But first, let's step back and look at what happened to your local television stations. For several years there was a "push" for TV stations to start broadcasting a digital signal - which would then enable them to broadcast programming in high definition. The FCC got involved and assigned new channels for existing stations and for a period of time TV stations were broadcasting an analog (the original type of TV signal) and a new, digital signal. New TVs or tuners were required to receive the new digital signals, and in most cases, the digital signal was transmitted at lower power than the old analog signal. Theory is digital should work equally well with less power - not sure of the new math used with that idea. But one thing about digital signals - it's either on and looks great, or it's off and looks like "Signal Lost". No more ghosting, static or noisy video - it's now either there, or not, with nothing in between. The FCC set a time frame for TV stations to make the switch to digital and turn off the old analog signals, with the idea that some of the now freed up RF spectrum where the old signals existed could be used for things like public safety (police, fire, etc). Making the switch to digital has been expensive for TV stations - but they really had no choice but to make the FCC mandated switch.
Although the digital TV signal makes it possible to broadcast a high definition signal, digital doesn't have to be high definition. So TV stations now have a main channel, which is mostly high definition, although at lower quality than it's capable of to make room for a couple of digital sub channels. The sub channels are often not high definition, but where TV stations used to just have one channel per station, they now have up to 3 channels per station. The sub channels are often used to broadcast 24/7 weather, or one of the lesser networks in a market, like CW or MyTV.
While there is no universal standard for HDTV in the US, most stations and networks choose either 720p or 1080i with a 16:9 wide screen aspect ratio. The highest quality high definition available is 1080p - not broadcast very often because of the bandwidth required - but lots of TVs support 1080p as do upscaling DVD players and Blu-Ray players.
Keep in mind, the FCC forced TV stations to switch to digital - or we'd still likely be watching that old noisy analog video we grew up with.
But, I digress. How does this relate to HD Radio?
HD Radio, or digital radio has been available to radio stations for several years now - but your local station may or may not be broadcasting digitally. And therein lies the rub - there are several reasons why any given station may not be broadcasting a digital signal.
First and foremost - the FCC is not mandating radio stations to broadcast a digital signal (yet). Because of that, the people making radios - namely car manufacturers have been slow to embrace HD Radio because of the lack of stations broadcasting HD Radio.
Second - stations can't just buy a digital transmitter, plug it in and start broadcasting digitally. The FCC has authorized a system called In Band On Channel, where the new digital signal is broadcast in the same RF energy bandwidth. A company named iBiquity stepped in to offer a digital standard for the new IBOC (In Band On Channel) digital broadcasting. So far, iBiquity is getting licensing money from several sources - transmitter manufacturers - to allow them to incorporate the iBiquity based IBOC radio system in their transmitters. A radio station would then need to buy a digital transmitter, a high or low level combiner to get the signal to the broadcast antenna with the old analog signal and possibly other equipment PLUS pay a licensing fee to iBiquity on an annual basis for the privilege of broadcasting the new digital HD Radio signal. And like Television, the new digital signal allows for a couple of digital sub channels for use by the station. So then a single FM station could have 3 channels of programming (and 3 sources of revenue). iBiquity is also getting a percentage of the revenue gained by using the sub channels And let us not forget the people making HD Radios are also paying a license fee to iBiquity.
Larger stations (larger markets) saw some value in having 3 stations (channels) where one existed before and have been implementing HD Radio for a few years now. Associated with that, the car makers are finally starting to put HD Radios in new cars.
So why isn't station A broadcasting HD Radio, while station B is broadcasting HD Radio. Keep in mind, the FCC is not mandating radio stations to broadcast digitally (as they did with television), and unlike television, there are licensing fees every step of the way to digital radio for iBiquity. And those licensing fees are in addition to the new expensive digital transmitter, the expensive digital combiner and anything else required to get the digital signal out there with the analog signal. Like television, digital station power levels are significantly lower than analog power levels and that's been a major fly in the ointment for AM Radio - so far digital on the AM band has lots of problems compared to the analog signal. Overall (AM and FM), it's hard for many broadcasters to justify the expense of adding digital when very few HD Radios exist, and unlike TV, broadcasters may be reluctant to add the sub channels because iBiquity is there wanting a share of the revenue.
At a minimum, a radio station is looking at spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars to add HD Radio - with no immediate return on that investment.
A successful Classic Rock station could add HD Radio and put out a subchannel with Southern Rock or a subchannel with 80s Rock. A successful Country station could add HD Radio and put out a subchannel with Classic Country or a subchannel with Red Dirt Country.
In addition to the cost of the equipment and licensing fees to add HD Radio, there's also the added cost of operating the new subchannels. It would be like operating 3 radio stations where 1 existed analog, and with group owners, would be like operating 9 radio stations where 3 existed analog.
So, for the most part, money, or more specifically lack of money has stalled the rollout of HD Radio. HD Radio exists in larger cities where stations have deeper pockets (of money), but is still slow to come to medium sized radio markets, let alone small market radio.
The FCC really screwed up on digital radio by allowing iBiquity to charge license fees here, there and everywhere. Transmitter manufacturers pay iBiquity, radio stations pay iBiquity and radio manufacturers pay iBiquity. And its "licensing" - it goes on and on and on.
May God help radio if the FCC ever mandates that radio stations switch to digital broadcasting. And may the government provide funding for stations to make the switch. Without some kind of funding, HD Radio will continue to move along slowly as long as station owners and group station owners are satisfied with the status quo world of analog.
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