# HD Radio Sales Estimate Reduced



## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

*Study: HD Radio Sales Estimate Reduced*

According to a recent study by Bridge Ratings, the percentage of respondents who would be interested in purchasing an HD Radio has dropped in the past six months.

As a result Bridge has reduced their original projections for full year 2007 HD Radio sales from 2.1 million to 1.5 million total HD Radio units sold. The study also shows that "awareness" of HD Radio is on the rise, something that terrestrial radio fanboys trade publications would rather focus on, though they are completely ignoring the reduction in full year sales estimates

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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

Steve Mehs said:


> *Study: HD Radio Sales Estimate Reduced*
> 
> According to a recent study by Bridge Ratings, the percentage of respondents who would be interested in purchasing an HD Radio has dropped in the past six months.
> 
> ...


I have been looking to get an HD Radio, but there not at the right price point yet. Once they come down in price and are offered OEM in new cars the format will take off.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> Once they comed down in price and are offered OEM in new cars the format will take off.


I doubt it. The only way 'HD' Radio has a shot is if the government forces it to replace current analog signals, like what's happening in the TV world. How long has HD Radio been around? XM got their first million subscribers after 2 years and that has a monthly fee. Crappy free radio, is well free and they can't get the same number. People are abandoning terrestrial radio and listening to better forms of audio entertainment, this latest gimmick will no doubt be a failure just like AM Stereo.


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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

Steve Mehs said:


> I doubt it. The only way 'HD' Radio has a shot is if the government forces it to replace current analog signals, like what's happening in the TV world. How long has HD Radio been around? XM got their first million subscribers after 2 years and that has a monthly fee. Crappy free radio, is well free and they can't get the same number. People are abandoning terrestrial radio and listening to better forms of audio entertainment, this latest gimmick will no doubt be a failure just like AM Stereo.


1st. HD radio doesn't have to replace analog. HD radio uses the analogs unused portion of the channels spectrum.
2nd HD radio uses analog as a fall back when the signal of the digital channel isn't strong enough to be clear and consistant.
3rd HD radio is nothing like the AM Stereo. AM Stereo had a big problem of being in many different formats.

HD radio doesn't cost the stations a lot of capital, since it doesn't require changing the transmiter or adding a new one.

The cost will come down quickly once there are more chip manufacters out there. Look at Dolby digital it is nearly every surround sound home receiver. It was a matter of reducing the price of the chips.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

If no one is purchasing an HD Radio, why would manufactures put the chips in? HD Radio will be a failure. Satellite Radio and the iPod will dominate, from what I noticed most people don't care about HD Radio and personally I don't care about CD quality commercials. I will never own an HD Radio because it means supporting the enemy, terrestrial broadcasters. Plus I refuse to listen to terrestrail radio.


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## pez2002 (Dec 13, 2002)

HD radio is a Joke 


I like xm And my ipod and Music choice


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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

The problem I had when I subscibed to XM was the audio quality. It sounded like a low quality MP3, but the odd thing is the audio quality of XM is much better sounding on DirecTV.

I still found myself going back to the FM dial to listen to local radio, so I canceled my XM subscription in the car. It's included with DirecTV so I can't cancel it there.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

HD radio will really take off when the satellite services go broke.

Although I have XM, I enjoy the thousands of choices nationwide I have with FM and AM, as opposed to less than 200 on the XM, only a couple of which do I ever listen to.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

Thousands of choices nationwide? Ummm.. How are you picking up those LA or NYC stations in East KY? I live 40 miles outside of Boston and I have a few dozen "choices", many of those choices being clones of each other.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

paulman182 said:


> HD radio will really take off when the satellite services go broke.
> 
> Although I have XM, I enjoy the thousands of choices nationwide I have with FM and AM, as opposed to less than 200 on the XM, only a couple of which do I ever listen to.


:lol: Now that's funny

Thousands of choices nationwide? Yeah right. If you like having cookie cutter stations that play the same 20 songs over and over. FM radio playlists are as deep as a week old dried up mud puddle. Dinosaur radio is not about choice, it's about trying to sell you crap you don't need. Terrestrial radio only exists to please advertisers, not you. I haven't listen to garbage radio in so long, I almost forgot what a commercial was. 
The SDARS services won't go broke, you can bet on that. 13.5 Million strong and growing


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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

paulman182 said:


> HD radio will really take off when the satellite services go broke.
> 
> Although I have XM, I enjoy the thousands of choices nationwide I have with FM and AM, as opposed to less than 200 on the XM, only a couple of which do I ever listen to.


Don't try selling the Satellite radio people on HD radio. They may live in an area with bad stations. Here in Chicago we are lucky to have many independent stations playing local music. This may not be the case in NY where they are at.


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## Ray_Clum (Apr 22, 2002)

Both my wife and I got Sirius because our favorite local station got moved to the HD-2 station. Since no one around here installs HD Radio in cars, which is where we do most of our listening, and Dish Network already provided us with a preview of Sirius (THANKS DISH!!!), I bought a SV-1 on eBay for me and one on clearance for Lori at RatShack... 

Now I just want to set the FM transmitter on a country & western station and block it just to cause the listener to flip out when their Garth Brooks gets covered up by Switchfoot or someone's gansta rap gets covered by Michael W. Smith...


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

My favorite station WRTI (Temple U, Philadelphia) has HD operating. I haven't noticed that it degrades their FM sound quality so it doesn't matter to me.

They broadcast classical during the day and jazz during the evening. The jazz community went ballistic when WRTI picked up classical after WFLN 'went to the dogs' many years ago.

HD radio seems to be the solution to their problem. They broadcast jazz on the HD channel during the day and classical on it during the evening. In theory, that should keep both camps happy. Of course, the problem is not solved quite yet.

I have a definite bias against any 'bit starved' digital storage/transmission methodology. HD is probably is OK for background music but I wouldn't expect much from it on my high end stereo system. The problem with 'digital quality' anything is that no one complains about it anymore. 

I haven't heard HD radio yet so if you say I'm prejudging it your right.

--- CHAS


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## compac (Oct 6, 2006)

Any new thoughts? on HD radio... need to update our kitchen radio.

Want a plug in for our mp3 player too.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Many public radio stations are switching to HD radio in order to accommodate their diverse listening groups. The one all jazz station hereabouts changed formats to largely talk radio recently, moving its jazz shows to HD radio. They got a fair amount of negative feedback from listeners, but are sticking to their guns for financial reasons.


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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

I just purchased an JVC unit for my car. I am in Chicago, so there are a lot of stations broadcasting in HD.

I have had great success recieving the HD broadcasts. The FM channels for the most part are just a little bit better sounding. There are a couple of stations, which sound much better in Digital(they don't have any sub channels)

The AM stations are another story. The sound much better than the analog. Also they seem to travel a long distance. I can get the Milwaukee, WI station in Digital!

I only wish the new car I was looking at came with HD Radio built-in.


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## lee635 (Apr 17, 2002)

Subscription radio may be nice for those who can afford it. But my people, and there are a lot of them, cannnot afford to pay for new equipment and a monthly fee in order to hear Howard Stern cuss on the radio. :lol: 

HD radio is great. It's better music for the masses.


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## drded (Aug 23, 2006)

The bandwidth reduction some AM stations are implementing to bring us AM-HD makes them sound like crap. Here in Tucson we have two AM's doing HD, one not sounding too bad, the other terrible. When I called to complain, they said their corporate engineering team made them reduce the bandwidth. 

I'll take good old-fashioned free AM any day. It sounded decent and the programming isn't too bad either. FM has gotten so focused on the bottom line and being formulatic that it is no longer fun to hear. AM may be satellite-serviced for music, but at least I can hear some classic C/W.

Dave


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## tzphotos.com (Jul 12, 2006)

We are lucky in Chicago... There are still some real local stations. Back to the HD radio, I am very happy with the quality. The extra channels are nice and do find myself listening to them.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I find myself in the rare agreement with Mr. Mehs. The problem with terrestrial radio is not the quality. In fact, with my sound system and my car, I find the quality quite passable thank you. The problem is the content and the advertising model.


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## brant (Jul 6, 2008)

i happen to really like my local FM stations, and would absolutely buy an HD radio if they started broadcasting HD. 

We've got a station for pretty much every type of music, along with two news/talk stations that have all the major political commentators, we've got ESPN radio also. HD would be great.


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## dshu82 (Jul 6, 2007)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I find myself in the rare agreement with Mr. Mehs. The problem with terrestrial radio is not the quality. In fact, with my sound system and my car, I find the quality quite passable thank you. The problem is the content and the advertising model.


Exactly. Got Sirius about 3 years ago, have not listened to terrestrial radio since. Not once......


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Well it's been what over a year and half since I started this thread and HD Radio is still in the same boat it was back then. A gimmick people are not falling for. HD Radio is no bigger or more popular now than then. People know Clear Channel, CBS Radio and the rest screwed up analog terrestrial radio, and they're too smart to buy into the digital counterpart, which is from those same companies. If they can't do analog right, they sure as hell can't do digital right. Sirius XM is the second largest subsription based service in the country and growing.

Again for the mathematically challenged, HD RADIO = FAILURE


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## Scott in FL (Mar 18, 2008)

Stuart Sweet said:


> The problem with terrestrial radio is not the quality. In fact, with my sound system and my car, I find the quality quite passable thank you. The problem is the content and the advertising model.


Agreed. When it comes to the vast majority of commerical stations, I agree. In my opinion HD radio is a poorly engineered gimick that started out as an idea to provide better audio quality, changed into a way to compete with Sirius and XM, and in many (not all) cases is now just a cheap service with an audio server/PC feeding a digital transmitter. It can go off the air and no one at the station notices for hours.

Greed has contributed to the IBOC engineering solution and poor programming. I say this as a DJ and broadcast engineer that started out and loved radio a long, long time ago. Clear Channel, et al, have ruined commerical radio and for the most part I never listen to any terrestrial radio anymore.

With two exceptions: non-commercial radio and the handful (literally) of independent commercial stations that still play diverse music, employ knowledgeable announcers, and provide current local information. But these stations are few and far between, and with our economy their future is in jeopardy like never before.


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