies, The Breeze, Classic Countey on WMIL HD2, Alt2K on HD3. All are gone except Alt2K, now on HD2. Real Oldies was shifted to a smaller market in California. Some of these subs have been getting some cume in PPM markets. I don’t think they want that cume,

Chicago had The Breeze, Evolution, Pride Radio and an AM simulcast. It’s down to Pride Radio and BIN.
 
I don't think 100.3 WHTZ has ever had an HD subchannel.
They had Nick Radio on HD2 from 2013 to 2019(?):

 
I don't think iHeart has given up on HD Radio, even though it has given up on The Breeze. I suppose iHeart will little by little eliminate The Breeze from all HD outlets, if it did that in New York. The exception is KSNE-HD2 Las Vegas, which is the broadcast outlet it uses to feed the app and website. That has to remain to get the better broadcast rate from ASCAP and other music licensers. Internet-only services pay more for music.
Do all of the iHeart online/HD channels operate like that? The 70s and 80s Cool Oldies station is just sweepers, jocks and jingles, I’ve never heard a legal ID for a terrestrial station.
 
When The Breeze was on WKTU HD3, I found it odd that instead of just mentioning that station, each hour they would read a long list of other stations that carry it. It would seem simple enough to record a separate ID for each one.
 
All of their national streams have or had an HD2 attached to them. Would program it from a hub and they’d pipe it into the HD2 with a Barix box or whatever. They would all have a generic legal ID at the top of the hour.

Special event and artist streams would run the iHeart80s log (just the music) with a legal ID on the HD sub when they were not in use.
 
When The Breeze was on WKTU HD3, I found it odd that instead of just mentioning that station, each hour they would read a long list of other stations that carry it. It would seem simple enough to record a separate ID for each one.
That was the one reason I was deterred from listening to the HD3
 
When The Breeze was on WKTU HD3, I found it odd that instead of just mentioning that station, each hour they would read a long list of other stations that carry it. It would seem simple enough to record a separate ID for each one.
They initially did but then they did the entire list. It took over 20 minutes to get through the list
 
How is iHeart deciding which markets to keep the Breeze on HD? It is still airing in several markets across the country.
I don't think there's any order to it. I think iHeart is going market to market plucking The Breeze off its HD channels until eventually every Breeze HD subchannel is gone. My guess is that they're turning off The Breeze subchannels in coincidence with maintenance on the HD equipment.
 
Though it's nice having HD subchannels adding variety to the radio dial, it's unsurprising that many are being removed. As most of them carry no ads, what does IHeart have to gain by airing them, outside of a single market (to reduce streaming royalites)?
On the other hand, Power 105 HD2 is leased to a Russian language broadcaster. I would expect that IHeart would welcome similar deals on other HD subchannels.
Audacy does have a steady sponsor for New York's Country on 94.7 HD2. But Country is probably the most mainstream format missing from the local conventional FM broadcasts.
 
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