HD Radio News and Information

HD Radio Needs Wake-Up Call"

"Listen up: HD radio struggling to be heard"

"HD Radio Slow to Catch On"

One of these was actually the headline for a story featuring quotes from Pat Walsh, senior vice president of iBiquity Digital, the chief developers of HD technology.

I just wonder why it took Pat so long to catch on to the reality of HD Radio.

At this point, HD Radio faces two problems. One is called "getting the word out," a fancy way of saying that most Americans have no idea what HD Radio is or why they should care. The second is lack of tabletop radios at any sort of reasonable price. In fact, there is only one tabletop HD Radio available now, the Boston Acoustics HD Recepter which weighs in at $299. Radiosophy is about to start shipping its MultiStream HD radio with an announced retail price of $269 – which is lower than the HD Recepter but still not low enough to interest most Americans. A number of Chinese manufacturers have licensed HD Radio technology but have been very quiet as to their intentions.

I spent the first five months of this year believing that we would see HD Radios for less than $100 before the end of this year but to be honest, I now believe we will not see this price point until some time in 2007.

Until then, I think that HD Radio will still be "slow to catch on."