On Dec 28, 8:14 am, IBOCcrock wrote:
"An Automobile Is An HD Radio Without Four Wheels"

By Jerry Del Colliano

Detroit Radio Advertising Group (DRAG) legendary President and COO
Bill Burton coined the catchy phrase "An automobile is a radio with
four wheels".

True enough to radio people, but if that phrase is accurate then "An
Automobile Is An HD Radio Without Four Wheels". In fact, the wheels
are coming off.

I say this because something is very suspicious in Detroit. The
proponents of HD Radio have relied on support from automakers and
marketing muscle from big box retail stores like Best Buy to sell,
well -- hardly any HD radios.

Imagine that.

If Best Buy, RadioShack and Wal-Mart can't evens sell HD radios then
maybe consumers don't want them. Is that okay to say or is it
unpatriotic?

It won't be long before Detroit automakers that have bigger fish to
fry to save their own businesses will put HD radio where it belongs --
on the scrap heap.

Many consumers who own HD radio can't even get an HD signal in major
markets.

One reader tells me he has three useless HD radios. If you don't
believe him, go into Best Buy and ask one of those bright-eyed sales
associates to sell you an HD radio and be ready for the "say, what"
expression you'll get in return.

Another reader said when he tried to buy an HD radio, a clean cut
young sales associate walked him over to the satellite radios. When
you have to depend on 18-24 year olds to sell you a radio, you know
you're in trouble nowadays.

Okay, look to the best and the brightest -- the consolidators of
American radio.

Quick.

Where's the compelling content that makes it worth owning an HD radio?
Why aren't they spending any money on programming to no one? Most of
today's consolidators never met a deal they didn't like but still they
let HD wither on the vine.

HD radio is a bust.

And, terrestrial radio will be a bust soon enough if the industry
looks to HD technology for answers that are on the Internet and in the
mobile space.

Your friends from iBiquity wrote a letter to the FCC recently
regarding the XM - Sirius satellite merger and while they didn't take
a position on the merger, urged the Commissioners to consider
mandating satellite radios with HD capability built into them. That's
a real winner. We already have that -- it's called an HD radio and
apparently nobody wants to buy them. Since nobody else wants it, why
not force satellite radio owners to get HD.

The fact that we still belabor this technology as a potential answer
to radio's current decline is an expression of how desperate the radio
industry has become.

There are so many smart people in radio. You know it and I know it.

How can so many smart people be so -- well, can I just say it -- dumb.

So, let's review:

1. A satellite radio is a radio I am willing to buy and pay $12.95 for
every month to escape from terrestrial radio. Don't put HD on my
satellite radio or I will bolt for the Internet right now -- even
without universal mobile coverage.

2. A terrestrial radio is a radio that comes free with my car. I
haven't bought a portable radio for my home in years. The one I own
still works but I don't use it. A terrestrial radio is like going to a
hospitality suite at the NAB Convention. I can eat all the Swedish
meatballs I want for nothing but I have to be accosted by someone
trying to get me to buy something.

3. An Internet radio is a radio that has unprecedented variety and is
the consumers answer to mundane programming but because there is
limited WiFi and no WiMax coverage. It's like listening to a radio
with dead batteries. But once I can hear it on the go, it's free and
it's diverse. It is the future.

4. HD radio then is an Edsel (remember back in 1958 Ford Motor
Company's big flop that looked like a Ford sucking a lemon?).

2008 is going to be tough enough.

Does the radio industry really want to embrace this HD Edsel for
another year when there are so many more promising things to do?

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com...-is-hd-radio-w...


Makes sense to me. But, I wonder when broadcasters transmitting
Hybrid Digital will get the message and shut the stuff off. On the
East Coast, large sections of the AM broadcast band is useless at
night.

I keep hearing that no one is buying HD radios but the noise continues
on. I don't get it. The only station that I know of that has turned
it off at night is WRVA in Richmond, VA. Somebody there must have
some sense.

jw