Is Am Radio Dead?

Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by vel0city on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @04:37PM (#34602565)

I've heard the comment of HD Radio being a failure multiple times. Personally, it doesn't seem to be true to me, as the majority of my radio listening happens on receivers with HD Radio on stations with HD Radio, and I didn't even go out of my way to make sure I bought just the right trim of a car with HD Radio or an AV receiver with HD Radio, it just had it. Most of the radio stations in my market offer HD Radio and several have multiple subchannels. A few of my go-to stations are HD Radio subchannels as those often are operated with minimal to no advertisements (usually just self promotion and station ID).

I realize HD Radio is pretty much US-only, but am I seemingly the only one actually using HD Radio?

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by vermilingua on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @04:43PM (#34602661)

Is HD Radio equivalent to DAB+? If so, it’s alive and well in Australia (insofar as radio is alive and well)

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by vel0city on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @05:04PM (#34602926)

Yes, HD Radio is what the US went with instead of DAB/DAB+.

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by geerlingguy on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @05:13PM (#34603038)

Though transmitter and receiver hardware is entirely incompatible, so an imported car or radio from the EU/Australia would not be able to tune in any HD Radio signals.

Even today, not all brand new cars and replacement head units include HD Radio tuners—many are still analog AM/FM only. Pair that with most cars and trucks on the road not being brand new, and market penetration is very low outside of people who bought the right new cars in the past few years.

Many (but not most—yet) stations which launched HD signals in the past decade have since switched them off to give more bandwidth back to the analog signal, and to avoid ongoing HD licensing fees.

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by vel0city on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @07:54PM (#34604764)

> Many (but not most—yet) stations which launched HD signals in the past decade have since switched them off

Once again, this just seems very different from my personal experiences. Where I'm at, there's more HD Radio content on the air today than there was even just a few years ago, and far more content than a decade ago. One of the stations I listen to the most only started transmitting HD Radio in 2017, and another only started and exists only as a digital multicast channel in the last year.

The majority of the FM radio stations in my area seem to transmit HD Radio, with some of them even using all 4 digital channels (MTS + 3 SPS multicast). Only a few of the smaller ones don't transmit any HD Radio. I haven't noticed any stations in my market turning it off or reducing their presence.

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by petepete on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:09AM (#34606664)

In the UK, FM often sounds better than DAB. I know that in theory DAB offers superior quality but it's compressed so multiple stations are broadcast on the same frequency.

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by taftster on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @04:45PM (#34602688)

I don't listen to the radio much anymore (work-from-home keeps me off the road, which is where I'd normally listen to radio).

But I am with you, I have found the HD sub-channels to be very palletable to listen to compared with the main channels. Even NPR is getting hard to listen to, but some of the alternative HD channels are quite enjoyable, especially for "unpopular" genres like folk, bluegrass, original (roots) country, Americana, 40's/50's, etc.

I don't think it's a failure. Maybe it's a failure of monetization, but I think it's a success in terms of content availability and lack of advertisements.

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Re:Is Am Radio Dead? by abawany on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @05:06PM (#34602946)

I had a Pioneer car stereo with HD Radio available and I listened to it a lot, especially since a lot of the channels on there seemed to be free of ads. Once that stopped, the car stereo got updated to a AndroidAuto/AppleCarplay-capable device and I was no longer listening. So yes, you weren't the only one for a while but you may now be :) .

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