WEBVTT

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The first group that I worked for back in 2014

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had already shut their HD radio operations down

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before I got there, which at the time I didn't

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think much about. A lot of stations had already

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shut it down. But my chief engineer used to tell

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me a story about how every few months they'd

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send someone down to the radio shack at the local

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mall. you know, just to see how the HD radio

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receivers were actually selling, you know, see

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what the stock was, how many were on the shelf,

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whether anything had been sold. And for a long

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time, the story was always the same, disappointing,

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dusty boxes, staff who didn't know what they

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were or how to sell them and nobody asking about

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them. Then one day, the rock station put the

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cubs on their HD2 channel. The receivers sold

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out. I think about that story because it tells

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you almost everything you need to know about

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HD radio. What it could have been, why it mostly

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wasn't, and why we're still having this conversation

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20 something years after the FCC approved this

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thing. This is the Tyler Woodward project. I'm

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Tyler Woodward. I'm a broadcast engineer and

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today I'm talking about HD radio Opinions are

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my own everything here is from my perspective

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not speaking on behalf of my employer stations

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networks vendors or anybody else out there To

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understand what HD radio was supposed to do you

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have to go back to 2001 2002 satellite radio

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just launched you had XM and Sirius on the air

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they're selling subscriptions and they're doing

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it with digital audio nationwide no static CD

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quality and broadcasters are looking at this

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going Boy, we need an answer to that Europe is

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rolling out something called DAB digital audio

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broadcasting dedicated new spectrum shared infrastructure

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think of it like ATSC 3 .0 Lighthouses listeners

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buy a new radio and get a clean digital signal

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by 2026 the UK would be at something like 74

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% of all radio listening happening would be on

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a digital platform. Norway shut off FM entirely

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back in 2017. That model worked. The US looked

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at DAB and went, nah, we'll pass. What we got

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instead was Eibach in band on channel. Keep the

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analog signal exactly where it is, just bolt

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some digital sub -carriers onto the sides of

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it. Same tower, same antenna, same frequency.

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The FCC approved iBiquity's version, which they

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branded as HD Radio in October of 2002. The appeal

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from the get -go was... obvious. No new spectrum

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needed. No existing stations would lose their

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coverage. You go digital on the channel you already

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own. The FCC's own order said DAB had no, quote,

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no active domestic proponent and no appreciable

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support within the broadcast industry, unquote.

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Eibach was the only thing any radio station here

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in the US was willing to build. The pitch to

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the listener was cleaner digital audio on FM,

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extra programming on HD2 and HD3, and eventually

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a path to going fully digital. The receiver would

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blend seamlessly from digital to analog if you

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drove out a range. The FM and HD one blending

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so You'd never notice the transition better radio

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same radio stations. No disruption now in Practice,

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we know the blending didn't work quite as well

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as it was it was advertised But that was the

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promise The audio The quality improvement was

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real. I I do want to give HD radio that on a

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good signal In a good car with a good stereo,

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the FM HD1 channel does sound noticeably cleaner

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than the analog equivalent. I mean, you've got

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a lower noise floor, no multipath flutter. If

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you've ever watched your FM signal dissolve in

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a parking garage, I mean, HD radio would fix

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that. until you're too far away, at which point

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it fixes itself by disappearing entirely. But

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cleaner than analog FM is not the same thing

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as competing with a streaming service or a satellite

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service, which is what HD radio was actually

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supposed to be doing. By the time HD radio was

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in a meaningful number of car dashboards 2014

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ish 2015 people already had Spotify in their

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pocket the window had moved The receiver situation

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was a mess before we even got to that part every

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HD radio receiver The chip inside that thing

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had a royalty attached to it I biquity was a

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intellectual property company. That was their

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business model, not licensing the broadcasters,

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not selling the equipment, collecting royalties

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on every receiver manufactured. Their CEO, Bob

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Struble said that when a station went on the

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air with HD radio, I biquity averaged about a

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thousand bucks. He called it quote, a wholly

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material part of our business model, unquote.

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The money was in the HD radio chip, which meant

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HD radio never get cheaper and never get into

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those $15 radios that you could run down the

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street and buy at Walgreens. It never showed

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up in the FM receiver that's sitting disabled

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inside most smartphones. The station fee itself

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was actually a one -time flat license, not a

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cut of your ad revenue, not an annual payment.

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In 2002, in 2003, Ibequity actually waived it

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entirely to try to get people on board. After

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that, the published rate kept climbing. $5 ,000,

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then $10 ,000, then 15, peaking around 25 ,000

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by 2008. Then in 2010, they cut it back to 10

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,000 with a five -year payment plan. The revenue

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share kicked in only if you ran sub channels

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and made money from those. 3 % of whatever new

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income the HD2 or HD3 channel actually generated.

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With a minimum of about a thousand dollars per

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year per channel Your existing FM ad sales were

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never touched in that So the cost to a station

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to go on the air with HD radio Wasn't nearly

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that bad the equipment conversation. However,

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that is a real number a hundred thousand dollars,

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maybe more Probably more, depending on your setup.

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In the early days, that equipment was absolutely

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painful. High level combining, that's the part

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that made a lot of chief engineers look at HD

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radio and decide, man, that ain't worth the headache.

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When HD radio first rolled out, you were merging

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the analog and digital signals, which meant specialized

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gear. careful tuning and generating a serious

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amount of heat for what you were actually getting

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out of it. The combining hardware itself was

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big and it ran hot. And if something went wrong,

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you were troubleshooting a system that most engineers

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of the time hadn't grown up with. A lot of shops

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looked at that rack and said, no, that ain't

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worth it. But that's not where we are anymore

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Companies like our friends up north not tell

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I mean they figured this out Their HD multicast

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plus unit is a completely different Proposition

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compact it's integrated the exporter and importer

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functions that used to require a pile of separate

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hardware Were consolidated into something that

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actually fits in a normal equipment room without

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having to rethink your cooling setup. The barrier

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to entry in 2026 is a fraction of what it was

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in 2006. It's actually easier to run HD radio

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now than it has ever been, which makes the adoption

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numbers way more painful. because about 20 %

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of commercial FM stations are actually running

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it. Just 20%. In top 50 markets, that number

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is probably better. Maybe half of full power

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FMs. Outside the top 50, that number drops off

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really quick. AMHD largely collapsed. Most stations

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that tried it turned it off because the the hybrid

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signal caused interference on adjacent channels.

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And at night, when AM starts sky -waving hundreds

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of miles, that interference could carry over

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and reach stations in the next state. The engineering

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problems got solved over time, just not on a

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schedule that would have changed anything. The

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sub -channels are where I have the most complicated

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uh feelings about hd2 and hd3 were really interesting

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ideas you've got a broadcaster with an existing

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fm signal and suddenly they can run two or three

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additional streams of programming on the same

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channel with no additional over -the -air cost

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you could feel uh fill a format niche reviving

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a dead brand Run a foreign language service put

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a sports affiliate somewhere useful now some

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of that happened I Heart to their credit ran

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a nationwide LGBTQ format called pride radio

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on HD sub channels for years. I think it's still

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out there classic rock stations brought back

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legendary formats public radio stations used

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HD 2 for classical or jazz student stations,

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community programming, that would have never

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have made it onto a primary frequency. But HD

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sub channels, they don't have an analog fallback

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like HD1. Drive away far enough from the transmitter

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and when you lose that digital signal, the sub

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channel just stops. No blend, no analog version

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to fall back to. It's just gone. Coverage is

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significantly smaller than the primary signal

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because of that. And over time, a lot of those

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sub channels quietly became something less interesting

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than a niche program would have been. Think FM

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translators. A low power FM signal rebroadcasting

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an AM station or some sort of syndicated format

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from an HD2 station. That was getting relayed

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on the FM side The FCC allows it. It's fine.

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It's useful But what happened in a lot of markets

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is the HD2 channel that was supposed to be a

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new digital content stream became Just a feeder

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for a translator running an AM simulcast The

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sub channel and it exists technically it just

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isn't doing what the PowerPoint said it would

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do back in 2001. Which brings me back to the

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Cubs. The Radio Shack story isn't just some fun

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trip down memory lane. It's a proof of concept.

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If you give people content they actually want,

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content they can't get anywhere else, and they

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will find a way to receive it. They will buy

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the box. They will dig through the menu in the

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car. The technology wasn't the problem that day.

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The content strategy finally worked. Most stations

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never found their version of Cubs baseball. They

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put up an HD2 channel, ran smooth jazz for six

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months, got bored and pointed it over to the

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translator. However, there is a part of the HD

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radio story that doesn't get enough attention.

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HD radio can also carry data. I mean, you're

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probably thinking, well, of course, digital audio

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data. But no, think actual data services embedded

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in the digital stream, not just the audio. The

00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:48.399
most visible part that you might remember is

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the song metadata. you know title artists album

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art on your car display that works and a lot

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of people use it and don't realize that it's

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hd radio actually powering it but there was a

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way more ambitious version of this real -time

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traffic data when radio stations still carried

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actual traffic hd radio stations and major markets

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were broadcasting live traffic Map overlays incident

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locations travel times embedded invisibly in

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the HD signal your Vehicles navigation system

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could receive it with no subscription and no

00:16:29.169 --> 00:16:32.830
Cellier signal just by being in range of that

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FM station free over -the -air real -time navigation

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data using infrastructure that already existed

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Now unfortunately that service is long gone The

00:16:46.870 --> 00:16:49.789
navigation industry moved to cellular and crowdsourced

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data apps like Waze and Google Maps and Apple

00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:57.029
Maps. You know, those are updated constantly.

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Nationwide, no FM coverage required. The HD data

00:17:03.950 --> 00:17:07.410
layer couldn't compete with that and just sort

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of phased out quietly. The metadata part survived

00:17:16.430 --> 00:17:21.589
because it's cheap and nobody's trying to replace

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that yet. The bigger data ambitions got eaten

00:17:27.309 --> 00:17:30.769
by the smartphone market the same way the audio

00:17:30.769 --> 00:17:38.509
quality story got eaten by streaming. AMHD is

00:17:38.509 --> 00:17:41.329
another part of this that deserves a separate

00:17:41.329 --> 00:17:45.759
little moment because There's something genuinely

00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:53.559
really cool about that. Now, hybrid AMHD, that

00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:57.599
was a mess. The digital carriers overlapped,

00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.599
caused issues with the adjacent channels, and

00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:03.200
night when AM signals started doing its sky -waving

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dance, you could be spreading interference for

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hundreds of miles. Engineers, to their credit,

00:18:11.309 --> 00:18:13.710
I mean, they spent years filing complaints with

00:18:13.710 --> 00:18:16.930
the FCC about it, trying to get something done.

00:18:17.809 --> 00:18:20.509
Most AM stations threw in the towel and just

00:18:20.509 --> 00:18:25.990
turned it off. But the FCC in 2020 did something

00:18:25.990 --> 00:18:29.650
really cool. They authorized all digital AM.

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MA3 mode. Drop the analog signal entirely. Go

00:18:34.849 --> 00:18:39.619
full 100 % digital. A station. and Frederick

00:18:39.619 --> 00:18:45.700
Maryland WWFD on 820 AM. Engineers tested it

00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:48.200
extensively with the folks from iBiquity or Xpery,

00:18:48.259 --> 00:18:52.859
whoever it was at that time. All digital AM without

00:18:52.859 --> 00:18:56.220
the interference constraints of the hybrid system.

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And from what I'm told, it's really good. It's

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more robust, more consistent coverage. You get

00:19:04.220 --> 00:19:07.970
stereo on AM again. Song data album art even

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a secondary channel because you don't have the

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analog taken up space The station actually charted

00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:17.589
in Nielsen ratings with a signal that maybe Just

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maybe 25 % of area cars could actually receive

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The technology is proven to work Nobody else

00:19:25.549 --> 00:19:28.349
is doing it though because there's no mandate.

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There's no sunset date for analog AM There's

00:19:32.089 --> 00:19:35.700
no incentive for an owner to abandon the signal

00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:38.819
that reaches every AM radio right now in favor

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of one that reaches maybe a small percentage

00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:47.000
of nearby listeners. WWFD is doing it because

00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:50.200
Hubbard Broadcasting truly believes in it and

00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:53.019
well let's be honest has the resources to experiment.

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The thing they got HD radio approved is the same

00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:07.450
thing that I think kept it from ever mattering.

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End band, no new spectrum, backwards compatible,

00:20:12.950 --> 00:20:17.509
no disruption to existing stations. The FCC looked

00:20:17.509 --> 00:20:21.549
at DAB in 2002 and said there wasn't spectrum

00:20:21.549 --> 00:20:25.890
for it. Said the broadcast industry didn't want

00:20:25.890 --> 00:20:29.990
it. Said it would take years to clear the bands.

00:20:31.750 --> 00:20:36.660
And they were right. About all of it HD radio

00:20:36.660 --> 00:20:39.559
was the thing that could be deployed quickly

00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:46.059
You got to think at that time the industry was

00:20:46.059 --> 00:20:52.079
pretty worried about satellite radio but Can

00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:56.480
be deployed quickly and will move listeners to

00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:02.829
digital radio That turned out to be two different

00:21:02.829 --> 00:21:09.109
things Now DAB worked in the UK and Norway and

00:21:09.109 --> 00:21:12.230
Germany because someone Eventually said hey,

00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:16.109
we're shutting off FM. Here's the date and here's

00:21:16.109 --> 00:21:20.410
the date that you need to buy a new radio I mean,

00:21:20.529 --> 00:21:24.190
that's brutal and Norway listeners weren't exactly

00:21:24.190 --> 00:21:29.609
happy about it, but it worked In the US there

00:21:29.609 --> 00:21:33.660
was never There was never that mandate that forcing

00:21:33.660 --> 00:21:38.440
function to move people HD radio was always optional

00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:44.279
here for the stations and the listeners The analog

00:21:44.279 --> 00:21:47.279
signal stayed on the listeners kept the old radio

00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:51.019
in the Digital signal rode along behind it for

00:21:51.019 --> 00:21:57.960
20 plus years waiting hoping to be noticed The

00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:01.299
equipment has gotten easier The fees have come

00:22:01.299 --> 00:22:06.039
down, the technology got genuinely better, especially

00:22:06.039 --> 00:22:10.980
on the AM side. And none of it changed the trajectory

00:22:10.980 --> 00:22:18.240
because nothing ever had to change. The promises,

00:22:18.539 --> 00:22:22.920
they were real. Better audio, new channels, data

00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:26.519
services, a path to fully digital. Some of them,

00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.410
I mean, it got delivered. Partially in some markets

00:22:29.410 --> 00:22:31.490
for some listeners. Most of them are still like

00:22:31.490 --> 00:22:36.970
me and still waiting The comparison now Isn't

00:22:36.970 --> 00:22:41.650
the satellite radio? It's Spotify It's Apple

00:22:41.650 --> 00:22:47.569
music and podcasting the window HD radio Was

00:22:47.569 --> 00:22:50.410
supposed to fill has been replaced three times

00:22:50.410 --> 00:22:55.009
over by the internet. I Don't think HD radio

00:22:55.009 --> 00:22:59.200
is going away It's in way too many cars at this

00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:02.119
point. It calls stations literally nothing to

00:23:02.119 --> 00:23:05.099
leave it on and Xperia has a whole connected

00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:09.500
car platform built around it now It'll keep existing

00:23:09.500 --> 00:23:15.859
but The version of HD radio where your FM station

00:23:15.859 --> 00:23:19.140
sounds better than anything your phone can do

00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:23.240
Where every market has its cubs? Where the data

00:23:23.240 --> 00:23:26.339
layer is doing something your navigation? App

00:23:26.339 --> 00:23:29.859
on your phone can't? Well, that version never

00:23:29.859 --> 00:23:36.779
arrived. The Cubs sold out that radio shack in

00:23:36.779 --> 00:23:40.599
little old La Crosse, Wisconsin. The rest of

00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:44.319
the industry mostly didn't bother to figure out

00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:51.140
why. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:54.799
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00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:58.339
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00:23:58.339 --> 00:24:01.640
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00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:04.000
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00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.740
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00:24:07.740 --> 00:24:10.440
know with any suggestions on content you got

00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:13.859
Subscribe to the sub stack at sub stack dot Tyler

00:24:13.859 --> 00:24:17.400
Woodward dot me I'm independent. This is all

00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:20.799
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00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:30.259
well I'll catch you guys next week