Only 41% Of Country Listeners Are Even Aware Of HD Radio

Just 41.2% of country radio listeners in the US claim to have “heard of HD radio” according to a new, on-line survey of more than 10,000 country radio listeners in the United States and Canada, conducted by Albright & O’Malley, Country Radio Consultants.

The survey found males (50.9%) more aware than females (38.8%), while awareness among persons 25-44 is higher (42.6%) than it is among persons 12-24 or persons 55+.

Underscoring this unfamiliarity, 46% of the total sample didn’t know if special equipment was needed to hear HD radio, while 5.1% believed they could receive HD radio on any radio.

Even among those who had heard of HD radio, 82.6% said they were “not very familiar” with the available programming.

HD radio awareness in Canada was even lower where just 23.1% of respondents indicated they had heard of HD radio.

The survey did reveal this positive fact about HD radio: while small in number, 24% of respondents who had an HD radio experience indicated they would be ‘very likely’ to recommend HD radio to a friend. These respondents were nearly twice as likely to be male.

Albright & O’Malley will present additional results of their “Roadmap 2007” study at this year’s Albright & O’Malley Pre-CRS “Sunrise Seminar” on Wednesday morning, prior to the start of the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. “Roadmap 2007” is a perceptual study of 10,062 country radio listeners across the U.S. and Canada who completed an online questionnaire on the type of country music they like best, reasons for listening to their favorite country station, degree of satisfaction with that station, voice tracking, streaming, HD Radio, marketing preferences, and their attitudes toward participating in a diary, telephone or metered radio rating surveys. The survey was created with the assistance of Mercury Radio Research.

It's About Time

There’s no doubt that the winds of change are blowing and a robust discussion that seems to be taking place in every radio publication right now is timely and important.

For example, A&O&B’s “Roadmap 2013” country radio listener online perceptual certainly contains evidence that new media is arriving in our listeners’ dashboard at a rapid pace.

Almost one-third of country listeners report connecting to the internet in their vehicle and among those folks almost one in five spends more than two hours a day listening to “internet radio” as they drive.

We have been tracking HD Radio for many years in these studies and though the very small percentage of folks who actually owns or knows someone who has it did increase from 2.5% to 3% of country listeners sampled, even “awareness” of HD Radio was down a fraction this year and, ironically, was exactly the same percentage who claimed to have tried internet in their vehicle is aware of HD radio, just about a third of the total (31.7%). 

If you accept my educated guess that these most likely are the same “high tech redneck early adopters,” it’s quite probable that HD Radio today is on the radar with more or less the same level as internet radio with those people in our audience who matter most to acceptance of any new technological development.

As someone who was already working in radio five decades ago, when The Beatles released “Please, Please Me,” I want to remind the skeptics that one of radio’s pioneer companies, Westinghouse Broadcasting which had started to develop FM in the 1940’s decided that it wasn’t going to be successful and silenced most of theirs in the 1950’s.

My very first job in Cleveland radio was in 1962, doing nights at an easy listening (WNOB-FM) and I hosted a Broadway show tunes special each week.  A year later, I was doing mornings for an all jazz commercial FM, WCUY.  I was a musical snob back then and we thought FM was “our” place, as the great majority of people listened to AM.

We flogged FM car radio converters in an attempt to get people with only AM in their vehicles to plug our little device into their cigarette lighter and tune to an AM frequency on their radio in order to hear “FM.” 

Small wonder that the “big stations” - WHK, WIXY, KYW (yes, KYW, Cleveland.  Look it up.), WJW and most other AM’s cleaned our clock in ratings and revenues.  They were the ones playing those first Beatles and Rolling Stones songs.

Jim Duncan’s “American Radio” documented it at the time as the growth of FM took decades and really didn’t begin its ascent until more than two decades after “Group W” decided there was no future in it.  It took until 1978 for FM listening levels to overtake AM’s.

Chart Credit:  David Giovannoni: “AM Radio Listening: An Annotated Graphical and Tabular Treatise of the Audience to Broadcast Stations on the AM Band;  with Historical Perspectives and Extrapolations for the Future.”  Takoma Park, MD:  The Station Resource Group, 1991.

Giovannoni’s model for the 1990’s downtrend for AM radio failed, just as Westinghouse had with FM’s potential, to foresee that very small uptick in AM share in 1989 on his 1991 chart was being driven by a talk show that had launched in Sacramento in 1984 and just went national from WABC-AM, New York, in 1988 and single-handedly reversed that slide as his show and approach spawned a new format, rejuvenating the AM band.

Programming drives usage.  And, the adoption curve doesn’t always move at the speed of Facebook and Twitter.  Just ask Bing.

Rather than pulling the plug on HD Radio while it’s still in its infancy, let’s remember how long it can take for emerging technologies to intersect with radio formats and target audience desires to move from awareness to adoption to loyalty.

Making history doesn’t just take courage and creative innovation. 

It also takes time.

The "D" In HD Radio = "Darn?"

I have an Accurian HD Radio on my bedside table and have been carefully setting aside an hour with a cup of coffee for the past five weeks to listen closely to the replay of Robert Harris' fascinating five hour long "History Of The Gods" on CBC's Sunday Edition with Michael Enright. 

"The traditional record business is dying. What will happen when it goes?" 

By and large, I enjoy the additional choices the radio gives.  It brings me every Seattle FM station's programming times three and fairly-impressive sound.

The always-thought-provoking CBC program is broadcast on KOUW-FM HD2, with KUOW's main channel on HD1 and the BBC World Service 24/7 on HD3. 

Sure, I could have listened to it on CBC's web site, but the convenience of having that radio in my bedroom has been a terrific reminder for me that HD Radio could indeed be a part of radio's future, in spite of the fact that a tiny percentage of today's radio audience uses it in the wake of considerable promotion and increasing availability, due to the turnaround in American auto sales.

Suddenly, I feel a bit like Don Quixote.  After investing five hours of my time listening (building up to the show's climax in the last two minutes when it seemed like host Enright was about to tell me what was going to happen to the music business), suddenly the audio dropped completely.

I switched to HD1 and of course the normal KUOW analog FM programming was loud and clear.  HD3 was also coming in just fine, but HD2 was silent.  No signal. 

My Bainbridge Island bedroom is 14 miles from KUOW's 100,000 transmitter and tower atop Seattle's Capitol Hill.

Lesson learned.

I can't count on HD Radio when I really need it.

Up to now, I had always considered myself ahead of the curve technically as one of the only people on my block with an HD Radio, thinking that eventually everyone else would some day catch up with me.

Today, as I had to head to the Internet in order to reliably hear those terrific final minutes of the program on demand via my smart phone, I realized that my HD Radio-less friends had beaten me to the media future, while I - like the recording industry - was the one trying hopelessly to hold onto a past that's quickly vanishing.

My $200 "digital" bedside radio let me down and my smart phone which costs exactly the same amount rescued me.

It does everything my radio does (yes, it does have FM radio on it) and many things more as well.

What took me so long to figure that out?

Keen On HD Radio

I have been a fan of Robert Earl Keen's since he first attempted to promote me to play his music on a radio station named KEEN (San Jose) back in the 1980's, when I was PD.

My experience was not unlike SXSW, which became a hugely successful entertainment event by dropping its role as an Alt.Country/Americana convention and becoming more mass appeal, diverse and mainstream at the same time.

I don't know what made the South-By-Southwest organizers take that journey, but I do know that Robert Earl pioneered something that is huge in night clubs all over Texas and his many proteges that have come after him but has rarely been mass appeal enough even in the Lone Star State to draw a large enough fan base of radio users to compete successfully with country radio stations simply playing the Nashville chart hits.

Propelled by a devoted and passionate base of lovers of his powerfully-creative, eclectic, indie music style, Robert continues to provide an important voice to the music scene, which makes me want to tip my (cowboy) hat in his direction for his latest promotional effort, an endorsement of HD Radio.

iBiquity’s partnership with Robert Earl Keen will build awareness of HD Radio broadcasting and promote Robert’s new album, Happy Prisoner. The program will include radio promotions and contests, as well as a trip for two to Nashville to join Robert Earl at his July 23, 2015 performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium.

“We are excited to continue to build the HD Radio Artist spotlight program,” said Mason Hunter, Executive Director, Strategic Partnerships/Business Development at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI).    “Robert Earl Keen is a stalwart for BMI and is an artist who has been consistently releasing outstanding music for over three decades.  His latest release, Happy Prisoner, is no exception. We are thrilled to have a partner in iBiquity Digital who recognizes his talent and ongoing contribution to songwriting. The HD Radio Experience delivers digital quality sound, unique content, and exposure to artists like Robert in order to enhance the experience of their listeners,” continued Hunter.

“Robert Earl Keen is a unique talent with a long history of making music his way, and his fans love him for it,” said Joe D’Angelo, Senior Vice President of iBiquity Digital.  “We are extremely proud to be able to work with Robert and look forward to bringing his latest project to radio fans across the country.”

OK, radio.  The ball is now in your court.  If you already have an HD-2 or HD-3 channel set aside for alt.country, Robert Earl Keen, BMI and iBiquity just handed you a free gift.  If you aren't using all of your HD channels now, it's a great time to begin.

BUT, don't do it if you're not prepared to aggressively promote it on your main channel.  Enhance your brand by appealing to the widest possible group of country fans.

Make the most of this forward-thinking move by radio's longtime friend, Robert Earl Keen!

What To Call Your New HDRadio Digital Side Channels

Thanks to RBR's Jim Carnegie for raising some great questions: "Were they asking the right questions? It looks to us like people were offered two bad choices and they chose the one they found least objectionable. Can't we find something more consumer friendly than perpetuating the existing one-oh-whatever-point-thingamajig system? We think the radio industry needs to hire branding experts to try to come up with a more consumer-friendly way of numbering HD Radio channels. Harper told us that a few panelists offered other suggestions, "but none of them ever lit up the room." Maybe there isn't any better option than having the HD Radio FM band run from 88.1 to 247.9, but we'd sure like to see some other avenues explored. Radio has to get this right."

.. AND, to researcher Bob Harper, who did the Cox focus groups, for his thought-provoking response: "I look at it this way. We were asking the first of what are sure to be many more questions concerning HD Radio and the way listeners will use the new technology. One thing you learn very quickly when you open the HD Radio box: there are many unresolved issues so it is very easy to be pulled off track and into a deep technical and theoretical ditch. Did we ask all the questions ... find all the answers? Certainly not. But our twelve national Focus Groups did clear up a big one for all of us: the industry needs a more intuitive and simpler approach than the so-called Layered option. If you take out a yellow legal pad and watch our twelve Groups on the web. You'll fill page after page with insightful listener comments on both Display options we tested. You will hear over and over in their own words that the Layered system confuses them and makes what should be a simple thing like finding and remembering a radio station more complicated than it needs to be. Branding pros should have a field day with all the anecdotal material."

Bridge's Dave Van Dyke: Interest In HDRadio Is "Lethargic"

"In June of 2006, Bridge Ratings conducted a study of radio consumers to gauge their awareness of, and interest in. HD Radio. At that time, 62% of the sample were aware of the term "HD Radio". In our just-released study, that number has increased to 72%! Good news, yes? Not when you look at other aspects of the study such as their interest to own an HD Radio.

"When you get a moment, visit our website to view this latest study which suggests that while millions have been spent to market HD Radio, interest levels continue to be lethargic. Bridge Ratings has reduced our full year projections for the number of HD Radios sold this year and through 2010." -- Dave Van Dyke

I wonder when...

1. We really do set some under 25 year olds loose to build some truly innovative programming for the side channels that will interest the Millenials?

2. We get serious about branding these channels and make them something more than 94.1-2, 94.1.3, etc?

3. We'll realize that satellite is spending millions of real money in all media for product placement and brand advertising and just running space available ads on terrestial radio won't compete?

Or, will we ever do at least one or two of these things? If not, we're in for a long, slow build.

Radio 2015: Perspective From A Very Savvy Friend

I want to turn on the echo chamber today:

Reed Bunzel is a veteran media executive with over 30 years of service in the radio, music, and digital media industries. He is president of Bunzel Media Strategies, a full service consulting and analytics firm that assists companies with industry research, analysis, business strategies, platform development, and communications/marketing.

     Remember the movie Sybil? That's the 1976 miniseries and film starring Sally Field, whose main character was alleged to have up to 13 different personalities, all struggling to coexist inside one body at the same time.

     I mention this because this week at the NAB/RAB Radio Show in Indianapolis I was having a conversation with a respected broadcaster (name withheld upon request) who compared the U.S. radio industry in 2014 to the Sybil character. Not in the sense that he thought the business was fraught with mental illness or that it needed psychotropic drugs in order to maintain a "normal" life, but because at any one time there are a number of distinct personalities inside this industry that give voice to its collective persona.

     While the analogy could be perceived as a bit of a stretch, a distinct parallel can be drawn between Sybil's internal voices and the discussions I've had with radio broadcasters these past few days at the Radio Show. All of these conversations (and some comments made at general sessions) have been fascinating, some of them are scary, and many of them contribute to a universe that seems founded more on perception than reality. Depending on whom you talk to, the American radio industry is a) healthy, b) doomed, c) challenged, d) blind, or e) all of the above.

Here's what I mean:

• In her now-traditional role of the industry's statistician, Wells Fargo Securities senior analyst Marci Ryvicker insisted radio's revenues will remain flat until broadcasters prove her wrong, with local and national spot revenues most likely going nowhere this year. She has a strong record of accurate forecasts, so her macroeconomic view can be trusted. Her prediction of "flat" growth is not a truth many attendees in the audience wanted to hear, but as Ryvicker so eloquently put it, "radio has a lot of shit."
• Several major group heads insisted that the radio remains strong and, while saddled with the uncertainties of change, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. Example: Cumulus Chairman Lew Dickey, while acknowledging myriad challenges, observed that radio is "America's daytime medium" and emphasized that its greatest audience occurs during the time when most commerce is conducted.
• RAB President/CEO Erica Farber stressed that digital is radio's most direct and imminent path to growth, a position self-avowed BS specialist Bob Hoffman (author of "The Golden Age Of B.S.") almost immediately refuted by declaring "online advertising is a fraud." While Hoffman quickly clarified that he really was referring only to display advertising, his "WTF" moment resonated long after he left the stage.
• Univision Radio President Jose Valle stated that digital audio streaming is a $20 million revenue line that produces cash flow for his company, and noted that "we don't abandon our over-the-air audience but we have to be where our listeners want us to be. Listeners dictate."
• Seconds later Emmis Chairman Jeff Smulyan insisted he's never made a dime from streaming, stressing instead how critical it is to get NextRadio functional in every smartphone sold in America, so consumers have access free FM radio rather than pay the near-usurious rates charged by major phone carriers. This move, Smulyan insists, will almost single-handedly propel the radio industry into the future.
• Of course, a healthy contingent of tech-heads are adamant that it's too late for either NextRadio (which is at the mercy of AT&T and Verizon) or HD Radio to shift the digital tide that has begun to rise - a tide, they insist, that will not float all boats.
• Then there's the die-hard cheerleaders who point to radio's 92% 12-plus reach and insist that all is good in the world of radio, despite measurable TSL erosion among younger demographics and the growth of such online digital services as Rdio, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora.
• These folks also tend to be harsh Pandora critics who don't grasp that the streaming service is a company, not an industry, and that if it didn't have to pay the performance royalty fees dictated by the Copyright Royalty Board (from which AM/FM radio is exempt), its margins actually could be far greater than those of many radio companies serving the same number of listeners.
• And then there are the "rapturists," those individuals who are convinced that radio's apocalypse is imminent, and nothing can be done to save it from the four horsemen who are fast approaching from the other side of the digital horizon. 

     I want to stress here that I am not trying to simplify the passions or opinions of radio broadcasters, or to declare the radio industry "psychologically unstable" or "mentally unfit." Far from it. But today (Sept. 12), as the Radio Show closes here in Indianapolis and we all go back to our regular roles in the radio business, we need to recognize that it's impossible to color the radio industry with one broad stroke. I'm constantly asked "what's the big take-away" or "what's the buzz at the show"?

    I understand the questions, but I don't have suitable answers. No one does. And that's because the radio business is comprised of many interconnected parts, with multiple priorities and goals, and no two perceptions (or personalities) are alike. Each of us knows what we know about our own corner of this business, and we are influenced by the factors that affect us personally and professionally.

     For instance, some broadcasters are being chased by debtors who have no option but to let them to continue kicking the can down the road in an endless game of tag that causes many folks to doubt the overall health of the industry. Others are ruled by fear of change and cringe at the approaching reality that spot revenue might just not be enough to get them through to retirement, or to identify a reasonable exit strategy. Still others are managing to generate small revenue gains through hard work and diligence, and are accepting that digital and social media can push real dollars to their bottom lines.

     In the movie and TV miniseries, Sybil was affected by what today is known as multiple personality disorder*. It's important here to draw a distinction between that and what I've mentioned above, which is radio's multiple personalities. Period. (Whether there's a disorder involved is open to discussion.

     My only point here is to initiate a conversation about the U.S.. radio industry as we head into the fourth quarter, and to introduce my new initiative, Radio 2015. This new "media intelligence platform" is designed to engage everyone in this wonderful business in a discussion about our collective fates, futures, and fortunes, and to offer actionable analysis and information to ensure that we are guided by intelligence rather than fear.

     You'll be hearing a lot more about Radio 2015 next week - and in the weeks to come. Meantime, I invite you to email me with any questions or comments you might have regarding the radio business, as well as suggestions about what you think needs to be addressed as we set our sights on tomorrow...and the next day.

*In a book titled "Sybil Exposed," author Debbie Nathan maintains that most of the story Shirley Mason, the "real" Sybil, was fabricated.

HD Radio Playbook

Ibiquity's promotion tool for HD Radio is now up and running.

PS: With the growing interest in Multicasting FM broadcasts in the U.S., Kenwood USA Corp. is now shipping the new KTC-HR100TR HD Radio auto sound tuner, the first in the industry built from scratch to feature FM Multicasting.

The new external HD Radio Tuner is easy to connect with most Kenwood in-dash receivers and is completely feature-compatible with the KTC-HR100MC (read more - Business Wire)

Behind That Wheatstone "Technology Gap" Study

Of the 10 revenue generating technologies the study measured, streaming a station’s radio signal over the Internet was seen as having the most potential. Having a website that interacts with listeners was second, while streaming multiple channels of programming was third.

When respondents were asked which of the 10 technologies their radio organizations are now deploying, streaming was the top pick by far. For six other technologies (listed below), each requiring capital investment, respondents reported group owned stations as implementing them at a substantially higher rate than stand-alone stations:

• Having a website that delivers video: Group owned, 43.1%; stand-alone, 26.8%
• Promoting stations with a mobile phone app: Group owned, 43.1%; stand-alone, 22.8%
• Streaming multiple channels: Group owned, 38.5%; stand-alone, 20.3%
• Broadcasting in HD Radio: Group owned, 36.9%; stand-alone, 19.5%
• Websites that create musical discovery: Group owned, 27.7%; stand-alone, 17.9%
• Broadcasting multiple HD Radio channels: Group owned, 26.2%; stand-alone, 10.6%

What's holding the smaller broadcast companies back? (duh) MONEY.

For the remaining three technologies, which do not require capital investment (using social media to win more listeners, creating a website that interacts with listeners, and creating podcasts) responses for stand-alone and group-owned stations were comparable.

“This study comes to the radio industry at a critical time. As traditional ad revenue has declined, radio organizations are experimenting with new technologies that will add revenue by enabling them to deliver programming through a variety of new channels.” -- Wheatstone Vice President Andrew Calvanese

Evaluating the new radio business models is not easy. “Part of the difficulty is they are all baby models at this point, and they are all different. Different organizations are following different models: Some people are making money from streaming, others from local events, still others are making money from banner ads. Not everyone is good at following these paths. Radio could end up becoming multiple industries, because [individual] broadcast groups [could] have less in common with each other than they do with companies in other industries.” -- Mark Ramsey, president of Mark Ramsey Media

With the exception of streaming, stand-alone stations are falling behind group-owned stations in using revenue generating technologies that require capital investment. Group-owned stations are pulling ahead by a ratio of about 2:1.

Long term, as revenue builds from these new technologies, stand-alone stations could find themselves challenged to compete economically. (grab the study report here - pdf)

We Are The Chicken, Not The Egg

If terrestial radio doesn't 'lay' HDRadio, no one else will.

Call me a huckster for Radio World, if you want, but they are covering the story in ways that no one else seems to be:

"For some time, Ibiquity Digital has been telling stations they need to "promote, promote, promote" HD Radio. Now, members of the new HD Radio alliance share the mantra, but RW's Leslie Stimson reports that "Confusion Reigns About HD Radio."

If we don't commit some major resources to fix that problem - and soon, 'ain't nothing good gonna happen!'

The Media Audit: Hispanic Listening To Country Radio Is Increasing

A new analysis, based on all country radio listeners in the 84 Media Audit Markets surveyed between 2001 and 2006, will be released in detail at Albright & O’Malley’s Pre-CRS “Sunrise Seminar”, which also shows growth in internet usage, support of the Republican party and a decline in country listeners who are registered Democrats

A&O are presenting yet another reason to attend this year’s Country Radio Seminar and arrive very early on Wednesday, February 28, 2007.

This first look at new data on country listeners provides evidence that the CRS-Edison Research project on what country music needs to do to appeal to Hispanic radio listeners is very timely, given that TMA’s 18+ telephone sampling shows an increase of 34% in the number of Hispanics who report listening to country radio in the last three years. We will present a detailed look at country qualitative trends at our Pre-CRS 'sunrise" seminar.

A few other highlights of the TMA national country radio usage data:

* The largest percentage of the country audience in 2006 is 35-44 (24%).
* Almost 77% of country radio listeners are between 18 and 54.
* Both 25-34 and 45-54 usage has been very stable over the last three years.
* The number of country radio listeners online at least once per month has almost doubled from 47.1% in 2001 to 80.5% in the last year.
* The percentage of country listeners who are registered Republicans has been on the increase for the last three years while the percentage who are registered Democrats has been decreasing for five straight years.
* 67% of all country radio listeners say they voted in the past year.
* 82.8% of country listeners questioned by Media Audit in 2006 are not reached by any other format.

Also to be revealed at next Wednesday’s A&O client meeting are the results of “Roadmap 2007,” a perceptual study of 10,062 listeners across the U.S. and Canada who completed an online questionnaire on the type of country music they like best, reasons for listening to their favorite country station, degree of satisfaction with that station, voice tracking, streaming, HD Radio, marketing preferences, their attitudes toward participating in a diary, telephone or metered radio rating surveys,

These two A&O research presentations are just a part of a terrific slate of presentations, speakers and special events for their clients who are attending CRS. Now A&O is opening the meeting to the public by invitation only.

Internet Radio Listening Is Still Tiny, As Analog Radio Still Reaches 232-Million

Arbitron's just released "Infinite Dial" study says online listen to internet radio is dominated by young males and online audiences are still fractionally small, less than 1% of the total AM/FM audience. 55% are men, with 36% of those 18-34.

1855 participants nationwide selected from Arbitron's Fall 2006 survey were also questioned about satellite and HD radio, as well as usage of audio podcasting.

Awareness of HD radio nearly doubled what it was a year ago, but that awareness hasn't translated into much increased interest from consumers, with just 6% calling themselves "very interested" in the new audio medium.

Download the full report here.

Other hot stuff from the ARB news center: Radio Reaches 232 Million Listeners per Week, according to RADAR 93

Call Me Don Quixote

Is it just Bob Struble and me?

Digital radio developer iBiquity projects HD Radio receiver sales will jump 63% this year, forecasting 5.4 million units will be sold.  That compares to 3.3 million receivers that entered the market last year.

A&O&B has been chronicling the tortoise-like pace of North American radio's movement toward digital in this space for many years.  (click to read eight years' worth)

I suppose the fact that 61% of Inside Radio readers now see a "tipping point" somewhere in our medium term future is a positive sign.

Hey, 38%:  read this one (It's About Time) and see if it makes you change your tune as well.

There was a time when FM seemed like an uphill battle too.  HDRadio is our best hope for a big place in the coming digital dashboard.

Don't give up on it.

Digital radio developer iBiquity projects HD Radio receiver sales will jump 63% this year, forecasting 5.4 million units will be sold.  That compares to 3.3 million receivers that entered the market last year. - See more at: http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2690513&spid=32060#.UhYNj4XtjJM

Bob Struble

Bob Struble

Bob Struble

Radio World Asks The Tough HDRadio Questions

You know that newspaper that only the geeky folks at your station who wear pocket protectors read? Yeah, the one that's always laying around the engineering offices? You really need to read this week's edition!

Click the links to read the timely info from RW writers Steve Sullivan, Leslie Stimson and Anders Madsen

Gretchen Toes the Multicasting Water
Does something make a noise if there's nobody there to hear it? A small but growing number of commercial stations - approximately 70, as of December - are confronting that age-old riddle as they debut digital multicast channels to tiny audiences.

Alliance's Work Is Just Beginning
Challenges Ahead as Groups Coordinate Digital Promotion and Programming of Multicast Channels

Groups Will Divvy Up HD2 Pie
The announcement that several ownership groups are coordinating their multicast planning is historic for the radio community. It means the industry essentially is marketing multicast as a single new radio service, something consumers and retail salespeople can understand and describe in a few words.

HD Radio: Could It Ever Supplant FM?
Will HD Radio someday overtake analog FM in the United States? If so, how long until most commercial FM broadcast is at least accompanied by an IBOC modulated signal? Will stations ever really start turning off their analog entirely, as originally envisioned under the "hybrid" approach to a digital radio transition?

The End Of The Voice Tracking Era? Hardly.

But, maybe the technology has just come of age.

Inside Radio reported this morning that AFTRA and Clear Channel will sign a precedent-setting agreement for HD Radio.

The union's national director Tom Carpenter tells IR reporter Tom Taylor that the agreement is “historic” on a couple of levels. It’s the first time AFTRA has signed a national radio deal, and it sets a precedent for how HD multicasts will be viewed by the union and management.

The fact that Clear Channel New York has also just signed a contract with the union which covers voice tracking ends a very public battle which has effects on us all: "Without calling it a victory for the union — Carpenter says the four-year fight over how much voice-tracking to allow on stations repped by the union has largely ended with “some pretty good contracts.” He says Clear Channel agreed to pacts that restrict voice-tracking to nights and certain weekend shifts and to pay a “fair”rate for talent tracking shows for non-union stations. Carpenter believes the biggest reason for the reversal is a change in strategies for Clear Channel. He says the company is doing considerably less voice-tracking than it did a few years ago after realizing it had “abandoned” one of the strengths of local radio — being live and local. Plus it felt a lot of “pressure” to be competitive with satellite radio and other media. " -- 2/2/06 Inside Radio

Hallelujah! Back in 1996 when consolidation ramped up in the newly-public radio business the rhetoric about imported talent and voice tracking claimed that it wasn't being done to save money, but to improve the quality of personality on local radio. That, to me, remains a worthy goal, whether local/live or imported using voice tracks. The best (and most relevant to local listeners!) content STILL wins.

Dreaming of HD Radio

Be watching next week's Airplay Monitor for an article that sounds like a lot of fun being written now by Phyllis Stark. She's asking folks, "With HD Radio looming, I thought it would be fun to touch base with some prominent industry executives for a light-hearted look at you'd do with a second (or third, fourth or fifth) channel if you had one to program now."

Here's my response to her questions:

PS: If you had an additional channel or two complementing your current stations, what would you do with it? Any niche music or type of programming that doesn't work in today's competitive terrestrial radio environment that could work as a bonus channel?

JA: Every single terrestual country radio station will have more digital side channels than either of the satellite radio companies .. and we'll be LOCAL as well. If we're smart, our formats will be much more interactive and personal than anything we can offer now. Hopefully, once we have six or seven times the current available space for commercial inventory, we'll recognize it as an opportunity to cut down the amount of commercial clutter compared to today's levels on all of them.

PS: Also, what kind of programming do you secretly hope someone else may sign on in your market that you'd listen to as guilty pleasure? Mariachi music? Celtic lullabies? Polkas? All bagpipes all the time? Some niche talk format?

JA: The John Phillip Sousa, Kent State University, Ohio State University, University of Washington marching bands channel. The Broadway show tunes channel The "songs Jaye Albright thought were going to be hits but aren't" channel.

A Blog Worth Echoing (Loudly!)

"History is littered with really good ideas, which for one reason or another (or many), just failed to catch on. And recent history suggests with the ever-rapid changing world of technology, the list of really good ideas that just came up short will probably be more populated. I wouldn’t be surprised if  HD Radio is on that list by the end of this decade.

"HD Radio Can Be Saved, If Someone Cares to Try."

  -- Matt Sammon

Click for 5 reasons why HD Radio has failed, and 5 reasons why it can rise from the ashes…

The Geeks Are Gone Now

The annual CES in Las Vegas attracts a couple hundred thousand of them from around the world who have one thing in common. They all want to be the first to own this year's "hot new thing."

As you listen to them in the media today, please keep a cool head and remind yourself that you'll never hear from the majority of the touch screen tablet computers running to catch up with iPad now.

“The thing I’m hearing most consistently from Toyota and other automakers is that HD Radio is giving them something to work with when it comes to radio,” -- Emmis chief technology officer and Broadcaster Traffic Consortium president Paul Brenner.

He claims that FM is an analog technology with very limited capability,” pointing to Toyota’s new Entune multimedia system as one of the ways automakers are incorporating HD into their digital strategy so that the user interface is consistently digital. Brenner contends that HD is helping broadcasters “stay in the fight.”

According to A&O's Roadmap perceptual tracking study, the majority of our listeners are not quite ready to jump on these new fads.

Only 2.2% of country listeners reported being "very likely" to buy HD Radio in the next 12 months.

Broadband access to the internet in vehicles had considerably more potential.

2010 A&O Country Roadmap study of 8,867 country listeners across the USA and Canada (1.6% 12-17, 6% 18=34, 13.6% 25-34, 20% 35-44, 32.5% 45-54, 19.8% 55-64, 5.7% 65-74, .7% 75+, 25.3% male, 74.7% female)

The 2011 study will be fielding in coming weeks, with results updated at the A&O pre-CRS client seminar from 1-5 pm, March 1st in Nashville.

Radio - "A Medium In Transition"

Interep's Radio Symposium - "Radio 101: Back to the Basics, Off to the Future" - celebrated radio's 100 years of broadcasting achievement, while asking, "What's next?" for a medium in transition.

* Bob Struble, President and CEO of iBiquity: "within the next 2-3 years, in addition to HD radio receivers in homes and cars, PDAs, eTablets and SmartPhones will be equipped to receive digital radio."

* Mark Ramsey, President of Hear2.0 and author of the book Fresh Air: Marketing Gurus on Radio: "The most important thing that I can say to radio broadcasters today is this: adopt a web strategy. And by the way, streaming alone is not a web strategy."

Are You Getting As Weary Of Mark Ramsey And Jerry Del Colliano As I Am?

I don't question their passion, intelligence, knowledge or sincerity, but the constant drumbeat of daily nagging on the same issue (The ongoing tragedy of HD radio, Radio and Records – What Went Wrong, etc, etc, etc) has turned from helpful and informative to negative and cyncial "I told you so" nagging for me.

"HD Radio is going to be an abysmal failure and internet radio is the future." Nag, nag, nag.

Check and double check. Got it. Bought the book. Saw the movie. Read the white paper.

So, is anything else more positive going on in your lives, guys? I keep clicking on your links in hopes that there is.