HD Radio is a topic I want to discuss a great deal on this blog as we move along. What are the implications of HD Radio? Is it a viable medium that can compete? Will it make a significant impact in the marketplace? What are stations doing in its development? Many questions are arising as the debate continues. Following is an article tackling some of these questions by Larry Rosin from The Infinite Dial.
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“I Want My MTV.” Probably no message could have been more powerful in the adoption of cable television. It got millions of teenagers and others to know that they just had to get cable television.
What can the radio industry do to get people to “want their HD?”
As the radio industry continues to discuss all aspects of HD Radio, from the technical side, the marketing perspective, the hardware, the chips, the signals, and the costs - I want to make sure that the industry focuses primarily on the most important aspect of all: The Programming.
Up until now, the marketing of HD Radio has largely been directed to awareness of the existence of HD as a concept. This has made sense - no one is going to want HD Radio until they know what it is.
But the first wave of HD Radio marketing almost went out of its way to avoid telling consumers what the programming might be. And of course no one is going to want it until they know what programming is available.
The second wave of advertising, with spots that listed myriad format choices, at least began to discuss the programming, but they were deceptive at best. Listing formats that are available somewhere but not necessarily available to the person hearing the commercial runs the risk that someone goes and gets an HD Radio looking for the Alternative Rock channel those spots talk about, or the reggae channel or whatever.
All this speaks to an essential problem - the HD Radio spots are produced nationally, but are run locally. So they haven’t pushed the local programming that is available.
Now, many are arguing that the answer is to start doing spots touting the available local programming. And while I don’t dispute that, I have a more radical proposal: Instead of marketing the local HD options, we should be nationalizing the HD radio stations.
Think about it. Right now, the overwhelming majority of HD stations are barely-produced, barely-tended jukeboxes. The HD Alliance worked to create a system to put formats on that were additive instead of duplicative, in most places. And that’s great. But if there is no Alternative station in your market, what would be more compelling? A no-DJ Alternative jukebox? Or KROQ in Los Angeles? Yes, with the traffic updates, Lakers scores, and everything else. My instincts say: KROQ in a landslide.
I have listened to WKTU-New York’s HD-2 Channel, which attempts to provide Country music to the Country-less masses here in Gotham. Of course I like the music, but there is no other reason to listen to this station. There is no production, no spark, no nuthin’ at all. Wouldn’t I be vastly more entertained if Clear Channel just put on WSIX? Great talent, great production - everything we think radio is all about - even if there were information about Nashville.
After all, since forever people in the UK have listened to ‘national’ radio that is overly London-centric, and people across Hungary listen to radio that is almost all about Budapest. We’ve researched it, and at most it is a mild annoyance to listeners from other cities. I could deal with discussions of who is playing at the Bluebird tonight; in fact I might really want to know.
Then again, we could consider as an industry to create nationalized HD-only stations. The only realistic chance that the resources will be applied to create ‘great’ radio stations of the type that will make us all proud of the kind of radio we are capable of making.
Here are more reasons we should consider nationalizing HD Radio:
* For HD to achieve the goal of bringing 12-24s back to the radio, we need an incredible 12-24 station. Everyone tells me there’s tons of national 12-24 business and no local business. So why not create a mechanism to go after that business?
* The day is coming, or essentially here, when every station is available everywhere. We’ve said in the past that this is a valid reason to soldier on with HD — to claim the space on the infinite dial, regardless of what the platform is –but it wouldn’t be bad to establish the HD car radio as the place to hear KPIG, KCRW, KFOG, WLNG, or any of our greatest radio stations.
* Nationalizing HD would allow us to self-syndicate many of our best programs. What better way to amortize the cost of some of our best local talents than by making them available to people all over the country? What better way to keep our best talent from going to satellite radio?
* I wrote in 2006 about a plan to work with national brands to build instant credibility, e.g. having House of Blues create a blues channel, or Ben & Jerry’s create a Triple A. This was a national/Internet strategy, which helps explain why it didn’t achieve much currency of course. But wouldn’t a national platform of HD stations actually get advertisers excited and perhaps involved?
* We are fooling ourselves if we think that today’s HD channels are in ’service to the local community’, and it is inconceivable to think that the resources are going to be there to serve in any other way than to string together songs. Freeing ourselves from any belief that we will engage in community service will lead to easier, national models.
* For what it’s worth, the digital radio tier in the UK has made inroads in part by taking local stations national, and by building new national brands. Not everything done in the UK has been perfect, but it is something we should be modeling ourselves on more.
* Even the ‘niche-iest’ ideas would be more successful on a national platform than locally. We have long felt that if someone were to try to serve the Caribbean community in New York City, they would help sell a lot of radios. But it would still be more feasible on a nationwide basis.
I believe in HD Radio and have been trying throughout its history to offer constructive ideas to make it work. While I know that efforts are being undertaken to solve the myriad issues with regard to signals, availability of the hardware, marketing, costs etc., I ask our industry to continue to remember the programming. We need positive plans to create great programming that will get people to demand their HD.
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February 3, 2008 at 9:35 am
PocketRadio
“What can the radio industry do to get people to ‘want their HD?’”
Any successful product, that consumers actually want such as iPods, do not have to be promoted for three years costing hundreds-of-millions (in unsold air-time). The HD Radio industry is waisting its time trying to “force” interest onto consumers.
“For what it’s worth, the digital radio tier in the UK has made inroads in part by taking local stations national, and by building new national brands. Not everything done in the UK has been perfect, but it is something we should be modeling ourselves on more.”
Digital radio in the UK, Germany, and Canada are a bust:
“Germany flicks off-switch on DAB”
“Part of the problem is that analogue FM never went away and most people didn’t seem to care for the clear digital-quality sound, and were left nonplussed by such benefits as easy tuning and message displays with song names and titles. DAB is struggling almost everywhere in Europe.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/28/germany_switches_dab_off/
“Report: Future Of U.K. Digital Radio May Be Bleak”
“LONDON — January 30, 2008: A report from Enders Analysis found that digital audio broadcasting, or DAB, is in trouble due to the high cost of transmission and slow revenue growth, U.K. newspaper the Guardian reports.”
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=140877&pt=todaysnews
“Digital Radio in Canada”
“The Commission is very concerned about the stalled DRB transition. Roughly 15 of the 76 authorized stations (including the digital-only operation in Toronto) are not on the air. Some stations that once operated have since ceased operations. Few recievers have been sold, and there is no interest in expanding DRB service beyond the six cities where it exists.”
http://americanbandscan.blogspot.com/2006/12/digital-radio-in-canada.html
“DAB Struggling to be Heard”
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/2007/12/digital-radio-struggling-to-be-heard.html
Consumers are not interested in erecting external antennas to pick up the bland, fragile HD channels:
“Is HD Radio Toast?”
“There are serious issues of coverage. Early adopters who bought HD radios report serious drop-outs, poor coverage, and interference. The engineers of Ibiquity may argue otherwise and defend the system, but the industry has a serious PR problem with the very people we need to get the word out on HD… In other words, everything you can find on the regular FM dial… The word has already gotten out about HD Radio. People who have already bought an HD Radio are telling others of their experience (mostly bad) and no amount of marketing will reverse this.”
http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=487772
Consumers will not digress back to the 1960s.
HD/IBOC jams on both AM/FM, as apathy is turning into anitpathy
February 3, 2008 at 12:16 pm
bobyoung
Larry is a dreamer, MTV took off with no huge expensive push from anyone. Any service which is a viable workable good idea will take off without spending millions upon millions of dollars to try to force it on the consumer. Satellite and internet radio are up and coming and doing OK with much less money being spent to advertise them. HD, IBOC, iBlock, or whatever you want to call it, interferes with adjacent channels and cuts the receive range severely EVEN with outside rooftop antennas. It was a non-answer for a problem which does not exist: The problem with most terrestrial radio is not how it sounds, it is what is on it. The programming is terrible and redundant, which is what happens when you have a few huge corporations owning 99% of radio in this country. At this moment as I write this I am listening to an independent radio station online as it plays what I want to hear: 50’s and early 60’s rock n roll, a common boring format you say? Maybe boring to some people but it is not common at all anymore, I cannot receive this station on my radio during the day here in big part because there is an iBlock station right next to it on the dial which covers it with sideband noise, it is not a mystery to me why so many people hate IBOC. HD is worse than the disease it purports to cure. It has gone nowhere, is going nowhere and will go nowhere, it will soon take it’s place on that shelf of obsolete junk next to the 8 track player. That Zeppelin you chose is the perfect symbol for HD only if it is made of lead.
February 3, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Mike Severson
Great comments bobyoung & pocketradio. Thanks for contributing.
February 3, 2008 at 5:51 pm
paul vincent zecchino
Overblown promotions failed to sell HD, so now ‘nationalizing HD’ will gring us ’round to the HD gang’s ‘vision’? Why not? Go right ahead. I’ve rather fond memories of the First Coming of Nationalized HD.
Fond memories, albeit dated, stale, putrid and ludicrous.
“Twas 1969, and high school political discussions were leavened with discussions of what we’d heard the night previous, on Radio Tirana and Radio Moscow. That was ‘nationalized’ radio, wasn’t it?
Isn’t that the problem with HD? During the 90s, some actually bought the blather circulated by old 60’s ghouls that the old Soviet Command Economy would work in the free world. Yeah, it works. Briefly.
Of course, we’d ‘go digital’, and smilingly, too. We’d gleefully discard billions of our radios worth trillions of dollars, rush right out and squander good money on HD stooge radios. And for something as silly as ‘hearing Hannity sock it to ‘em’ in ‘crystal clear HD’. Sure, we’re all suckers.
Go ahead. Nationalize HD. The HD gang crows of HD sales breakthroughs from one corner of its snout while pitifully whining stale 90s Victim Hymns at the FCC, in hope of misusing the force of law to cram something down consumers’ throats from which they long ago walked.
Stop it already.
HD Jams. Consumers know it. “Get over it”, to use one of the HD gang’s ever so tactful sales pitches.
Dr. Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
03 February, 2008