Not Ready For Prime Time

About a week ago, a story moved across the Internet about how Apple was considering dropping an HD Radio tuner into its iOS devices, presumably the iPhone, and maybe the iPod Touch and iPad, too, and indeed had filed for a patent to do just that. I imagine that this caused some tingling sensations among the folks in the Grand Exalted HD Radio Alliance. Ha, they surely thought, NOW our existence can be justified! Quick, someone, write a slogan for it! "HD Radio -- It's Not Just For Zunes Anymore!" Yes, that will do nicely.

My reaction was... oh, come on, am I going to have to do yet another HD-bashing column again? I mean, I just DID one a few weeks ago! DON'T MAKE ME DO IT AGAIN...

Yet it turned out that I DO have something else to say about it. I don't have to repeat the main point of my last HD Radio column, do I? Okay, in brief: The thing doesn't work. Can't hold a signal. Sounds awful. Can't work unless that gets fixed; give it to high school kids to play with in the meantime.

But, say they fix the technical problems. Say that the power boost works, that it doesn't -- this is a big logical leap, I know -- cause interference to the analog signals everyone actually listens to. Say the signals don't drop out like an AT&T cell phone call on a dying battery. Say it all gets fixed, that they get it working and there it is, on your iPhone 5 or iPhone 6 or iPhone 2020, HD Radio in all its glory. Say all of that happens. Say millions of people suddenly get HD Radio right in the palm of their hands on their favorite communications device.

It doesn't matter, because the content isn't there. And I find it hard to believe that it ever will be there.

This industry has been trying to get people to buy HD Radios and listen for several years now, and the marketing talks about all the great programming you can hear that's FREE and they're the channels in between and they're FREE and they're more channels and they're FREE and satellite costs thirteen bucks a month but HD Radio is FREE. Did I mention FREE? Except for the receiver, of course. That'll cost you. But it's FREE.

WHAT'S free? Ah, see, that, they don't talk about much.

Where I live, the HD Radio "multicast" channels offer a wide array of mostly nothing that would get anyone to bother with HD Radio. There are several channels that basically ape the main channel, only with older music, like older Oldies and "classic" Alternative. There are a couple of channels that play basically the same music as the main channel. A few ineplicably pipe in smaller-market stations that duplicate formats already available in the market, like Country and Hot AC. Three AMs get HD multicast channels and manage to sound worse than they do on AM, and especially prone to dropping out. That's... it, really. Not a lot of innovation. Not even a lot of music that you can't get elsewhere, and no personality.

So Steve Jobs waves his magic wand and presto: New iWhatever comes out, HD Radio's in it, millions click the icon and find... nothing of value. This will reflect well on the radio industry, won't it?

Ah, but there's plenty of time, you say. No rush. That won't happen until a year from now at the earliest. No need to spend money on HD Radio programming until someone can actually hear it, right? But some people CAN hear it, those of us who own receivers now, and we know there's nothing really happening. And we tell people. And they tell people. And that's not good. If there's HD Radio in the iPhone and if people bother to try it and if they scan the dial to see what's available, there had better be something good there, something they can't get anywhere else, and it had better be there the moment they try it out. In fact, it should be there now.

But it isn't, and it probably won't be, and the industry will be promoting this thing and telling people to try this product that will only disappoint them. I guess you COULD call that a business plan, just not a very good one.

=============================

Hey, you know about All Access News-Talk-Sports and the Talk Topics column, right? Of course you do. You know it's where talk hosts around the world come for material, where there's always a huge stockpile of ideas that'll help you get your show in order. So go there right now to find items of interest like the drunk guy adrift on a pool float in the Gulf of Mexico, a guy convicted of murdering someone who didn't like his singing, what a guy did with a horse that I wish I'd never read about, a baby with a bong, America's allegedly most recession-proof cities, shaving tips, the unfortunate results of a road rage attack, a sperm and egg bank for "beautiful people" only, a cross-country trip by a car that allegedly runs on water, the essential unfairness of life as encapsulated by Khloe Kardashian giving Lamar Odom a $400,000 car to celebrate the Lakers' championship, another plane-stuck-on-tarmac nightmare, the Great Naked Woman Car Chase, the firing and re-hiring of the Pirates' pierogi, a mystery involving a tennis court and dog feces, the elementary school with a condom policy, and much, much more, including "real news" like the McChrystal brouhaha, the World Cup, and the neverending tennis match (is it over yet? Yes? Are you sure?).

After that, learn about rising sports talker Shan Shariff of KCSP (610 Sports Radio)/Kansas CIty in this week's "10 Questions With..." interview, then get yourself up to date with all the industry news in the rather appropriately-named Net News. You'll also want to peruse all the columns, charts, interviews, and other resources All Access has to offer, and that's a lot. But it's free, so no worries.

And then there's the convenience of the Talk Topics Twitter feed at twitter.com/talktopics, where you'll find all the headlines and links for items at Talk Topics. Follow it, love it, live it. The Net News Twitter feed at twitter.com/allaccess will alert you to breaking news in radio, while my own personal Twitter feed at twitter.com/pmsimon will alert you to breaking news in, um, me, plus the usual bitter ravings about sports and stuff. Follow, please.

Got the All Access iPhone app yet? No? Click here. And I'm told that if you click here, you'll get the All Access Android app. You will want these on your phones. Go get them.

And if that's not enough, there's always my other stuff at pmsimon.com, including thoughts on life, sports, television, and clippings from old newspapers that nobody else in their right mind would ever find significant. Fun for the whole family, if your family is particularly odd.

=============================

I PROMISE that I will not mention HD Radio again for at LEAST two weeks, guaranteed. Probably more. I'm as sick of talking about it as you are about reading it.

=============================

Perry Michael Simon
Editor
All Access News-Talk-Sports
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
www.twitter.com/pmsimon