"STUFF THAT'S NOT WORKING!" brought to you by the Radio Industry
Do you have a HD radio? Do you even care about a HD Radio?
The radio industry has done an incredibly poor job of marketing the "superior sound quality" of HD radio. First of all it's too damn expensive. Second of all there isn't any programming or content that's makes it attractive enough to off set the cost of the radio.
The latest gimmick is when an old format is killed off on a standard FM station, corporate programmers move the format to a HD channel. Some how they expect the disgruntled fans of the old format to run to Best Buy and buy a HD radio because they miss the old format so much. The latest seems to be the case with the Smooth Jazz format. Let's just put it on HD radio! ...or better yet let's put our AM radio news station on HD radio.
That sounds ridiculous like the guys in the DirecTV commercial. Listeners are more likely to pop in a CD or turn to satellite radio. I'm willing to bet less than 5% of the population even knows about HD radio. If you want people to listen to all those great hidden radio stations, then lower the cost and make it virtually free to automobile manufacturers. But what do I know.
The radio industry has done an incredibly poor job of marketing the "superior sound quality" of HD radio. First of all it's too damn expensive. Second of all there isn't any programming or content that's makes it attractive enough to off set the cost of the radio. The latest gimmick is when an old format is killed off on a standard FM station, corporate programmers move the format to a HD channel. Some how they expect the disgruntled fans of the old format to run to Best Buy and buy a HD radio because they miss the old format so much. The latest seems to be the case with the Smooth Jazz format. Let's just put it on HD radio! ...or better yet let's put our AM radio news station on HD radio.
That sounds ridiculous like the guys in the DirecTV commercial. Listeners are more likely to pop in a CD or turn to satellite radio. I'm willing to bet less than 5% of the population even knows about HD radio. If you want people to listen to all those great hidden radio stations, then lower the cost and make it virtually free to automobile manufacturers. But what do I know.
Installing HD radios cost automakers about $45/each to install. Consumers have zero interest in HD Radio, as it suffers from bland programming, dropouts, and interference.
ReplyDelete