The Infinite Dial

Having been pretty critical in recent weeks about the relative paucity of HD-2 choices in the New York area, it's only fair to call your attention to Susan Whitall's mostly positive article in Saturday's Detroit News calling listeners' attention to "The Secret Radio Dial." With the automakers as potential listeners, Detroit radio has been particularly dilligent about rolling out multicast channels, reflected by the 12 stations listed in the story and at least four others that don't get mentioned for some reason. (There's nothing about either Urban WJLB or Urban AC sister WMXD's channels. There's also no mention of the last two stations on the dial, WMGC and WDTW, as if an editor arbitrarily cut at 104.3 FM, which is too bad because WDTW's Country/Rock "Mother Trucker" is an interesting choice.)

Besides the much publicized WRIF "Riff-2" channel, Detroit does have a few things that aren't available in New York: pure jazz (WVMV-2), gold-based alternative (WDVD, reviving its old Planet 96.3 handle), a public radio music stream (WDET), and the aforementioned Mother Trucker. It also has a lot of the same things: two supersoft ACs (WNIC and WMGC), a N/T simulcast (WWJ-AM on WXTY's frequency), "Future CHR" (WKQI) and Deep Tracks classic rock (WCSX).