On Feb 4, 11:52 am, D Peter Maus wrote:
Rfburns wrote:
Just finished having a little chat with a general manager for several
radio stations here in West Virginia. A few of them are transmitting
HD. This poor fellow is still under the illusion that HD radio is set
to take off like a rocket. He sites Ford's decision to make HD radio
an option for '08 and thinks that other auto manufacturers are on the
verge of announcing their introduction of HD radio as an option. I
informed him that the local Best Buy has had the same two RCA HD-100
radios on the self for several months with no takers and that the
local Ford deal was unaware of the HD radio option. How detached can
these people be? It's no wonder listeners are dropping like flies.
The interesting thing about all this is that one of the HD FM stations
has a very annoying buzz on the analog transmission side that I
suspect is being cuased by poor implementation of the Hybrid Digital
equipment and it's been there for months. This poor fellow informed
me that it's a defective microphone in one of the studios. Funny
thing, it occurrs during music and remote network news. Who does he
think he's fooling. It's obvious to me that he nor anyone else is
listening close enought to discover the wonders of HD radio.
jw
Typical Radio response: Deny, Deny, Deny. But then, in all fairness,
that's a typical response throughout the culture, these days.
They're still running heavy HD promos here in the Windy. What's not
happening is promotion based on content. They're selling all the things
that are secondary to listeners: Audio quality, digital clarity. And
some listeners have noted that in higher noise listening environments,
the HD stream is definitely not as easily appreciated as the more highly
processes analog stream. Further, after decades of highly processed,
loudness war audio, many listeners are finding the less processed sound
of the HD stream less appealing. And finally, as you've suggested, HD
isn't being uniformly well implemented. Resulting in poor first time
listener experiences. It's very hard to come back from that kind of
first contact deficit.
And the one thing that's rarely discussed, is that the public, in the
main, doesn't really understand the concept of audio quality on the same
level as the engineers who built this stuff. Look at the number of
half-baked, 'drug-store electronics' stereo systems being sold today.
Less than $100, but all have 5 band graphic equalizers on the panel. And
speakers that would make the engineers at Ten-Tec laugh. Talking 'audio
quality' to owners of such hardware creates an entirely different
expectation of performance than it does to guys like me with more
invested in the speakers in his living room than he does the SUV in the
garage.
Selling audio quality is, at best, a hit or miss
proposition...because so much of the perception depends on experience
exposure, and quite frankly the interest in knowing what sounds good, or
bad, and why. Most users of radio simply don't know. Nor do they care to
do the math to find out.
Instead, HD should be selling content. But they can't, because the
thrust of the effort is in producing the baseband audio in "HD Quality"
on the digital stream. Supplementary content is spotty at best. And
usually poor, because there is little or no budget to support it.
Advertising on the HD supplementary streams is insufficient, at this
stage to make the supplementary audio streams self supporting. So, at
best, the efforts that I've heard, are half-assed.
Here in Chicago, they're never mentioned. To date, no one but Roe
Conn on WLS has mentioned that WLS is carried on the WZZN secondary HD
stream. For guys up here who have trouble receiving WLS AM due to the
noise, having WLS on an HD stream of a station we CAN receive is a big
plus. WZZN hasn't mentioned it once. This is just one example. There are
dozens of others representing a sizable missed opportunity to sell this
system on content...which is where listening is rooted.
Until stations begin to sell based on CONTENT, most of HD's marketing
efforts are self-defeating.
There are signs that HD isn't entirely dead. And getting it in the
hands of listeners in the car will certainly help. Controlled
environment listening, newfangled-ness...all will help secure exposure.
But if it doesn't work as expected...it can work as promised, but the
EXPECTATION is often different, even when the promise is clearly
defined...if it doesn't work as expected, HD will have signed it's own
death certificate.
The first stumbling attempts to get HD in the ears of the public were
staggeringly disappointing. And those were the Innovators and Early
Adoptors. Burn them once and they move on. And without them, and their
buzz....Belongers and Late Adoptors will not make the move.
As presented, so far, HD is a solution in search of a problem. And
short of an FCC mandate, there's not a lot of reason to suggest that the
rate of uptake will improve.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
"And finally, as you've suggested, HD
isn't being uniformly well implemented. Resulting in poor first time
listener experiences. It's very hard to come back from that kind of
first contact deficit."
"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
You've got that right!