HD Radio, A Year Later
by Bob Harper, Keystone Media Research
It was last November when I conducted a series of twelve Focus Groups across the country researching radio listener reactions to various aspects of HD Radio.
How are we doing a year later?
The Dial. The chief issue before us last year was the design of the display; the tuning dial.
Overwhelmingly, radio listeners preferred the Expanded display to the one we have now (94.7 HD-1, 94.7 HD-2, etc.). Almost 90% of your listeners would rather have all the new, HD, stations, grouped together and corralled in their own place on the dial; above 108, for example.
The listeners lost that battle. What about the other fronts?
Quality. The two biggest potential attractions for HD Radio revolve around its promise for improved technical quality - "FM will sound like CDs" and "Reception will improve," making hisses, clicks, fading, and dropouts a thing of the past.
By most accounts, AM stations in HD do meet the challenge. But, improved FM quality and cleaner reception is dubious so far. Recently, Sean Ross shared his experiences on the Edison Research web site. Briefly: no HD reception in the Radio Shack store ... in-and-out signals ... inability to find listed HD stations ... poor and uneven reception at home and in the office ... a lack of punch from the audio quality. If you had the same experience Sean did, would you buy a second HD Radio? Would you be telling your friends to go buy one?
Not good, folks. We need to do better in the things most important to the listeners: Research 101.
The Buzz. Inside our own Radio Information Loop we keep reading about manufacturers and stores getting behind the HD Radio revolution. The Alliance has repeatedly reported strong sales figures from Radio Shack, for example. This is terrific news. The promotional commitment by Radio Stations and Groups is unprecedented and positive for HD Radio as well.
But, it seems to me that Radio is carrying the full advertising load. If someone comes into the store or shops on the web for an HD Radio almost certainly they heard about the innovation on a radio station.
This is the season for the largest electronics sales push of the year. And, last weekend were two of the biggest last-minute sales days before Christmas; a Saturday and Sunday supported by hundreds of pages of newspaper inserts. I was curious. "How many newspaper ads and inserts for audio products would mention HD Radio?" So, before the NFL games started, I counted them. Computer stores, WalMart, Electronics outlets, even Camping and Drug stores.
In all, I found 208 ads for various audio products and devices in the Sunday inserts alone. MP-3's, Sirius and XM players and subscriptions, cell phones that do everything, clock radios that don't. Home theaters, car radios, portable DVDs, emergency radios with a crank for power, I-pods, I-pod speakers, I-pod wanabees, I-pod meets Nike for your daily run, multi-colored I-pods ... you get the drift.
208 separate products and models. Not a single mention of HD Radio. I even went back and double checked. Not one.
While our industry's HD Radio commitment in time and advertising dollars is substantial, have our new HD formats captured the imagination and created Buzz for the listeners? Do the on-air commercials and promos sell the excitement of this new medium in a way that cranks up interest? When the retailers and manufacturers pick up on that kind of Buzz, they'll feel HD Radio is something worth talking about in the stores and Sunday inserts.
Last year, I summarized a key point in the research this way:
There was a lot of curiosity about what programming might be on these new stations and who would own them, established Radio companies or newbies. Interest in the idea of More Free Radio Stations increased considerably when listeners thought the new stations might provide programming not now available on their Radio dial ... and if the new stations could be commercial-free, all the better. Conversely, if the new channels were to provide 'more of the same old same old,' interest was reduced.
Let me say it again -- More new stations, in and of itself, is not necessarily a positive spin for HD Radio. What will make a splash is programming they can't get anywhere else ... programming that strikes listeners as interesting and innovative ... programming that comes from somewhere other than the usual broadcasting suspects. If we give them another bunch of "regular radio" formats, the listeners will be ho-hum.
With the investment our Industry has made in the technical side of HD Radio and the commitment to millions of spot dollars in promotion, it is well past the time when we can treat these new channels as step-children and eventual spot carriers for value-added.
Last year the listeners voted 136 to 20 for a display we rejected. In last Sunday's inserts the retailers in my town have voted 208 to 0.
"We've got some work to do now, Scooby-Doo..." You betcha!
Let's make 2007 the year we put our very brightest and very best in charge of getting this right and move the HD Radio effort from part-time to Top Priority. How many "first impressions" do you think the listeners will give us if we don't?
Contact Bob Harper at keystonemediaresearch.com
RBR observation:
You may recall that RBR raised some questions about the Cox Radio proposal for HD Radio branding/numbering last year and Harper's research. Bob, to his credit, responded with a detailed reply (12/15/05 RBR #244).
What has happened since then? Not a thing. Radio stations have continued to introduce new HD channels using the default HD-2 display system and branding them that way, even if the HD-2 channel is totally out of sync format-wise with its HD-1 sister. What an abomination! We are still not sure that the Cox Radio plan, numbering new HD channels from 108.1 and up, is the best possible approach, but we are absolutely certain that HD-2, HD-3, HD-4 and etc. is the worst possible. Why is the radio industry determined to shoot itself in the foot and make it as difficult as possible for HD to succeed? It may already be too late to do the professional branding research for HD Radio implementation that should have been done about two years ago. If that research is not going to be done, then let us go ahead and adopt the Cox Radio proposal and give HD Radio half a chance of consumer acceptance. Bob Harper's research proved conclusively that it is much better than the consumer-unfriendly system in use now.
