The only people that care about HD Radio work for Ibiquity. No one else wants it. Those I know that have it installed in their vehicles complain, universally, about the spotty reception, and in the case of AMHD, spotty and ringy audio. In fact, I have heard complaints from average listeners about the hash on AM and FM between the stations. Was there some crazy logic to drive people to digital by making analog sound like crap? Sort of like when top 40 stations used do speed up the turntables to make the competition sound dull.
What I cannot believe is that SO many broadcasters, Like CC and Crawford, have sold their souls on this stuff. Not to mention the many stations that collectively have spent millions on this.
In the end, HD radio will go the way of Quad FM, Amax and AM stereo. If stations want to recover market share, the answer is in programming...NOT technology. Get the commercial loads down to 8 to 10 minutes per hour. Get the stop set duration down to 90 seconds to 2 minutes max. Finally....get innovative. How many stations called Jack, Bob, Kiss, Magic,Hot, Power,Z and K do you need?
FM Analog radio works quite well, thank you. AM radio can sound better with well made receivers and removal of the draconian bandwidth reduction and better RF sections in the receivers. It doesn't have to be expensive to upgrade AM reception...GE did it with the Superadio priced at $59.00
The beauty of analog FM and AM is this. You turn it on and it works in most places with consistancy. No special antenna, no fiddling required. Want to improve something on an FM receiver...how about a better telescoping antenna.
