HD Radio…Watch What You Wish For…And What Is It You Want?
11:15:51 am | HD Radio | Larry Johnson
Can someone help me with HD radio? Broadcasters are running a huge on-air schedule for HD radio with questionable results. Even if HD radio cuts through, is radio willing and able to adjust its business model?
HD is radio’s attempt to address the “competition” from satellite radio. And, perhaps more importantly, it puts various radio stations on the menu for whatever type of viable Internet or phone applications that emerge.
What is the allure of HD radio for the consumer? Why would someone spend money on a receiver that will have questionable use in the future? Perhaps there are more format choices, but the programming doesn’t appear compelling. It seems that the HD channels have been slapped on the air within a week or less. The programming isn’t much better than what a person could produce themselves on vanity internet radio service like CBS’ Play.IT. Is the audio fidelity really noticeably better?
Radio continues to chalk up very good cash flow to revenue margins, but revenues are down. Do the business plans of broadcasters include selling smaller audiences on more (HD) signals if HD actually succeeds? Broadcasters have complained about the proliferation of more signals over the past couple decades. Now those same broadcasters are introducing 2 to 3 times the signals with HD.
Site by:
“We Might Want to Keep an Eye on ION”
“If the commission embraces the notion that secondary digital streams really do constitute separate licenses that can be separately assigned, one could easily argue that radio stations that have opted to transmit digital streams (i.e., ‘HD Radio’) should also be permitted to sell those streams as separately licensed stations… For one, the number of radio stations could theoretically double or triple overnight. This might not have the cataclysmic effect of, say, the injection of nearly 700 new FM allotments through the notorious Docket No. 80-90 a quarter century ago, but you never know. At a minimum, if the law of supply and demand were to hold true, the overnight doubling/tripling of stations would likely depress each station’s value. And such a rapid increase in the number of stations would logically lead to a similarly rapid increase in competition for audiences and revenues. Are we all ready for that?”
http://www.rwonline.com/article.aspx?articleId=76922&mnu_id=14
John Gorman has said it also:
“Radio: HD Radio’s holiday horror”
“We already have too many radio stations on terrestrial AM and FM… If every man, woman and child in this great country of ours had complete and total access to HD Radio – it would obliterate the radio industry. You’d have listeners spread out on to too many radio stations for any one station to show effective reach and frequency. Do the math. This blue sky world for HD Radio would put all radio out of business. No one station would have enough listeners to justify advertising.”
http://tinyurl.com/6omhpv
Well, this is certainly refreshing - you hit the nail smack on the head, only, I wish that broadcasters would listen! The only thing that I can think of, is with HD Radio/IBOC’s intentional jamming of the smaller, adjacent-channel broadcasters off the dial, then the larger broadcasters would face less competition. The smaller broadcasters’ signals are replaced by the HD2/HD3 programming. Nasty system, hugh? With many of the larger broadcasters facing default, I wonder, how much more will be sunk into this HD Radio farce? Struble sure rushed that FM-only (no tagging, no AM or AM-HD, no battery charger, etc) HD Insignia portable to market, in order to justify the FM-HD power increase. No major HD Radio manufacturers were interested - LOL! Where’s Congress, the FBI, the DOJ, the FTC, the SEC, and the FEC?
PocketRadio | 07/20/09 12:11:50 pm
“Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is.”– Wayne Gretzky. Many forms of radio (and retail) can be Zamboni slow on the digital ice of iPods & iPhones. Zune-HD may very well be the closest thing to a new form of puck, brownie, elf, gnome, sprite, leprechaun, imp or (dare I say it) Sprint!
Tom Killorin | 07/21/09 12:30:58 pm