"Radio: The U.K.'s Digital death notice"

HD Radio Alliance head Peter "Sgt. Bilk-o" Ferrera came out of hiding
this week to fallaciously proclaim that HD radio-only stations - those
that you can hear only on an HD Radio receiver are writing business
and making money. He named two stations - Clear Channel's Z-100/New
York and Emmis' KSHE/St. Louis as examples.

Let's cut to the chase.

Bilk-o, prove to me that money exchanged hands from client to Z-100
and KSHE - exclusively for buying time on their HD side channels.

You can't.

These are strictly value-added bonus spots.

Right? Right.

They're not even spots. They're similar to public radio underwriting
announcements - except unlike public radio, which receives money from
them, radio's not seeing one cent of additional revenue. The stations
pitched their clients the opportunity to take part in a new experiment
- at no cost or obligation.

Right? Right.

Shall we read between the lines?

KSHE admits that the "announcements" on its KSHE2-Klassic HD channel
are from two clients that have "long-term relationships" with the
terrestrial station: Doc's Harley Davidson and Cetero Medical
Research. Each'll get one 20-second top-of-the-hour announcement -
rotating twelve times a day for the next year.

Z-100, on the other hand, gave away the store - running four ten-
second announcements per hour for Verizon. That adds up to 96 Verizon
announcements per day.

One of the new lines being used to hype the alleged value of HD Radio
is that it could bring in local advertisers that don't have the budget
to buy traditional radio. At the prices I'm being quoted these days to
advertise on terrestrial radio - HD Radio's rates must be targeting
shoe-shine boys and lemonade stands.

You can't make this stuff up.

Go ahead. Show me what I made up.

Poor Bilk-o. He has a tough job trying to remember which lie he told
and to whom.

It gets better.

The research company SNL Kagan claims that HD Radio revenues will
reach $1 billion by 2011. That's a whole lotta shoe-shine boys and
lemonade stands.

Researcher and RAIN editor Kurt Hanson did the math. His figures,
which were based on a blue sky assumption - and the improbability of
an installed base of 4 million HD Radios in the U.S. - had its best-
case scenario revenues at $55 million - not the $1 billion Kagan
claims.

Memo to Kagan: I'd check the chip on that calculator that Bilk-o gave
you.

Either that or stop fitting your research results to what's in Bilk-
o's brain.

Reality check: HD Radio isn't going to bill anything - period.

Bilk-o, you neglected to provide updates on what's the latest news
from other countries where digital radio has been marketed.

What we call HD Radio in the states is known as DAB - Digital Audio
Broadcast - overseas.

Ever hear of GCap, Bilk-o?

Of course you have. You just don't like to talk about them.

In 2005, GCap became the largest radio company in the United Kingdom -
the outcome of a merger between GWR Group and Capital Radio.

GCap's pulling the plug on two more of its digital stations, Planet
Rock and the Jazz. This adds to the three other digital channels
they'd already silenced.

The only GCap digital-broadcast stations remaining are those
simulcating their terrestrial stations, which include hit radio
CapitalFM, classical Classic FM, alternative XFM, and Hip-Hop/R&B
Choice FM.

GCap says that digital radio is not economically viable. They're also
selling its piece of Digital One, a national broadcasting platform for
digital stations. They just want o-u-t.

Digital radio listening accounts for nine percent of total radio
listening in the U.K. - but digital-only stations make up less than
four and a half percent of total listening.

Bilk-o, if you had one tenth of one percent with HD Radio in the
states you'd call it an overwhelming success.

GCap's CEO Fru Hazlitt told the BBC that it sees better prospects in
FM and Internet radio - and that digital radio was too expensive and
wasn't embraced by consumers the way the company had anticipated.

Richard Wheatley, the CEO of Local Radio, which owns 28 stations in
the UK, said digital radio did not have any killer application and
that his listeners were moving to the Internet for their alternate
radio use.

Anyone with a computer already has everything they need to listen to
thousands of radio stations worldwide.

How do you compete with that, Sgt. Bilk-o?

Between 1999 and early 2001 when I was running the Internet radio and
TV portal Radio Crow (and most Internet connections were 28.8 dial-
up), we promoted DAB to our U.K. users - and carried streaming audio
of the DAB-only stations.

Unlike HD Radio in this country, where most side-channels are on
automatic pilot - the U.K. digital channels were, for the most part,
well crafted and programmed. Even then, the feedback we were getting
from our U.K. users was: why buy a DAB receiver when one could get the
same channels on the Internet for free?

Free.

It's been said that giving up nicotine is harder than heroin. I think
it's even harder for Bilk-o and his layabout friends at the HD Radio
Alliance and the NAB to give up lying.

Leaders are those who jump in front of crowds that are already moving.

Bilk-o, you're not one of those.

http://gormanmediablog.blogspot.com/...th-notice.html