radiodavid wrote:

Radio has as high a usage by those over 55 as in any of the so-called
sales demographics between 18 and 54. There are plenty of stations and
formats that appeal to seniors, including AC, country, news, talk,
etc., but they don't get much revenue from that and can't effectively
use audience ratings as nobody is buying.

If we're going to get into conspiracy theories about why "HD" radio is being
touted with so much gusto, I'd say it's because of the play for pay
possibilities. As the radio audience is harder and harder to sell to, what
better way to make sure that stations stay afloat but to charge for the
programming.

Only trouble with that model is that it has taken a decade to make XM/Sirius
profitable, and they had to merge to do it, and that's for a meager $13 a
month or whatever for hundreds of channels. I doubt that it's possible to get
the charge low enough on any one station or cluster of stations to make local
"HD" radio attractive to listeners.