Mexico City's HD Radio Launch Good Lesson For Canadian Broadcasters

[stampeder]

On or abouts April 16, 2012, Mexico City will see the launch of HD Radio broadcasts, and the following quote from this article is really quite appropriate for Canada's radio broadcasters, who have seemed to be saying little or nothing about HD Radio:

Broadcasters are buying HD Radio transmission products from BE, Continental, Harris and Nautel.

Both Scheider and other iBiquity folks I’ve talked to about the Mexico plans expect the rollout in that country to be easier than it has been here because of several factors. The technology is more advanced at launch; HD Radio is on something like its third generation of transmitters; there have been several iterations of the receiver chipset and CE prices have come down.

http://www.rwonline.com/article/mexi...-launch/212268

With auto makers already putting HD Radio tuners in their vehicles, and with after market car audio makers offering the capability in many of their products, consumers will make the switch when they hear (or hear of) the vastly superior audio quality. Canadian stations need only build it and they will come.

[magnet]

Ironically, Nautel gear is manufactured just outside of Halifax, near Peggy's Cove.

[CamDAB]

Mexico has even done one better... Allow the HD Radio system to be tested in all digital mode too... Nothing like efficiency.... :-)

Cameron

[Michael DeAbreu]

For many years I've heard about various new technologies to re-invigorate the radio industry but nothing ever seems to come of them. Tim Wu in "The Master Switch" recalls how the radio broadcasters successfully silenced FM radio for 30 years (1940-1970). In consolidating their control, current broadcasters have also killed any innovation and in the process have made themselves irrelevant. So I tend to read these things, shrug my shoulders and say, "who cares?"

[stampeder]

Yep, regarding HD Radio in Canada, CRTC Public Notice 2006-160 opened the door to any station wishing to apply to use it. Six years on and after many of the bugs have been ironed out, we still don't have any major Canadian cities sporting HD Radio signals. The Mexicans are teaching us a big lesson.

Given that not-for-profit stations across the U.S.A. run such signals it is difficult to believe that there is an economic argument against such signals in Canada. To me it seems to be systemic inertia, with the only points of station change being of the kind that make their owners switch formats (rock, pop, country, talk, etc.) and/or personalities at the drop of a hat (based only on supposed listener share) rather than trying more substantial, innovative measures. Too bad the techies don't run the show.

[CamDAB]

The main problem isn't necessarily the transmitter end, but the combiners used where multiple stations share common antennas.

Stations that don't share antennas would be prime candidates for HD Radio or DRM+ on their FM feeds initially.

A blowtorch putting several AM mono feeds on an HD Radio digital stream could conceivably clear out a lot of the AM dial in major markets... :-)

And I think 88.1 in Toronto would be a good start to multi-use an FM frequency, digital only.

Cameron