RSSRadio Stations Give HD Radio a Boost
By Ed Oswald | Published November 6, 2006, 4:29 PM
Hoping to stem the ever-increasing popularity of satellite radio, the HD Radio Alliance said Monday that it would rollout products in Circuit City stores in the top 10 radio markets, and expand its RadioShack availability to 2,500 stores. In addition, new rebates and discounts are being offered.
The next phase of a $200 million advertising blitz is set to begin on November 13. This would mean approximately 150 commercials would air on each member station per week. The ads would promote the expanded retail availability of high-definition radio, the group said.
"This has been an incredible ten months and we believe these announcements punctuate HD digital radio as the fastest rollout of a digital consumer entertainment technology to date," said Peter Ferrara, president and CEO of the HD Digital Radio Alliance.
A $50 rebate would be available on select receiver models, and JVC has announced a $199 in-dash receiver that would qualify for the discount. The manufacturer claims better-than-expected sales have allowed it to reduce the price of the product.
Ferrara wouldn't disclose new sales numbers for HD Radios, although he did say in August that 100,000 radios have been sold. The group is optimistic about the future, as the functionality becomes standard and would benefit from the natural replacement cycle of consumer electronics over the next several years.
Currently over 1,000 HD radio stations exist in the United States, with more planned to go live over the next several months.
Commercials in hi def? no, thank you
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|So anyone know what kind of range HD radio has? I live a good 120 miles from Seattle and can get the analog FM pretty well in my car. Would teh HD signal make it this far too?
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|I will stick with my commercial free Sirius.
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|I've heard it, and in poor signal locations, particularly indoors, it's excellent.
What they darn well know is that they can't charge for HD radio programming, thus they have to bag on its subscription model. That's not bad; but Sirius has a whole lot of programming that's mostly commercial free. Radio stations can't get 42 minutes an hour on.
It will be an interesting fight, and I really think that there's room for both.
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|It's like OTA DTV vs. cable/satellite
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|I'd like to know how good this really sounds. Everyone raves about XM and Sirius, but they sound like 96k MP3's to me. I'd rather stick with FM fidelity, than listen to anything encoded that poorly.
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|Sirius sounds like good-quality 96kbit MP3 to me, but XM sounds like 128kbit. XM also has a few HD surround channels, which are more like 192kbit.
Depends on the channel, too. Some channels are more heavily compressed, such as news and sports since they are mainly voice only.
Sirius reception sucks compared to XM by the way. :P
I'm sticking with commercial free. Besides, HD FM receivers cost MORE than a satellite receiver. O_o
Anyone know if there's a list of stations broadcasting in HD?
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|JVC's receiver has built in HD tuner for $199 retail (found it online for $150) and offers an ipod adapter for $49. They state the $50 rebate qualifies for this unit. This is very tempting to me as I currently use a cassette adapter for my ipod and is a cheap way to get into the HD Radio.
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|Anyone know if there's a list of stations broadcasting in HD?
Google the following:
HD Radio StationsFirst hit:
http://www.google.com/ur...=knU4f3yMRqbZMtXTOVhaxQ
Google is teh shizz, man.
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