HD2 for KLAC 98.7 and KFI 103.5

Today (8/10/15) iHeart elevated KLAC to 98.7 HD2 displacing the hard rock format there and KFI to 103.5 HD2 displacing the hits of recent decades format that had been there. Now it would be good if the iHeart legal team could get FCC authorization to increase the power of the HD side channels to match their main carrier channels so that these HD options become listenable throughout the DMA.
Thoughts?

david said:

Today (8/10/15) iHeart elevated KLAC to 98.7 HD2 displacing the hard rock format there and KFI to 103.5 HD2 displacing the hits of recent decades format that had been there. Now it would be good if the iHeart legal team could get FCC authorization to increase the power of the HD side channels to match their main carrier channels so that these HD options become listenable throughout the DMA.
Thoughts?

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Last time I checked out the KOST 103 HD 2 Hits channel, I was surprised at how much classic rock was on it. The one that stuck out the most was Bad Company. I literally had to check to make sure I was on the right channel.

I really stopped listening to KFI when they muzzled John and Ken after the whole Whitney episode, so it won't make much of a difference to me. But the choice is simple - KFI on AM with a touch of static (depending on your location) or KFI with skips and dead air on the HD2 channel. I guess it is the same for Petros and Money on KYSR HD2.

Speaking of HD channels in general though, could the radio industry have screwed the whole thing up any more than they did? Worst technology roll-out ever, no advertising/customer awareness campaign, almost no hardware to use it outside of car radio, still dead spots all over town, and almost no creativity in programming. Even the name, HD, is misleading as most people believe that stands for high definition, but there is nothing HD about HD radio. And this is coming from someone who is a radio geek and predisposed to try and like the technology and the (theoretical) increase in programming choices.

ChannelFlipper said:

Speaking of HD channels in general though, could the radio industry have screwed the whole thing up any more than they did?

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We could have, but that would have required even more effort than doing it right would have, so we settled for screwing it up only as far as we did.

Question from a non-techie KFI observer - does this mean that KLAC and KFI will now be able to be picked up on cell phones with newly activated FM chips and, if so, in how great a demographic range compared to their am signals?

Interestingly iHeart did not similarly open up an FM band channel for KEIB.

Finally, are the ratings services able to accurately track HD channel listenership and in the case of AM/FM simulcasting should not the two be combined for a total ratings picture?

Art Landing said:

Question from a non-techie KFI observer - does this mean that KLAC and KFI will now be able to be picked up on cell phones with newly activated FM chips and, if so, in how great a demographic range compared to their am signals?

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I have read nothing in any of the trade publications that says the FM chip is anything but an analog receiver, so I believe the answer is "no".

Finally, are the ratings services able to accurately track HD channel listenership and in the case of AM/FM simulcasting should not the two be combined for a total ratings picture?

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Presumably iHeart has the same PPM encoding for the HD streams as on their originating analog signals. So, just as (for example) the listening for the HD primary signal of KOST is combined with the analog for a single rating, any listening to KFI on KOST's HD second signal would be combined with that on AM 640. In fact, if a station streams without any difference in the programming the stream is part of a combined rating (generally, that is not happening due to commercial breaks being pre-empted on the streams of most L.A. stations because of SAG-AFTRA issues), and any station received on a translator also has its ratings combined with the parent.

On a few occasions, the online stream of KOST has had enough listeners to show up in the monthly Nielsen Audio ratings. The stream is apparently not included with the listenership of 103.5 FM. According to K.M., the listenership of a station's HD broadcast is combined with the listenership of the station's FM (or AM) broadcast. Is there a way to determine how many people are listening solely to the HD broadcast? And, if so, has any United States HD channel ever had a large enough audience to show up in the monthly Nielsen Audio ratings?

Edit: While I was typing, David answered part of my question. Thank you, David!

DavidEduardo said:

The FM chip, AFAIK, is only analog.

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Right, plus they would need to pay the iBiquity HD royalty, which they won't do.

Thomps2525 said:

Is there a way to determine how many people are listening solely to the HD broadcast? And, if so, has any United States HD channel ever had a large enough audience to show up in the monthly Nielsen Audio ratings?

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AFAIK, there is no separate breakout for main HD channel listening. As David has already pointed out, those listeners are automatically combined with the analog listing for the main station numbers as a 100% simulcast.

That answer renders your second question moot, I believe.

If the HD listeners and AM/FM listeners are lumped together---which puts an interesting picture in my mind---then there is no real incentive for a station owner to come up with a unique format which would attract a large number of listeners to HD. And I get the feeling that many station owners have little interest in HD anyway. I know there are more than 2000 HD stations in the United States and I know HD radios are now standard in various models of Ford, Kia, Hyundai, Honda, Lexus, Audi, Lincoln and other automobiles but is HD radio here to stay...or will it eventually go the way of 8-track tapes, Betamax video recorders, laser discs and quadraphonic stereo?

Thomps2525 said:

there is no real incentive for a station owner to come up with a unique format which would attract a large number of listeners to HD.

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If there's a "unique format that would attract a large number of listeners to HD," the station would have more incentive to put it on it's main channel, where many more people would be likely to hear it. Stations don't have much incentive to get consumers to buy HD radios. While a handful of major owners have a piece of the HD pie, none of it filters down the food chain to the stations.

To me, this announcement feels like a great press release, but not much substance.

Thomps2525 said:

If the HD listeners and AM/FM listeners are lumped together---which puts an interesting picture in my mind---then there is no real incentive for a station owner to come up with a unique format which would attract a large number of listeners to HD.

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Steve, you need a vacation. That is not what we said at all.

The only "lumping together" is the analog and primary HD channel, because they are the same.

HD2 and HD3 are lumped together only when they are simulcasting another primary station (which was the point of this thread, before you got your mitts on it and started confusing everyone). If they have separate programming from the main, they can potentially be rated separately ... if they get enough listeners to make the cut.

There is indeed no incentive, but: The reason has nothing to do with what you clumsily claim above. It is because there are very few HD receivers compared to the millions of analog receivers, and the programming available on HD2 and HD3 has not, so far, been compelling enough to increase sales of same. It's a vicious circle. No programming to attract receiver sales, not enough receivers to be worth programming for.

HD is an unfulfilled promise by iBiquity to create additional revenue streams for broadcasters. So far, all it has done is lined their pockets with the profits from encoders and licensing while providing an enhancement few listeners either want or care about.

And that's why all we get on HD are automated unannounced formats and national program feeds.

Well, there is one additional good that comes out of HD radio stations. Some of them are rebroadcast on low-power translators, which can be picked up on non-HD radios. In some markets, those translators are doing well in the ratings, creating an additional revenue stream for broadcasters. Since the FCC will not allow translators to air original programming, the game is that you put the format on an HD station and allow the translator to rebroadcast it.

It is too bad that HD Radio has not become more popular, that the only HD radios anyone might own came automatically when they bought a new car. When NYC had no Country station, my brother and sister-in-law used their HD radios to pick up the Country feed from 106.7 WLTW. My friend in the Tampa area listens to a Smooth Jazz station on HD in his car. Miami lost its public Classical radio station, so the local NPR News/Talk station is adding a Classical HD station to its signal. That's great for newer cars but as said above, few people have HD radios at home. And if you live too far from the transmitter, you might not pick up the HD signal anyway.

K.M., I am not trying to confuse anyone. I don't know much about HD so I'm asking questions and trying to learn. You noted that HD offers no "compelling programming." KOST is usually among the five most-listened-to stations in Los Angeles. Michael LaCrosse has no reason to make any changes to the format. But what if research showed that an adult contemporary format focusing on long-ignored artists of the 1970s (Alpert, Flack, Diamond, Denver, Manilow, Streisand, Anne Murray, James Taylor, Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, Captain & Tennille, et al) would have moderate success?, not enough to warrant installing the format on an FM station but perhaps enough to warrant putting it on an HD channel. People who buy HD radios are probably more active listeners than those who turn on KOST for "background music." And if people can hear music on HD that they can not hear on FM ("compelling programming"?), might that not stimulate sales of HD radios and those sales, in turn, would ultimately benefit the FM stations too? Sirius XM Satellite Radio offers programming which attracts millions of subscribers. Will HD ever be able to do the same? Or is HD Radio, as I asked earlier, eventually going to fade away?

You did it again, Steve ... rebutted something I did not say due to your misinterpretation.

KOST-HD1 is a simulcast of KOST-FM analog. It is not a separate format. It does not count in terms of "compelling programming" because it was not created for HD only, and the digital listeners are included in the analog ratings.

What you describe as a "what if" has been tried in several markets. Like almost everything else ever put on a HD2 or HD3 subchannel, not enough listening to generate ratings or revenue, and therefore considered a fail.

Only situations which Gregg described have had any success, and those are dependent on translators rebroadcasting the HD2 or HD3 signal via analog. It's a roundabout way of getting more "stations" in the market, but in the context of your continued questioning, that really wasn't "HD listening", was it?

This is quickly turning into another dead horse beating.

K.M., I believe you have misinterpreted what I wrote. I am fully aware that KOST-HD1 is a simulcast of KOST-FM and I certainly did not say that KOST offers "compelling programming." I merely suggested a 1970s-based AC format which would play songs by artists who are almost never heard on radio anymore. And I do understand the "dead horse" analogy: You do not like the questions I ask, nor do you like the comments I make. Thank you and good night.

You know, if you'd read what David and I have written instead of just looking for ways to confuse the issue, you would see that your key question was answered.

No, HD2 and HD3 programming, on its own, is not driving receiver sales. The only successful HD subchannels are those feeding analog translators in some markets.

Without a significant number of receivers in consumers' hands, there is little to no incentive to do much more than automated jukebox formats on the HD subchannels.

Because of that, it is my opinion (shared by a lot of people in the business) that HD is not going to take off in the foreseeable future, and therefore those subchannels aren't going to be turning up in the ratings anytime soon.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a horse funeral to arrange.

Thomps2525 said:

If the HD listeners and AM/FM listeners are lumped together---which puts an interesting picture in my mind---then there is no real incentive for a station owner to come up with a unique format which would attract a large number of listeners to HD. And I get the feeling that many station owners have little interest in HD anyway. I know there are more than 2000 HD stations in the United States and I know HD radios are now standard in various models of Ford, Kia, Hyundai, Honda, Lexus, Audi, Lincoln and other automobiles but is HD radio here to stay...or will it eventually go the way of 8-track tapes, Betamax video recorders, laser discs and quadraphonic stereo?

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It sounds like you're looking for a format on HD1 that's separate from the analog channel. The two are required to simulcast.