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The Breeze blows into Seattle

T

The New Chico

Leading Participant
iHeart's national Soft Rock product, The Breeze, is now on 95.7 HD3. I suppose it serves at least two purposes: 1) keeps any other "Breeze" from showing up in the market, and 2) sticks a small finger in the eye of The Sound (which is no longer available in digital due to the BBQ.)
 
At the risk of getting way off-topic, could someone on the board remind me of the average number of listeners who have a car or home radio equipped to access HD radio. If a very small number have access to HD radio then the Breeze may not create storm.
 
DMK said:
At the risk of getting way off-topic, could someone on the board remind me of the average number of listeners who have a car or home radio equipped to access HD radio. If a very small number have access to HD radio then the Breeze may not create storm.
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Home radio, statistically about 0%.

Car radios: under 10%.

With less than half of all listening being in the car, that means that less than 5% of all listening could be to HD.
 
DavidEduardo said:
With less than half of all listening being in the car, that means that less than 5% of all listening could be to HD.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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Then again if everyone who had access to HD actually listened, that would be just fine.

I don't think anyone is programming HD radio to become a Top 5 station. At least not now.
 
DMK said:
At the risk of getting way off-topic, could someone on the board remind me of the average number of listeners who have a car or home radio equipped to access HD radio. If a very small number have access to HD radio then the Breeze may not create storm.
Click to expand...

Not off topic at all, and a good point. Which is why I made the point that this was mainly a move to ward off any other "Breeze" stations from appearing in the market. iHeart has done the same move in several markets so far. And for my point number 2, maybe I should have said a VERY small finger.

I don't know if HD will ever gain traction like FM finally did, but in our house anyway we love it. Music just sounds so much better than SiriusXM, though we still keep our subscriptions for the wider variety and comedy/talk. For 2017, just under 50% of all new cars have HD factory installed; if there is to be long term success, it will be through that route. (Side note, all Subarus now come standard with HD, so not shocking that one of the highest HD penetration markets is Burlington VT!)
 
The New Chico said:
Not off topic at all, and a good point. Which is why I made the point that this was mainly a move to ward off any other "Breeze" stations from appearing in the market. iHeart has done the same move in several markets so far. And for my point number 2, maybe I should have said a VERY small finger.

I don't know if HD will ever gain traction like FM finally did, but in our house anyway we love it. Music just sounds so much better than SiriusXM, though we still keep our subscriptions for the wider variety and comedy/talk. For 2017, just under 50% of all new cars have HD factory installed; if there is to be long term success, it will be through that route. (Side note, all Subarus now come standard with HD, so not shocking that one of the highest HD penetration markets is Burlington VT!)
Click to expand...

To put that in perspective, that 50% for 2017 is about 2.5% of all cars on the road... the average US vehicle is over 11 years old. That means that it will likely to be around 8 years just to get to 25% of all cars on the road having HD.
 
DavidEduardo said:


To put that in perspective, that 50% for 2017 is about 2.5% of all cars on the road... the average US vehicle is over 11 years old. That means that it will likely to be around 8 years just to get to 25% of all cars on the road having HD.
Click to expand...

And it will be longer than that if the Republican Recession(TM) hits as scheduled. And even if that doesn't happen, there are people more in the know than me who say we have already hit "peak car." So who knows?

That being said, there are about 22.5 million HD units in cars on the road as of February 2018, and we are currently adding 8 million a year while aging out very few. (Other than the usual number getting wrapped around telephone poles...) How many of those folks are using HD? Well, most of them, because the audio automatically switches for them to HD without them even knowing. How many are aware of/using the multicasts is the big question.
 
My wife has a new Subaru with an HD radio and she has no clue what HD2, HD3 signals are. Nobody at Subaru explained it to her and she doesn't listen to me when I explain it (or anything else, for that matter) to her. My car does not have an HD radio but I have one at home, which is how I pickup HD2, HD3, etc. The radio industry has simply not yet embraced HD from a marketing perspective. With so many other music options out there now, perhaps HD radio is just not worth an honest effort from the radio industry, I dunno...
 
I completely agree about the multicast channels. I've been in several Ubers with HD, but only two people have actually been listening to a subchannel, and I suspect one of them only does this time of year. A few years ago, I had a guy that was playing the BBC World Service via KUOW-HD3, and on Saturday I had a different guy that was playing the automated regular KRWM format on 106.9 HD2.
 
bobdavcav said:
I completely agree about the multicast channels. I've been in several Ubers with HD, but only two people have actually been listening to a subchannel, and I suspect one of them only does this time of year. A few years ago, I had a guy that was playing the BBC World Service via KUOW-HD3, and on Saturday I had a different guy that was playing the automated regular KRWM format on 106.9 HD2.
Click to expand...

Does SiriusXM have an unwritten agreement with automakers, and by extension their dealerships, that they are not to promote in any way the presence of HD Radio in vehicles also equipped with satellite radio or they risk losing some of that kickback money the automakers are getting from SXM for its place in the dashboard? There's nothing in it for the automakers or dealers with HD. It's just there, and the offerings in a typical market wouldn't contribute to the sales of many vehicles, so why tell the potential buyer anything about it if you're not being paid a penny to do so?
 
While 104.9 would be interesting for the Breeze, yes, they are in the trust and will be sold in the near future to someone else. Probably an owner who will put Spanish or ethnic programming on both of them, and not another AC to compete with 94.1. The ratings aren't great for 102.9 'South Sound Smooth Jazz' and 104.9's iHeart Christian Contemporary is practically non-existent, but they are both placeholders.
 
CTListener said:
Does SiriusXM have an unwritten agreement with automakers, and by extension their dealerships, that they are not to promote in any way the presence of HD Radio in vehicles also equipped with satellite radio or they risk losing some of that kickback money the automakers are getting from SXM for its place in the dashboard? There's nothing in it for the automakers or dealers with HD. It's just there, and the offerings in a typical market wouldn't contribute to the sales of many vehicles, so why tell the potential buyer anything about it if you're not being paid a penny to do so?
Click to expand...

While I don't think there is any agreement in regards to not promoting other audio audio options, there is some logic to the whole process. What is in the dashboard today is mostly driven by consumer demand... Spotify, Pandora, and other apps being what consumers look for. They do not go to the dealer looking for HD. So the dealer will talk about the overall content, and won't sell something nearly nobody wants or understands.

XM is different, as the whole automobile food chain is nurtured by XM subscription fees. Like extended warranties and paint protection and the like, these are profit centers in the trade so they get pushed and promoted.

There are so many smaller markets that have no HD at all that any mention at the dealer level will be very dependent on whether there is anything worth listening to in the market, as well.
 
crainbebo said:
While 104.9 would be interesting for the Breeze, yes, they are in the trust and will be sold in the near future to someone else.
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The reason I said that is that iHeart has to keep their hands off those two stations because they're in the trust.
 
CTListener said:
Does SiriusXM have an unwritten agreement with automakers, and by extension their dealerships, that they are not to promote in any way the presence of HD Radio in vehicles
Click to expand...

My new Toyota has SiriusXM through the XM deal and the same device shows the HD Radio logo. Both are equally available via the Apps button.
 
crainbebo said:
While 104.9 would be interesting for the Breeze, yes, they are in the trust and will be sold in the near future to someone else.
Click to expand...

"Near" has a different meaning for iHeart. Some of the Aloha Trust stations have been there for a decade or more...
 
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semoochie said:
Not the same as a trust but didn't KRLA have an interim operator for well over a decade?
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Yes. When the license was revoked when the FCC found the station was illegally owned by a Canadian, the license was applied for by various companies. A decision was reached to keep the station on the air, run by a non-profit company that would give any surplus to charity. Eventually, a group won the license.
 
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