Oh, but those same AMs can have wall-to-wall shilling of jewelers, real estate agents, gentlemen's' clothiers and their never-ending trunk sales (whatever the eff that means), precious metals, primerica scams, airport motel seminars, pillows, jewelers going-out-of-business that miraculously achieved great grandparent status (an achievement only matched by 3.47 Billion other people)......

C'mon?! Who the eff actually HAS an HD receiver? This is deader than Lawrence Welk's accordion playing genderfluid Myron Floren. Mr. Floren, in addition to being a polka-master, was kicked out of the Welk family due to his love of Anime-theme Eastern European Tentacle Porn. Imagine all that "and a one, and a two..." oompa-pa music whilst ole Myron was secretly fondling a fresh pouch of squid ink in his left shoe.

I guess this means that for now the folks in Peel Region can continue to listen to WARF-Akron and KRNT-Des Moines once darkness sets in.

NW wrote:

I guess this means that for now the folks in Peel Region can continue to listen to WARF-Akron and KRNT-Des Moines once darkness sets in.

WARF - I don't know why, but every time I hear those calls I think of Moon Unit Zappa, you know, "Warf me out and gag me with a spoon". Anyhow, I much prefer WTDR Gadsden and WGPL Portsmouth.

Irvine wrote:

@RadioWiz
HD radio will never become mainstream. 
 

As I've said, let's start with the car and take it from there...

 

cGrant wrote:

HDs are only repeaters of existing signals. Who cares if I hear "640 in crystal-clear audio under the streetcar wires"?

Not true at all. The option to use HD for other reasons is there. It's being done here in Canada.
Here's an example:  http://www.wave.fm/pages/the-wave-on-94-7-fm-hd-2

There is nothing wrong with HD radio at this time. The return on the investment is excellent.

Radiowiz wrote:

Here's an example:  http://www.wave.fm/pages/the-wave-on-94-7-fm-hd-2
There is nothing wrong with HD radio at this time. The return on the investment is excellent.

That's great, RW. Other than that ONE example, does every market, large and small, have similar HD broadcasts?

The RoR of HD is "excellent"? Wow. Where do I start? I'd love to see the balance sheet that proves me wrong. If your stance is a HD repeater signal of, say, 640 piggybacking off a Hamilton signal gives Corus more ad exposure in the GTHA, respectfully, I'd take issue with that notion. 640's Tx is fine in the western edge of its terrestrial linear pattern. Hearing a jewellry, precious metals, gentlemen's clothier, pillow ad in "crystal-clear stereo" hardly is a sell to millennials. And, seniors that are keeping their cars longer, well, those cars are not equipped with HD. So, where's the upside?

Irvine wrote:

Again, it's 2018 and not 1974.  Do you pay attention to trends?  

Couldn't resist, sorry. Keeping up and ACCEPTING trends, with respect, is most assuredly and definitely not a hallmark of the majority of posters here, sorry.

Point-of-fact, they blame trends for the state of the medium today. Pity. I rather relish the ever-changing momentum of progress. Personally, I have ADHD and multitasking whilst in-studio is exhilarating and scintillating. Performing a live broadcast, while simultaneously tracking another cluster station, interacting with multiple cluster social medias and tracking yet another neighbouring cluster, is fulfilling.

If I may suggest, and I sincerely apologize for the following statement, but I'd be surprised if the veterans of the Illuminati of this board could keep up that pace. (Again, I am not being mean to be mean.) And, in the end, isn't that what the majority on here are complaining about? It is those trends and tech that, possibly, is the reason they "chose" retirement vs continuing in the biz. With respect, gone are the days of one jock doing nothing other than performing into a mic for one station being helped by one producer. And that is his/her only singular task.

 

Hrick wrote:

I think you are all missing the point of HD radio. It's not a new medium as FM was originally. It's simply a significant enhancement to existing FM and AM radio. As most new cars are now equipped with HD radios, and indeed my new Tesla does not even have an AM radio as electrical vehicles and AM do not play nice together, HD provides incredible sound quality on HD1 and the ability to listen to AM stations on the sub carriers. With no HD there would be no 680 News or AM 640 in my vehicle. No one is expecting anyone to go out and buy a new radio for your home. However if your car already has an HD radio, shouldn't all stations in Canada be upgrading to HD as they have in the US? It's only a matter of time until the CN Tower's FM combiner is upgraded as other combiners in the US have (eg New York City). You'll begin to see more and more Canadian radio stations moving to HD in the future. HD is certainly not going away anytime soon...

With respect, what part of HD are we not getting? We are all celebrating that YOU can catch repeaters on your electric car. But, again, it is you that is missing one important ingredient: trend. Those millennials are listening to their car radios to the playlists they create via their cell phones or ancillary services.

As for the CN tower, you're again missing the point. How long has their HD Tx been down since the lightning storm? There is absolutely no priority or desire to repair it. And, if the big players aren't willing to follow thru, you think anyone else will be?

Radio, sadly, very sadly, is dying a death of a thousand cuts. Maybe not in our lifetime, but soon after.
 

does anyone really listen to radio (except for the alarm clock + the receiver in the shower, both for a few minutes) in their residence, anymore?     

Am with Hrick and RadWiz.    680 news on weekdays and Jody Thornton weekends have a captive audience whether the audience is sitting on Hwy 400, 401, 403, 410 or the Gardiner or the DVP.                

Irvine wrote:

Maybe to the members of this forum Geo, but the rest of us...
 

Right, sure, and all 3 top 40 stations going after the Toronto ear should change format right now, targeting a much older audience.

 

The conversation here begs the question - What is radio?

Radio is a delivery vehicle for content, just as newspaper and television sets are vehicles for content. But they do more than deliver content - they help define its structure and its nature. Radio, like newspapers and television, is a somewhat modern-day iteration of the campfire storytelling and singing of our earliest ancestors. That, too, was radio - metaphorically speaking. Radio, as we've known it, is almost magical as a delivery vehicle insofar as we can neither see nor read the content. It's given our imaginations a workout, and that's a big reason we have this board - we're passionate about a communications medium we quite rightfully have recognized as special and meaningful.

But change is underway. It always is - just as humans are evolutionary creatures, so are the things around us. That magical box in your car, at your bedside, or - much more rarely these days - in your living room is undergoing a transformation to match communications technology that is fast eclipsing current abilities and is doing so much more than it was ever capable of doing. You can now monitor your refrigerator, talk to your great aunt in Madagascar and do your office work on the very same device you use to listen to and video-stream traffic reports and enjoy your favourite music or spoken word programming.

What we think of as conventional radio, the medium people first gathered 'round nearly a century ago, is still with us, albeit with a variety of changes and technical challenges (streetcar tracks and other electronic interference particularly on AM, ridiculously crowded dial in some places, limited spectrum space, lack of meaningful choice).

Let's imagine 20 years down the road, just to pull a next-generation number out of a hat. What will radio sound like? What form might it take? Certainly, we live in an era that's so increasingly inter-connected that it's called the wired generation. But in fact our world is now so really and truly wireless that we're effectively at a new dawn both for the kind of delivery truck we use for content, but for content itself. The possibilities are endless and awesome not for the end of radio but for its rebirth (or more properly, its continuity).

Radio will differ dramatically from what it was like from the 20s through the 90s, and the key is that we respect radio for the content that it really is, and not just for the delivery vehicle that it happens to be as a medium for content. Is the magic of radio limited to establishing an (insert a network here) replica in every town in Canada? The key is for content delivered over the airwaves to be truly local, or at least compelling. It's not just the networks, which have to varying degrees squandered the magic of conventional radio. Even the somewhat high-powered jukebox pirate running out of the Georgina area on 93.9 - if it's captain had any swashbuckle there'd be talk between the rock music tracks. Otherwise a local might as well just listen to their personal playlist.

Speaking of personal playlists ... they're an evolution of 33s, cassette tapes, CDs, and such. So is YouTube and other forms of internet-based presentation of streaming. It's obvious we'll still have our personal playlists, and such. But campfire storytelling and singing aren't going away - they're just growing new branches.
 

"""I believe HD radio is helping car sales. 
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/canada-easily-on-track-to-hit-record-car-sales-for-2017-1.3659495 """""

How?
 

Actually what's driving me to get a new car is the promise of HD on CKNT on 960.

It's not easy - purely on a technology level - for broadcasters to plan for beyond the next couple of years at a time. Technology is jumping ahead at a rapid pace and we're swamped with potential options. A system that used to last for 20-30 years, or more, now lasts five before being overtaken by the next big thing. The "smart" phone would appear to be a logical direction, but there are many tangential what-ifs; and who knows what platform the kiddies will settle on ... one day the youngsters are all over Facebook, then they ditch it for Instagram. The Smart phone is also not fully practical with the car as a handheld device but can be easily adapted. The radio business is really two separate businesses - the platform (delivery truck) business and the content business. The smart broadcaster will be very good at winging it on as low a budget as possible, operating on both short-term plans (1-3 years) and long-range visions (having some sense as to where things might be headed 5-10 years out). Never be the first on your block to adopt a new way unless you have some sort of insider / intelligence advantage (ie., you're part of the development team). Might help to talk to your young children and observe - take a journalist's approach to it: what, where, when, how and why they're using communications and entertainment technology.
 

It's amazing how a thread on Radio Humsafar turned into this. That said, these two articles serendipitously turned up online Wednesday on Radioink.com. Both are from a U.S. perspective but the same principles could easily apply here. 

Where Radio Went Wrong With HD

It’s Time To Kill The AM Band