Radio Ownership

Traditional radio was also trying to embolden itself in 2005, not by consolidation but by cooperation.

Much of the cooperation involves HD Radio, terrestrial radio’s most obvious opportunity to answer satellite. Not only does the technology provide the kind of sound quality satellite radio promised, it offers more programming opportunities for terrestrial broadcasters. And while HD still requires a dedicated receiver to pull down the split digital signals, HD radio does not currently require membership fees. It is simply an expansion of traditional commercial broadcast radio.

The possibilities of HD Radio and the increasing audio field led several of terrestrial radio’s larger players to come together to develop a strategy to make the greatest use of the new bandwidth and content possibilities HD can provide.7 The so-called HD Radio Consortium gained attention in the industry because it signaled an almost unprecedented coming together of companies more used to competing with one another for audience than developing a plan for peaceful, beneficial coexistence.

In early December 2005, the HD Digital Radio Alliance was launched. Based in Orlando , Fla., and with Peter Ferrara (previously with Clear Channel) as president and CEO, the alliance will be coordinating the promotion and launch of traditional radio stations’ HD frequencies. That will ensure, as Joel Hollander was quoted as saying by the Billboard Radio Monitor, that “all of a sudden, there aren’t 17 Z100s in New York .”8

Such strategic planning may prove critical to the success of HD radio. Unlike the satellite radio companies who program dozens of stations, multiple stations will eventually program HD radio frequencies. The danger for HD is that stations would all program the same, reducing the value of the receiver and re-creating the limited-playlist situation many feel exists on traditional radio.