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The decision caused minimal outcry, aside from a volunteer at one station whom Crane described as an “audiophile” and who said he was disappointed because he “loved how it sounded.” Otherwise, the response was “pretty muted, and that probably was telling,” Crane said.
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It’s not going anywhere.’”Ĭrane estimates that the combined weekly cume for the stations that were turned off was fewer than 500. “But if the evidence is that no service is actually provided, then it becomes necessary, particularly in a tighter budget, to just say, ‘Let’s not keep doing it. “I do not like the idea of taking off anything, because if you go back to the very beginning - not only of public radio 50 years ago but to our station more than 100 years ago - we’ve always been about providing maximum service,” Crane said. So when deciding which services to cut back, Crane considered those concerns and the low audience for WPR’s HD channels. WPR will save about $60,000 annually and reduce long-term capital expenses.Ĭrane said that engineers have told him for “a long time” that adding HD to a transmitter “has been more costly financially, but also damaging over time to the systems in a way that would require more maintenance, more replacement over time.” The Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, a state agency that holds licenses for some WPR stations, asked the broadcaster to reduce costs. In October, the station decided to end HD Radio broadcasts on seven stations.
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One reason is that digital TV “was a complete turnover of technology,” Crane said, whereas HD Radio “has always been a hybrid technology that continues to analog broadcast.” “We’ve certainly seen some value in that on the television side with HDTV, but … it’s been less so with radio,” he said. “Just like many public broadcasters, we were excited by the possibilities of multicasting,” said WPR’s Crane. In 2007, WPR added 13 HD Radio transmitters throughout its state network to broadcast its news and entertainment programming, along with an all-classical channel that had been previously available only as an online stream. Xperi, which now owns the technology, reported in an investor deck last year that 52% of U.S. Yet some station leaders still see promise for HD Radio through educating consumers about the technology and as more cars come to market with digital radio built in. In hindsight, HD Radio “just has not turned out to be a boon that people may have hoped that it would become,” said OPB CEO Steve Bass. And so continuing to maintain a service that wasn’t providing real service just wasn’t sustainable.” “We really did have high hopes,” said WPR Director Mike Crane, “but obviously we’re not in an environment where such grants are going to be coming out again.
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By comparison, the 2020 survey showed that 67% of respondents use streaming audio or connect phones in their cars, neither of which Jacobs measured in 2012. That’s up from 6% in the 2012 version of the survey but still puts HD Radio near the bottom of all technology used by the respondents. With that hurdle in place, adoption has been slow.Īccording to last year’s Public Radio Techsurvey, conducted by Jacobs Media in partnership with Public Radio Program Directors Association, 14% of respondents - most of whom were selected from public radio stations’ databases - said they use HD Radio. But listeners need digital radios to enjoy the higher-fidelity broadcasts and tune into the digital subchannels that some stations use for additional news and music services.
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HD Radio rolled out more than a decade ago, with CPB providing grants to help convert hundreds of stations’ transmitters to the technology. Meanwhile, Oregon Public Broadcasting stopped producing an HD music stream in part because the pandemic has stifled volunteer participation. Last fall, Wisconsin Public Radio ended more than half of its HD Radio services after its state licensee urged it to cut costs. Current’s special coverage of technology in public media