One Positive Aspect of HD Radio: Whether your for it or against it, there's one aspect of HD Radio that will ultimately benefit our industry. Experimentation. It's been lacking for a long time. Now, with HD, we can try new things. Witness the 24 Hour Psychic channel programmed by WYCD PD Tim Roberts. I think they may have something.
What's on YOUR drawing board? What fantasy format have you always wanted to try? Personally, I'd like to see more HD stations attempting to reach teens who are increasingly becoming disenfranchised with radio. The only hitch is that we'll need to make the radios affordable and cool. No small challenge.
4 comments:
"Witness the 24 Hour Psychic channel programmed by WYCD PD Tim Roberts. I think they may have something."
Maybe, we should ask Miss Cleo? You really have to be kidding - terrestrial radio is losing audience with their bread-and-butter analog channels. Gen Y will never retreat to radio from their iPods, cell phones, and Internet. For Gen Y, it is all about social networking, which HD Radio can never offer. Besides, do you expect consumers to retreat back to the 50s/60s, where every home had externally-mounted rooftop antennas? The latest Arbitron study has bad news for HD Radio:
"Arbitron/Edison study chills the already thin air of HD Radio"
"All you need to know about this research is this: It says relatively few know about HD. It says that number hasn't gone up. And it implies that folks are aware of what they care about, not vice versa. It also strongly suggests this isn't going to change any time soon - as in, forever."
http://www.hear2.com/2008/04/arbitronedison.html
As far as consumers are concerned, HD Radio might as well not even exist:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
Joel, there is a HUGE opportunity for HD radio to be something interesting, in the same way that freeform radio and so many other formats were born out of experimentation with FM. But here's the problem. There will be a drive by corporate radio to monetize those HD2s, and that will stifle innovation.
That's not to say there isn't some interesting stuff bubbling under the radar (or between the stations), but the urge to add another revenue stream immediately is what will cripple the ideas that could really make HD something.
Opinions expressed are mine and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer :-)
Buzz in Tucson
Yes, there is a a huge opportunity for HD radio, at least for all the people who live within eye site of the radio towers as anyone else will not be able to receive this ill conceived technological nightmare which has not and will not sell no matter how much the iBlock alliance tries to shove it down the throat of the consumer. All it does is jam adjacent channels and severely reduce receive distance AND the receivers are expensive and have 2" tinny sounding speakers, all this for 200-400 bucks, what a deal! Plus they need roof top antennas ala 1956 TV. I'm sure this will all be very cool for the teenagers, not only that I've heard the vast majority of teenagers map out their every move with astrology. This is the biggest joke in a long string of jokes from our esteemed purveyors of HD, better known as Horrible Distortion.
HD will never be anything more than a BigKorpseorate 'carny shill', a costly ploy to jam competing broadcasters off the air and listeners into submission.
Why? Because BigRadio, those fine folks who brought us voice-tracked juke boxes, mass talent firings, and the same old twenty songs over and over and over 'demanded' - remember that odious 90s oath? - an 'In Band On Channel Solution'.
In other words, rather than place iBLOC on its own band where it wouldn't jam AM and FM, they stuck it right where it never should have been - in band on channel - and wrecked AM and FM.
Isn't this like sending tap water and sewage through the same pipe and expecting both sweet tasting beverages and good sanitation?
Wasn't this clever? The HD jamming ruined the AM band and is well on its way to jamming FM.
How very convenient for BigRadio, whose stocks are plummetting even as you read this.
Consumers don't want HD. They never will. The paid-off engineers who pimp this rotten technology on behalf of a few braindead KronyKasters and a handful of equipment manufacturers sold their credibility for a ham sandwich - which they clearly went up a pig's behind to obtain.
Dr. Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
12 April, 2008
Post a Comment