"HD Alliance: And I've Got A Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You"
Tuesday, February 05, 2008

I'll admit it.

The HD Alliance has got my number.

It is the most incredible or should I say incredulous group of
intelligent people in the radio industry. The only problem is, they
are not giving you any credit for being intelligent.

Thus the recent headlines that 2007 was a "breakthrough year" for HD
radio sales.

It's getting to the point that whenever Peter Ferrara says anything, I
don't believe it. This is nothing personal about Peter. It's about the
tactics of the HD Alliance.

Supposedly iBiquity, the manufacturers of this gift from heaven called
HD radio, claims to have sold 330,000 HD receivers last year -- a
whopping 725% increase from the 40,000 sets purchased a year earlier.
They cite cheaper prices and availability at Best Buy and Wal-Mart at
the new low-low price of just $99.

First, Steve Jobs would take hemlock if he sold only 330,000 units
last year.

Ferrara apparently told Inside Radio that he thinks a million of these
needless, horrible sounding and redundant sets could be sold next
year. Write that down somewhere -- one million HD radios next year.

Apparently he hasn't gotten through to his pals at the major groups
yet.

You see, they are having tough times right now -- check their
shareholder value, I mean stock prices. The group heads apparently
don't want to spend squat on compelling new programming for HD
subchannels when they sure as hell aren't spending it on their bread
and butter terrestrial signals.

Ferrara thinks that when the cost of manufacturing HD sets gets low
enough then the manufacturers won't make analog sets.

And that is probably the only way HD radio set sales will increase.

Then will the major radio groups lead the way by starting to program
really cool stuff on HD channels? Notice I said "really cool stuff"
because the next generation has no use for HD radio programming same
old, same old at any price. Hell, if you could have either an iPod or
an HD radio, guess the one they would choose?

Okay, a new laptop or an HD radio. Or, maybe a new mobile phone (which
they need every two years anyway) or an HD radio -- well, you get the
point.

Guys and gals -- see if Peter Ferrara can sell ice to the Eskimos,
swamp land in Florida and all the rest.

He may get some people to believe his hype about HD radio, but the
owners are too smart for that.

In fact, if he succeeds spinning for the HD Alliance, hire him away
and offer him a sales job in radio once again -- that is, if the self-
destructive owners haven't already outsourced their sales to Google by
then.

Seriously, try to buy an HD radio in Wal-Mart. See what you get. I've
had readers tell me that they've been "walked over" to satellite
radios when they ask their young sales associate if they can see an HD
radio.

I finally found an HD radio display Saturday. It was at Ultimate
Electronics in Scottsdale. I barely found a station that could be
received and it sure wasn't worth the price of the radio -- which was
cheap looking. (No one else in this crowded store wasted their time at
the display).

It would be hilarious if it weren't so serious.

The answer is...

Internet radio. Cell phone content. Podcasting. Pandora. AM/FM
streaming. Social networking.

It's not HD radio in spite of what the HD Alliance professional spin-
doctors keep saying.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com...bridge-in.html