HD RADIO GOES THE WAY OF THE LASERDISC PLAYER
A couple of weeks ago in his Inside Tucson Business media column, David Hatfield included a note related to KWMT FM 92.9′s dissolution of its high-definition alternate station—which had a soft-jazz format—and mentioned that the only alternate HD station still operating in this market is KRQQ FM 93.7‘s rebroadcast of Spanish-language signal KTZR FM 97.1. (Inside Tucson Business is a sister publication of the Tucson Weekly.)
The original idea for HD was for it to serve two purposes: to digitize radio signals and improve the sound; and for stations to use the extra bandwidth to add formats—in essence, creating more radio stations. It’s a technology similar to what television stations are able to do with their HD signals.
Regarding the improved signal, that still holds true, and can be especially beneficial for AM radio, which has struggled for some time with signal degradation.
However, programmers in Tucson appear to have given up on the second concept—not that they ever embraced it in the first place.
Clear Channel was the most-aggressive local player. It envisioned HD radio, and its accompanying alternate formats, as a counterprogramming measure to satellite radio. At one point, Clear Channel added a country format, perhaps envisioning a time when the alternate HD signal could take a slice of listenership away from country-music monolith KIIM FM 99.5, which is owned by Cumulus.
Another potential use for HD was attempting to fill a format void in the market. Up until a month ago, Clear Channel utilized this approach with the alternate HD signal that piggybacked on KWMT, aka The Mountain. Smooth jazz is not otherwise available through terrestrial radio in this market. It was smart in theory: The smooth-jazz station in Phoenix occasionally shows up in Tucson ratings books, suggesting there’s an audience, but perhaps not a large-enough audience to dedicate a more-traditional signal.
Even though Clear Channel’s website claims many of its alternate HD signals remain operational, only KRQ’s was functional as of Monday, Oct. 3, and the jazz signal has been down for at least a month.
Clear Channel managers have not responded to requests for clarification.
For a brief window—when the fear of satellite radio’s possible market penetration was a hot topic of concern on the terrestrial-radio front—the effort to move with HD carried a greater priority, but locally, the push was half-assed, at best. Clear Channel promoted it, and even put some programming thought behind the decisions, but really did nothing more than flip a switch and let a computer run music. It briefly promoted the prospect of Alan Michaels broadcasting the “COOL oldies” format on an HD alternate signal after flipping 1450 from oldies to comedy, but that never materialized.
Elsewhere, Lotus and Citadel dabbled in HD, but abandoned their efforts rather quickly. What little upkeep there was apparently wasn’t worth it.
In larger markets, some HD alternate signals have local contributors who operate programs catering to a specific musical taste—sort of like what community radio station KXCI FM 91.3 does locally on terrestrial radio—but the concept never gained traction in Tucson.
Truth is, HD radio was pretty much obsolete by the time it launched. Is the signal improvement a good thing? Of course, but it remains limited to the terrestrial reach of the radio station.
The phone/tablet application may be the future of the industry. With Internet streaming, radio stations no longer face the restrictions of signal strength. Again, Clear Channel has been an aggressor with this technology. Its iHeartRadio app opens the door for a multitude of terrestrial-radio listening, and the sound quality favorably rivals that on the terrestrial signal.
But there are a couple of problems with apps as well. One is a safety concern: When iHeartRadio app is on your phone, how easy is it to channel-surf while driving?
More importantly, the iPod and other MP3 players have damaged commercial radio’s attractiveness. Many in the younger demographic consider terrestrial radio to be archaic, like the daily newspaper. They barely know it exists. After all, they can listen to music on their terms, not on the station’s.
Thus, radio’s future on the app front may rest on the exclusivity provided by local content. In larger markets, a number of stations are flipping formats to place a greater focus on local talk, specifically in the political and sports realm. Music does not usually involve a connection to community—but talk can. Under this theory, conservative talk-show host Garret Lewis at KNST AM 790 might be more important than Johnjay and Rich, who are sorta/kinda/not-really-anymore local on KRQ. He certainly carries more validity than Ryan Seacrest‘s syndicated offering. Conservative talk host Jon Justice has more stroke through his political morning show on KQTH FM 104.1 than Bobby Rich and Mrs. Grant at KMXZ FM 94.9, Journal‘s local lynchpin station. Music-based FM morning shows can keep their numbers as far as the traditional signal reaches, but will have no impact beyond those boundaries. Meanwhile, radio in an app world could benefit a smaller station with a local focus like KVOI AM 1030.
The most significant benefit to apps, however, may be in sports, because of alumni bases that remain interested in reactions to the performance of their favorite team. Not to toot my own horn—because this can certainly be viewed as something that’s personally beneficial—but if a University of Arizona sports fan in Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago or Panama City, Fla., wants to know what the mood of the fan base is, that fan can’t turn on Sirius XM or an iPod to get that information. Message boards and local websites are excellent text-based sources, but the vocal interaction is really only available through a radio feed that would have been impossible to retrieve just a few years ago. So to understand what’s going on back home, thay can listen to Jody Oehler on KFFN AM 1490, Glenn Parker, Kevin Woodman and Rob Lantz on KCUB AM 1290, or Lantz, Brad Allis and me, John Schuster, on KCUB’s UA pregame and postgame broadcasts.
That local-content component is probably radio’s last chance in terms of unique impact and viability, and it might open the door for advertising opportunities centered not as much on the local customer, but more on tourism-based options for out-of-town visitors.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.
The smooth-jazz station in Phoenix (KYOT) recently changed their format and plays mostly pablum now. They should change their call letters to K-PUKE. Years ago Tucson had a smooth-jazz station (The Oasis) but unfortunately it lasted only a couple years.
We haven’t had a ‘Beautiful Music’ station here in many years either.
I personally think that broadcasting digits is a waste of money. Digital is fine for routing programming around the station, and for storage / recovery. It is also excellent for conducting the programming of a station from the studios to the transmitter, which is often several to many miles away. But to send it out, to constantly moving receiver is a recipe for disaster. Notice that there has been no mad rush to make available Hybrid Digital equipment available. What there is, is expensive.
As to the programing, if the market will not support a format, there is really no need to spend fifty to onehundred thousand dollars to make it available to a very few people.
For TV it’s fine. The receivers are in fixed locations, as are, often, the antennae. It’s then a ‘go, nogo’ thing. You get it well, or not at all. HD, too!.
It’s good to see at least some FM’s get what happened (for a different reason) to AM Stereo. It worked well, but the FCC OK’d three different formats, and said ‘Let The Marketplace Decide’ Not many radios were produced for it, and NONE covered all three formats. It failed.
Randy
I lived and worked in Tucson radio years ago, and the stations seemed to always be lagging the big markets in everything they did. Now living in Seattle, virtually every FM station here has one or two subchannels broadcasting in HD. At last count with my receiver, I was getting 64 channels on the FM band with the subchannels included with a wide variety of formats that wouldn’t see the light of day on traditional radio: Classic Country, R & B, Smooth Jazz, Christian Rock, Blues, Traditional Jazz, 50s oldies, Dance Mix, Psychic Network, Mormon Channel, Symphonic Favorites, Deep Cuts Classic Rock, BBC World Service, Live Rock, Indie Rock, a channel devoted to Seattle/Portland bands. Even four AM stations broadcast in HD, and the sound is crystal clear, i.e. Radio Disney, Fox Sports Radio, Progressive Talk. It is sad that they’ve thrown in the towel in Tucson. I’ve been in several other large markets, i.e. Portland, OR, Houston, TX, and Denver, CO and they all have a large amount of HD programming.
It’s always amusing to see clueless columnists proclaim that the future of radio is in digital services like iHeart Radio or Pandora. Those services work fine when you’re at home, or if you have a grandfathered unlimited data plan, but not when you’re watching your megabytes of data. And of course when mobile they only work when you have data service on your cell phone which means it’s fine in urban areas (depending on your carrier), not so fine while driving in the middle of nowhere where you really want your music.
It’s far too soon to write the obituary for terrestrial radio in general and HD Radio in particular. HD Radio had a slow start because despite so many stations that added HD service there were very few HD receivers out there. For the 2012 model year you see most automakers offering HD Radio either as standard equipment or as part of an upgraded audio package. As the potential audience increases the programming will improve. Within a few years HD receivers in vehicles will be as ubiquitous as AM/FM radios. Still, it will take many years for the vehicle fleet to roll over to new vehicles with HD Radio, so it will be a gradual increase in receivers, not an instantaneous switch over.
The future of mobile audio for the masses is in a) streaming music from a smart phone over Bluetooth or a hard wire connection, b) head units with Flash memory, a USB port, an SD card slot, or a disk drive, where you store your music locally, and c) terrestrial radio whether it’s analog or digital.
The reason services like Pandora have done poorly is that it doesn’t work well in the mobile space either technically or financially.
The reason satellite radio has not expanded beyond a small core of dedicated customers is because of the cost and the poor audio quality.
Terrestrial radio is free. Streaming from a smart phone is free (well except for acquiring the music).
The key thing is that consumers that have experienced HD Radio absolutely love it. The superior audio quality, the additional content choices, and the additional information on the music and artist is compelling.
I miss the old (and real) Coyote from Phoenix 🙁
How is a 2 digit kilobit stream , High Definition? 64 = 2,800 ? According to ibiquity HD doesn’t even stand for high definition or hybrid digital. High distortion, high deception, huge deficit, Hidden damage. These words do have meaning. We lost the gold standard of hifi AM, 920 WBAA now it is not any dial of mine. What about a class action lawsuit on this scam named scam. Full retribution on NPR and other public radio. This was a Bush era blow to public broadcasting.
Tucson is behind in radio tech anyway. Most of the stations could not even get the hd right when they had it! If I were to tour a modern station on fm I would have to go to phoenix. James- part 15 radio (the phoenix)