KXTR on FM again ... sorta
If you're like me -- and surveys show you probably aren't -- you've been trying to figure out if this HD Radio thing is for real or not.
I've got an HDR receiver in my car. I got it because my old one went and while I was in Best Buy I saw I could get an Insignia house-brand car stereo with an HDR tuner for "only" 40 bucks extra. I got it. Hey, somebody has to write about it!
Long story short, I love it. The HD sound is somewhere between FM and CD quality, very nice, and it allows multicasting, which Entercom Radio has really taken advantage of in Kansas City and other markets where it owns stations. Case in point, KXTR.
The classical music station, as we all remember, was mismanaged by the previous owners, who couldn't seem to figure out how to sell a 4.0 share to advertisers, so Entercom took it off the FM band and stuck it on AM (albeit at a relatively quiet end of the dial, 1660 KHz) and gave the frequency over to the Buzz, which promptly rang up a 2.0 share, which Entercom then sold to advertisers. I'm won't say that's one reason why Entercom stock is trading at $1.30 a share ... but that's because right now my own company is trading at the Kresge-store price of 88 cents.
Anyway, for all the things we like to point out that Entercom did wrong over the years, with KXTR-AM it has really, truly, tried to do right. Patrick Neas, a fixture at the station for a quarter century, remains as its one-man band, hosting the morning show, partnering with public television, attaching the brand to concerts around the area, and so on. A year ago, management told Patrick to program an all-local format for KXTR to replace the syndicated feed it had been piping in for a decade. The station is first-rate, certainly the best thing on the AM dial.
And now, it's on the FM dial, too -- if you've got HD Radio.
To get you up to speed: When you tune to an HD Radio station with an HDR receiver, you count to three and by then it should have detected the digital signal transmitting on the same frequency. At that point you can push the HD button on your radio -- assuming you weren't an early adopter of HDR -- and survey the other channels, if there are any, or enjoy the enhanced sound of your current station. Entercom puts a second channel on its five FM properties: hence, if you tune in 98.9 The Rock, you get a live-concerts station on HD2; at 106.5 The Wolf, HD2 gives you The City, the very same smooth-jazz format that was pushed aside for country; at 96.5 there's a comedy channel last time I checked the HD2 signal there.
But my two favorites are at 99.7 The Boulevard, where The Delta, an all-blues station on its HD2 signal, mixes old and new music into a tasty gumbo - I'll keep it on for days at a time (then again, I only have a 10-minute commute). And at 98.1 KUDL, the HD2 channel was Overture, an all-classical format programmed by none other than Patrick Neas. However, Neas told me a few months ago that Kansas City was the only Entercom market using Overture. So I wasn't shocked when recently, Entercom dropped Overture and just began simulcasting KXTR on 98.1-HD2.
Dave Alpert, Entercom's GM in the KC market, told me today that he "just thought it was time to move the 'real station' over to the HD channel." I agree. Let's face it, KXTR can use all the help it can get!
Finally, as to the future of HDR, I'm still in wait-and-see mode. I was initially suspicious, you may recall, about HD Radio. But I do like the way it's being used to extend the unique brand of KXTR, and to keep slightly less than mass-market formats like smooth and blues on the radio.
On the other hand, my friends at Prometheus Radio Project, which advocates for low-power FM stations -- and can I just say low-power FM is the biggest failing of the last three FCC chairmanships going back to the Clinton administration? -- have put out this advisory that they are opposed to power boosts for HD Radio because, irony of ironies, tests have shown they cause massive interference. I love this because (as the 14 people reading this because they have Google Alerts set to "LPFM" already know) the broadcast industry has been able to forestall the growth of low-power FM. How have they done this? By claiming it will interfere with standard broadcasts! In fact, reports and studies are out there proving that the industry lobbyists are overstating the harm, but in the meantime HDR -- which hasn't cleared the interference hurdle yet -- is asking for a free pass.
I guess we'll see if money talks ... although, how much money can you have when your stock is trading at a buck and change a share? (I know, I know.)
At any rate, HDR isn't going to be the salvation of terrestrial radio. But I have to say, it's interesting watching this death struggle going on between HDR and satellite radio. XM and Sirius are merged, sort of like Romeo and Juliet. Or Siamese twins joined at the skull. Satellite radio may not make it. This analyst is betting it won't, and probably isn't alone in that view. If it goes, what will happen to the HDR market? Especially when people learn they can get an HDR chip in their next car stereo for less than three months of Sirius?
