DIGITAL LIFE: HD The Future of Free Radio: For the Price of a Receiver, Listeners Get More Content and Better Sound

By Heather Newman, Detroit Free Press

Mar. 14–A new way to get your favorite radio stations has quietly been going on the air in Detroit.

Not only does it feature crystal-clear quality — FM stations sound like CDs, AM stations sound like FM — but it also includes second channels featuring everything from local artists to deep tracks.

And it’s not satellite radio.

It’s free, high-definition radio, or HD radio. All you need to get it is a special receiver.

“The sound quality is noticeably better, especially on the AM side,” said Bill Thomson, a 44-year-old automotive product planner from Bloomfield Township. He listens to public radio, some AM and a couple of his favorite rock stations in HD.

While only a few hundred metro listeners can now pick up the signals from more than 30 stations available here, make no mistake: in a few years, broadcasters and technology companies alike expect that this will no longer be “HD radio.” It’ll just be “radio,” the way all listeners get their local signals.

“There’s a commitment of about 3,000 radio stations,” said Jeff Jury, chief operating officer of iBiquity, the company that makes the technology that goes into HD radios. “There’s been a pent-up demand in the radio industry to move in this direction. They want to get on a level playing field with iPods and satellite radio.

“We eventually see all radios becoming HD capable. You’re going to see a burst of innovation.”

How HD radio works

HD radio, like a compact disc, is sent in a digital stream of 1s and 0s, instead of analog waves. That allows for several things: better sound quality, the ability to broadcast text along with the signal and the ability to broadcast more than one channel from a given station.

It’s artificially limited by distance, so that it doesn’t compete with radio stations in neighboring areas. But if you happen to wander outside the digital transmission area and an analog broadcast of that station is available, your radio will automatically switch. (You’ll also lose the second, digital-only channels, since those are only available through HD broadcasts.)

Right now the hangup is getting a radio to receive the signals. BMW is the only car company that offers an HD radio as a factory option; and until recently, the most popular tabletop model, a clock radio from Boston Acoustics called the Receptor Radio HD, cost almost $500.

Prices are plummeting, however. The Receptor is down to $299, and some industry insiders expect it to sell for $199 by the holiday season. And all major automotive manufacturers are in talks to include HD radios as options, Jury said.

“Our hope is that next Christmas will be a big one for HD radio,” said Mark Pennington, music director for WRIF, which along with sister stations WCSX and WMGC became one of the first stations in the country to go HD last summer. “We’ve really started a good buzz I think, but it’s up to the car companies as well. It’s going to take a little while for everybody to catch up. Once people get new systems in their car, there’s a lot we can do. It really is pretty cool.”

Birth of a medium

In the meantime, listeners to the digital-only stations are getting a treat: because there are so few people with the radios, there are very few commercials, and just about any request is being honored.

Jeremy Campbell hosts “Loading Zone,” a show on video games, and “Dark Side,” a music show featuring goth/industrial tracks, on WRIF’s digital-only sister station RIFF2.

“Most of my listeners are more Web-streaming than HD radios right now,” he said. “Most people I talk to are surprised that both specialty shows even exist. … And local bands have a chance.”

Thomson, who also has satellite radio, says he likes the local content on HD radio and considers them to be complementary technologies.

“Satellite radio isn’t so much local,” he said. He keeps his current radio in the bedroom but is keeping an eye out for another unit. “If it comes down in price a little more, I’d consider one for my living room. It sounds pretty good.”

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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