[BC] Is iBiquity promoting DXing?

[Kevin Tekel]

I noticed a lot of the promo ads for "HD Radio" are revolving around the
theme that "between your favorite radio stations on the dial are hidden
stations with music, talk, and news".... basically a rather strange way of
promoting the HD2 channels.

First of all, I find it odd that they would use wording which basically
encourages listeners to tune away from the station on which they are
hearing that commerical... especially since some of the stations running
these ads aren't even transmitting an IBOC signal with HD2 channel(s) yet,
and thus could never regain any lost revenue from listeners tuning away in
the middle of a stop-set in search of these "hidden stations".  And isn't
that the whole point of IBOC... to *retain* listeners, and *prevent* them
from tuning away from your station in search of alternative programming?

And secondly, with all the listeners who will be tuning away in search of
these "hidden stations", how many are going to unwittingly discover a
different kind of "hidden stations" on a non-IBOC receiver: adjacent-
channel DX, if they happen to be using a good enough receiver in an area
between two markets?  For example, large areas of New Jersey can receive
both NYC and Philadelphia FM signals on any decent car radio, as well as
signals from Allentown, Trenton, New Brunswick, Atlantic City, Wilmington,
etc... there are a lot of "hidden" stations waiting to be discovered, even
just 0.2 MHz away from someone's favorite local station.

Another side effect is that I bet listeners with "world-band" tuners will
be dialing in "illegal" frequencies, such as 97.6 or 104.25 MHz, to try to
find these "hidden", "in between" stations... leading to even more
confusion.  If a station at 100.1 MHz promotes their HD2 channel, will
people be tuning to 100.2 to try to find it?  Sometimes, "creative"
marketing just creates more confusion than good.


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