The Infinite Dial

You may have read by now that the HD Radio Alliance has loosened its rules for the next year to allow limited sponsorships on HD-2 multicast channels, as well as making it easier for owners to change format on their HD-2 channels without clearing it with the other Alliance members. Stations are now also allowed to promote their own HD-2 channels instead of the generic HD Radio spots that have become a subject of derision in some quarters.

The best news here is that it shuts down the biggest excuse that most broadcasters have for the benign neglect that goes into most multicast channels: Why should I improve my HD-2 station if I can't make any money with it? Most HD-2 stations, despite their limited available over-the-air audience, still have Webstreams and broadcasters are doing a little better at selling those these days. And as we head toward The Infinite Dial, that is probably where most of these stations will be consumed anyway.

As for divvying the formats, I can only say that in New York, the previous rules never really served their purpose of keeping HD-2 channels away from existing formats or from each other. At least two HD-2 multicast formats in this market would seem to be direct competitors of terrestrial stations. WWPR-HD-2 (Power Latino) covers the same ground as WCAA (La Calle). The Gospel format on WRKS-HD-2 preceded a commercial Gospel format on rival Inner City's WLIB-AM, but it certainly didn't go away once there was a Gospel station available.

Then there's almost everybody else. Technically, Deep Cuts Classic Rock WAXQ-HD-2, Soft AC WLTW-HD-2, "Jack-FM" WCBS-FM-HD_2, and WPLJ's '70s and '80s stations are entirely different formats. (And I can certainly say that I've never heard Sammy Johns' "Chevy Van," a WPLJ-2 staple, on any other station.) But they all cover a lot of the same '70s/'80s territory as each other and (in most cases) their HD-1 counterparts.

Meanwhile, New York still has only one HD-2 station expressly devoted to new music (WHTZ-HD-2) or that could be said to be in any way targeted to the next generation of radio listeners (again WHTZ-2). It provides no special audience programming not already found on analog radio--it's hard to imagine that a Caribbean or Bollywood channel, or Clear Channel's existing gay-targeted channel, wouldn't find a larger New York audience willing to buy HD receivers than most of what exists now. And for all the '70s/'80s pop/rock overlap, there's not even a variety of old music: no Classic Country, no R&B Gold, no '80s Alternative, although all of those things exist on satellite radio.

I don't want to again belabor my lack of HD-2 choices--something that I've made a regular topic here. But a lot of the changes in the Alliance rules are the sort of common-sense things that many broadcasters we speak to have privately wished for. Multicast stations have been and will remain hampered by the same lack of resources that all stations deal with these days. So one hopes that these other changes will make it easier for the medium to move forward.