Music: Radio

Radio going the way of TV with HD

In some corners, it's being touted as the most significant development in radio since FM's introduction more than 50 years ago. And no, they're not talking about satellite radio, those 100-channel-plus, subscription-based services that serve a delectable smorgasbord of audio entertainment offerings.

They're referring to HD radio.

Short for high-definition, HD radio will do for broadcast audio what HD television does for video: make it sharper and clearer, and deliver more of it, because stations will have more bandwidth to send multiple content streams. They'll still be able to transmit analog signals, but will also be capable of providing up to three streams of digital content -- along with on-demand services such as traffic and weather, and such bells and whistles as scrolling text that shows artists' names and song titles, which satellite radio receivers do now.

"What it basically allows you to do is put more things on the air than we have time for now," says Richard Dean, who has just been hired as KUT-FM's (90.5) assistant director of technology. "We only have 24 hours in the day, and there is more public radio that we'd like to (program)."

Like HDTV, HD radio requires new hardware -- and like HDTV, no one's going to buy that still-pricey hardware until the content becomes more readily available. That's just starting to happen in the United States (in England, HD radio is already popular). In Austin, three Clear Channel stations -- KASE-FM (100.7), KPEZ-FM (102.3) and KHFI-FM (96.7) -- are broadcasting HD signals in addition to analog, and KUT promises to be doing so by the fall.

Unlike HDTV, there is no Federal Communications Commission mandate to get it done by a certain deadline (which TV stations missed repeatedly anyway). Thus far, the FCC's role has been to choose a technology provider, iBiquity Digital Corp., and grant stations permission to experiment with alternate programming streams. At this point, none of the Clear Channel stations is programming additional content, though George Bradshaw, chief engineer for the six-station Austin Clear Channel cluster, says that's down the road. Clear Channel began its conversion early -- KASE has been sending dual signals since November -- because, Bradshaw said, "They see that as the coming thing and the idea was to get ahead of the curve."

According to iBiquity, more than 420 stations nationwide already have converted to HD radio, and 2,500 others are in the process of doing so. The conversion cost is in the low six figures; KUT is spending about $200,000, including tower upgrades, to add HD radio, general manager Stewart Vanderwilt said.

Supposedly, HD radio will boost AM audio transmission to FM sound quality, and FM to CD quality, but as with satellite, that isn't its main selling point.

"Hi-def radio is not perceptibly better, signal-wise," Dean says. "What will sell it is new content."

Gary DeFeo, general manager of JVC Co. of America's mobile electronics division, regards HD radio as terrestrial broadcasters' answer to satellite.

"It's two different kinds of content," he says. "Right now, satellite is the way cable used to be. You put your radio on, you've got content without commercials. Or very few commercials. But HD radio's the other way; HD radio's full-commercial, high-definition, but you won't have to pay for it. Satellite, right now, is one of the fastest-growing categories in the country in consumer electronics. But that's because they're providing the consumer with great content ... and the fee is fairly reasonable for most people.

Vanderwilt says KUT is committed to creating those reasons; that's why it hired Dean.

"It's really important that radio in general provide more choice," Vanderwilt explains. "That's the one thing that satellite does, is provide more channels."

KUT is forced, he says, to make arbitrary programming decisions because it has only one channel for delivery.

"We think that, long-term, that's not an effective public service. A more effective public service is to provide you with as many choices as we have," Vanderwilt says. "We don't see this as our competitive answer to satellite. We see this as a requirement of us providing a good public service. More and more, the service that we're in is connecting people with audio content however they want to receive it, whether it's gonna be via podcasts, streams, over the radio traditionally, or in these (HD) channels."

KUT plans to discuss possibilities with listeners and perhaps get into some citizen-generated programming or a full-time music stream. Because there won't be many listeners initially, Vanderwilt says, the station will be able to conduct low-risk experiments.

"At first, you might go, 'Well, that doesn't sound like radio,' " he says. "But podcasting, streaming and downloading has changed the way people use audio, so we have to change along with it."