A VC - Latest Comments in HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

julehe — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:00:10 -0000

So true.

They are finally taking the right step by asking the FCC to allow them to broadcast at more power. Obviously easier said than done.

You might enjoy this blog entry about the problems of HD reception:
http://radiosherpa.blogspot...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Thomas — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:00:04 -0000

Who pays the subsidy to get the radio into the car? The XM/Sirius model closed the loop between the owner of the spectrum that collected the revenue and the subsidy paid to the auto OEMs to get the radios installed. How is that handled here given the distributed nature of the spectrum ownership? Seems like a big challenge to overcome.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Rick — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 02:02:36 -0000

The audio channel programming and receiver takeup may be in question but don't forget about the enhanced data channel with HD - there are numerous opportunities for datacasting including LBS via HD

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Bruce Barber — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:27:40 -0000

Interesting.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend that owned several FM stations.

He remembers having to give away FM converters so that people could listen in their cars...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:05:02 -0000

That's true but the facts are that less than 10pcnt all all radio listeners have shown a willingness to pay for radio

Satellite is a niche service because its a paid service

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:53:02 -0000

I am with you on all of this

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:52:02 -0000

That is true

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:51:02 -0000

You are comparing two web services that play music to a marketing brochure

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:48:01 -0000

Do you enjoy surfing the web finding negative posts about hd radio written by angry radio nerds who wish digital radio would go away?

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:46:02 -0000

That's all true but when its in your ipod, car, or mobile phone all those things stop mattering and people will find a ton of free new content waiting for them

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:28:02 -0000

The reason that xm and sirius are in cars and hd is only now getting in cars is xm and sirius used the prospect of subscription revenues to buy their way into cars and hd was unable to do that because its a free service

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:27:02 -0000

I believe that higher power is the solution to sound quality and I don't think the interference issues are nearly as much of an issue as some are making them out to be

Fred

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Rick — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:15:12 -0000

Late addition here on this post, but I don't see the benefit of upgrading hardware for HD radio when there are the options for hundreds of channels of commercial free radio and entertainment through Sirius and XM. I initially thought the idea of paying for radio was insane but after listening to it a few years ago while driving in a Zipcar, I instantly became hooked and bought Sirius. I now cannot listen to a normal car stereo when I am in a car and usually resort to NPR due to all the commercials and lame DJs on radio.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Tex — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:33:03 -0000

The analysis of whether HD radio has a future is completely independent of the quality of the content today. The bottom line is that HD creates more real estate on the dial. Given a relatively fixed audience, that devalues each channel, and lowers the barrier to entry. A lower barrier to entry will lead to more diversity of content, and some of that new content will be better quality.

That said, if the sound quality and interference issues are real and are not resolved, then the technology could indeed be in trouble.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Bruce Barber — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:57:50 -0000

PocketRadio,

You'll get no argument from me that "big radio" has done a terrible job of rolling out the technology. Fred is right; people don't buy radios these days, "They buy cars, iPods, and mobile devices". Sirius and XM understand this, and they have done a great job of getting their hardware into new vehicles.

That said, I think "big radio" understands that they have no choice but to support HD Radio, They "get" the clear and present danger of losing audience to companies like XM, Sirius, Apple, not to mention the major wireless players.

The point I was making in my earlier post is that big radio probably isn't going to be the one to create the next wave of compelling content--we are!

Technology has made it so that Podcasters and former on air talent such as myself can produce programming that would have been cost prohibitive to create only a few years ago.

With a few thousand bucks and a little time on "the learning curve", it is now possible to record audio that sounds as good as anything on the big stations, and to distribute it for free over the Internet. (Used to be you had to press CD's and mail them out or rent satellite time.)

I live in an area that is greatly underserved when it comes to stations that play deeper cuts from established artists and turn people on to great new music.

And yet I have stood in a hallway across from a Public Radio program director that can't wait to put an "Adult Alternative" station on a sub channel when he starts broadcasting in HD.

My sense is that when the passionate music lover with a little technical acumen offers to provide him with a reasonably priced show for his sub channel, he'll buy it.

And if there's an HD radio pre installed in my 2010 Prius, I'll be listening.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:24:10 -0000

“Can Sony Make HD Radio A Winner?”

“So, the old consumers don’t want HD. Young consumers think the concept is laughable. Big retailers can’t sell it. And radio companies won’t invest in it. Sounds like a winner to me.”

http://insidemusicmedia.blo...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:19:49 -0000

It is just the HD Alliance stations that have the FCC giveaway of our airways to this monopoly:

“HD Radio on the Offense”

“But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill.”

http://www.eastbayexpress.c...

iBiquity claims that there are 1500 HD stations, but:

"Have 200 HD Radio stations gone missing?"

"The HD Radio camp is advertising that there are currently over 1,500 radio stations now broadcasting in HD (from its website, to press releases as well as in various other promotions)... but yet only 1,300 have filed with the FCC."

http://www.orbitcast.com/ar...

And, the AM-HDs are starting to abandom HD/IBOC:

"Editorial: AM IBOC in Distress?"

"Citadel Director of Corporate Engineering Martin Stabbert embodied questions about the efficacy of full-time AM HD when he ordered all his AMs that had already converted to cease transmitting HD at night, using language that must have given Ibiquity officials heartburn. Separately and for different immediate reasons, Cox, in a “let’s wait and see” move, has tried HD on most of its AM stations but is taking it off the air day and night, once tested at each facility."

http://www.rwonline.com/pag...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:13:48 -0000

I use Slacker at work every day and get to create my own "personalized" radio stations, instead of some HD Radio pprogrammer deciding what I should listen to. Looks like plenty of listeners prefer Pandora and Last.fm over HD Radio:

http://siteanalytics.compet...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:11:22 -0000

Take a look at consumer interest in Pandora and Last.fm versus HD Radio - HD Radio has been flat-lined since inception:

http://siteanalytics.compet...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:09:17 -0000

Pandora, Slacker, and Last.fm are all INTERACTIVE, which HD Radio is NOT - HD Radio has the same problems as satrad, being noninteractive and no graceful way to surf the overabundance of channels.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:04:55 -0000

Terrestrial radio can't even win back listeners with proogramming on their main analog channels. The HD channels are jsus clever reworks of the main analog channels and offer no compelling content. The HD channels would just fragment the listener audience fiurther:

"HD Hypocrisy"

"Here's a few more reasons why only iBiquity and a few clueless radio group heads could make a big thing out of HD radio tagging... The very damn radio stations that broadcast in HD offer no programming worth listening to. HD Radio is a virtual sewer of formats owners don't want on their terrestrial frequencies and other assorted garbage that no one sane would listen to -- let alone spend money for new radios -- tagging or not."

http://insidemusicmedia.blo...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

PocketRadio — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:00:15 -0000

"I'll place my bet to win this radio battle on the format that best mimics Last.fm. It probably WILL be Last.fm anyway. CBS had a plan when they bought it for $280 million. Something tells me that this was it."

Last.fm, Pandora, and Slacker al all INTERACTIVE, which HD Radio is NOT - look at the level of interest in HD Radio versus these other technologies:

http://siteanalytics.compet...

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

ellen — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:46:16 -0000

Being from the older generation, I never thought I would want another thing that I would need to buy like different radio channels. Satellite radio came with my new car, since most of the particular models of the car I purchased, were built with it . It was a $1300 option, but the dealer threw it in, because he wanted to move cars that day. That was my lucky day. When the one year subscription is over, I will continue to subscribe. I don't care for most of the channels except the news and cnbc, but I am addicted to them, and now cannot live without them.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

Pierre — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:04:23 -0000

It's true that HD has been looking like a turkey for the past couple of years. The battle's not over yet though. The lame brains behind the technology are promoting dedicated digital receivers. As they get more installs on other multi use hardware such as factory car stereos the game may turn out a bit differently. It is a free service that actually sounds better than satellite being offered to a car based culture. It's too early to call this game. The real action on this is still at least a few years away so let's revisit this conversation then.

But the idea of digital radio doesn't stop at HD. I see IP based streams being commonplace. By the time 4G is in place that's going to be a reality. I've been listening to streaming internet radio on my Treo for about 3 years now thanks to my $15 unlimited Sprint 3G data plan (and Shure headphones). In 3 more years that experience should easily be transferred to the car (possibly this year thanks to Microsoft). When that happens will we even care about radio, HD or not?

I'll place my bet to win this radio battle on the format that best mimics Last.fm. It probably WILL be Last.fm anyway. CBS had a plan when they bought it for $280 million. Something tells me that this was it.

Re: HD Radio In Your Car, Your Music Player, and Your Phone

fredwilson — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:54:02 -0000

I sure hope you are right bruce

Fred