Should HD Radio Stop Advertising?

Amanda Alexander's article in Radio World was further validation that HD Radio is not quite ready for primetime.

She spent the bulk of the article talking about problems with the signal:


"My radio had trouble acquiring and keeping a digital signal for three stations in the market.

KJMN(FM) on 92.1 MHz did not get a lock in Denver or Aurora, a suburb 20 miles away that is considered part of the Denver market. The unit would try but could not keep digital more than a second or two. The unit could lock on and retain the analog signal with no problem."

That should sound familiar to HD Radio fans out there.


"Some areas unfortunately are holes for HD Radio. Many stations have nulls, and in these the radio cannot lock in HD Radio. For example, 92.5 KWLI has a transmitter up north near Erie, Colo., several miles from Denver. Erie is about 25 minutes drive north of Denver.

Here in Denver we have Lookout Mountain, home to several stations. On FM, if you are in certain parts of Boulder, you cannot get the HD Radio signal from Lookout Mountain. These FMs have boosters in Boulder, but analog only.

My parents and I have noticed while driving in our part of town, southeast Aurora, that the HD2 and HD3 sides of the station don't stay locked because of the weak signal. Also, west towards the foothills becomes difficult to get an HD lock. At times the analog even gets static."

She closes by saying:

"HD Radio still hasn't caught on like I wish it would."

Her only mistake was not drawing the right conclusion from her article on why this is the case. The rest of her article should make this abundantly clear...

THE SIGNAL IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH.

What to do?

Having dealt with HD Radios for the past 3 years we have come to the conclusion that only a boost in the allowable broadcast power will help. There is only so much better receivers can do....eventually basic physics wins out.

We do know that iBiquity and others are now working on getting permission from the FCC for a 10X power increase, but this begs the following questions:

1) Should the iBiquity continue to push chip vendors and radio manufacturers to put out radios following the existing power profile for HD Radio?

2) More importantly, given how important first impressions are...should the HD Radio Alliance even be advertising to consumers right now?

Unfortunately for us, iBiquity, and iBiquity's investors, we think the answer is "NO".

The supposed millions being spent on HD Radio marketing would be better spent resolving this signal issue.

The economic downturn could be a blessing in disguise. It could give HD Radio the time to put out a better product...assuming its broadcast backers do not fold first.

As Steve Jobs has proved, people will pay more for something if the product is compelling.