It's hard to say if HD will work in Canada or wind up as dead as DAB (which is now being put in at least one phone in Europe.)  But a Woodstock radio station, CIHR-FM, known on air as Heart 104.7, has now launched an HD add on, that unlike Corus, isn't just a rebroadcast of one of its AM properties. 

According to Program Director Dan Henry from a release on the station's website: "On HD Channel 2 we are doing a format called 80's and more and you will hear artists like Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, U2 - I mean the list goes on and on. It's a neat little format: we call it 80's and more there is a little bit from the 70's and early 90's but about 60 percent of the music is from the 1980's." 

In other words, an HD version of Boom. 

They claim to be only the second station in Canada to offer an alternate on an HD channel. (Anyone here know who the other one is?)

Heart FM Offers New HD Format

This brings up a host of issues. If a radio station chooses to launch an HD subchannel, do they need approval from the CRTC? The Commission has said in the past owners don't have to ask for permission to experiment with HD, just to inform them of their plans. But I always thought that applied to re-broadcasting an already existing station. What happens if you start what is a de facto brand new one? Shouldn't that require a new licence and format hearing? And do the usual CanCon rules apply?

Secondly, if this is all A-OK with authorities, then why don't more stations - especially Corus which appears to be betting big on this spreading - start their own channels, offering a variety of formats?

HD isn't a big deal here yet (Heart claims only 6 outlets around the country are trying it out) and may never be. But if it does catch on, there are a host of questions that have yet to be answered. And as more owner groups try it out, those answers may have to come sooner than later.  

Last edited by RadioActive (March 14, 2016 11:40 am)