[BC] HD Radio at CES

[Rich Wood]

------ At 01:00 PM 1/6/2006, Ernie Belanger wrote: -------

>What's bad is that they are all still at $300 plus.

Even the portable units? After all, those are what are supposed to be 
killing us.

>At this rate the it will be 15 years before there are enough radios 
>in the field to justify the cost of ramping up HD.

As long as analog stays around not much will change, except the 
interference. Clearly (or unclearly) the interference will increase 
as stations light up. Maybe I should change the descriptive name to 
IBOOPC. "In Band On Other People's Channels."

>That is unless you believe the latest prognostication from Kagan 
>Media who claims revenue from HD radio ad sales could (note that 
>word...COULD) be over $805 Million inthe next three years. WOW.. I 
>wish we could all be smoking some of the stuff that analyst is 
>smoking.  The numbers don't jive. In three years we'll be lucky to 
>see 100K radios in the field.

I'm sure you've been to enough conventions of all types to know their 
sole purpose is hype. I'd expect that figure to be reached in about 
40 years, especially since the secondary channels will, according to 
the HD Dominion, be non-commercial for the first two of those 3 
years. Assuming there were receivers, I would think adding thousands 
of non-commercial options would reduce revenue as secondaries 
cannibalize the main channels with all their clutter. I understand 
the recent weed shipments have been very potent and it's selling well 
in the halls of the Dominion. May the farce be with you.

>And don't expect the commitment of the HD Consortium to spend 
>$200Mil pushing HD to impact that much. It turns out that it is all 
>radio promotion commitment. Not real money to be spend on multimedia 
>advertising. Just radio promoting itself:

Most of us have seen how reluctant our industry (that relies on 
advertising) is to do any advertising outside of preaching to the 
choir on our own air. That doesn't do much for Cume. Ask any of our 
manufacturing lurkers here just how much money it takes to launch a 
product and I'll bet $200 million is petty cash.

>The irony is that the latest Advertising Age Magazine  (1/2/2006) 
>shows that in all age groups from 18-55+ when the question is asked 
>"what media influences your purchase of electronics?"  Radio is not 
>listed in the top 5 influencers.

Very few high tech advertisers use radio. They may throw a little 
cash to specialty tech shows but don't use it for medium and high end 
equipment in general interest programming. We see the Bose Wave Radio 
but not the HomeTheatre speaker systems and audio equipment. If you 
have one of those speaker systems you know how bad contemporary radio 
sounds. IBUZ isn't going to help. High end speaker systems only make 
the artifacts jump out and grab you by the ears.

>What is needed is $200MIL to be spend by broadcasters on a slick TV, 
>Print, Internet and Radio campaign pushing HD radio. If HD is to 
>compete with Satellite radio, Ipods etc,
>broadcasters need to use the pages from their (satellite Radio & 
>Apple's) advertising and promotional playbooks.

It's nowhere near enough. They'd be better off adding a one-sheet to 
the Jehovah's Witness' God promotion package. Leave it at every house 
they visit. Stuff it under the door once it's been slammed.

>Radio's own ad execs are trained to advise clients that they need a 
>mix of media to sell product. Radio being a part of that mix .. 
>maybe they should take heed of their own advice

For years I've wondered why we don't take our own advice. Cheap is 
the only reason I come up with in all those years.

Resistance is Futile. We will be assimilated if the Dominion doesn't 
doom us first. Be careful not to anger the Dominion or you'll be 
assigned the Swedish Polka format for your secondary. The fact that 
there hasn't even been a Swede drive through the market in years 
won't really matter. They can punish the recalcitrant.

Rich