[BC] Re: Dead HD2's

[Rich Wood]

------ At 12:34 AM 2/18/2007, k7cr wrote: -------

>As for consumer interest in HD - All I know is that I keep running 
>into people who have new HD radio's in their cars...and no - they 
>are not broadcast engineers. Perhaps the nature of the folks in the 
>Seattle area has something to do with it, we do have our share of 
>technogeeks around here.

Technogeeks in Seattle is an understatement. There may be several 
reasons they bought the receiver. IBUZ is rarely the major selling 
point. Do they have iPod inputs? How about satellite capabilities? 
The proof of the pudding is do they actually listen or do they use 
one of the many other sources available on the receiver?  In my 
market the only mention of IBUZ (also known as HD Radio) is on the 
price sticker as a bullet point, not a major display. Boston is also 
a center of technology. No revolution there.

I can see markets like San Francisco, and New York as among the best 
markets because of multipath, though the weak digital signals would 
be less important as you move to the suburbs. Markets like mine 
suffer from varying signal levels, not multipath.

What secondaries are available in Seattle? Are they really 
groundbreaking or are they, like here, formerly failed formats 
repurposed? Do all stations in the market have the same attitude as 
Entercom? The stations not paying attention here, so far, are Clear 
Channel and CBS. Both major HD Dominion members. This surprised me 
considering the years Clear Channel was run by Randy Michaels. I'd 
bet he'd go ballistic on hearing of a 4 day span of dead air. Wall 
Street might not have liked his antics but his Jacor radio stations 
were very well run. Maybe the stories are urban legends but I've 
heard of instance where Randy heard something he didn't like on one 
of his stations and he stopped in to fix it.

Lawyers and investment bankers don't seem to have that kind of 
passion for radio.

Rich