Has HD Radio Reached a Tipping Point?

From time to time we hear word that HD Radio is near a tipping point, a point where awareness and interest in HD Radio reaches critical mass and the medium takes off.

If Google is any indication, HD Radio has already reached a tipping point, a tip not toward success, but instead toward oblivion.

Google Insights is a tool to track interest in a topic or product using search activity as the metric. Type in Charlie Sheen, and you’ll find that interest in Sheen started taking off on February 25th, and exploded on March 2nd. Aside from a secondary peak on March 8th, interest has steadily declined since.

 
The chart above shows interest in Pandora radio. Pandora is an interesting study because despite continued growth over the last few years, interest actually peaked in early 2009. Since then, interest has fallen off 50%.

With registered users topping 80 million, maybe everyone knows about Pandora by now and there’s no need to search for it.

 
HD Radio is in a very different place. With limited awareness of HD and very slow set sales, HD needs to be in a growth mode when it comes to search.

If we saw growing numbers of listeners using Google to learn more about HD Radio, it might mean HD Radio is gaining momentum, and it is just a matter of time before people start buying HD radios.

Unfortunately, interest in HD is declining, not growing. Interest peaked in December 2007, and has been steadily declining since. Each December there is a seasonal peak, as there is for most tech gifts, but interest in each subsequent Christmas season has dropped.

Interest in HD has fallen by two-thirds since its 2007 peak.

 
Graphing Pandora and HD Radio against one another shows the dramatic difference between the two service’s arc of interest. The tipping point for HD Radio actually occurred in 2007. It was the year that interest in Pandora exceeded interest in HD, and since then HD interest has steadily eroded.

While search interest is just one metric, declining interest is one more negative sign of HD Radio's struggle to gain traction.

As an aside, HD channels are showing some signs of life in Arbitron, apparently fueled by 250 watt FM translator simulcasts. Maybe AM broadcasters should lobby for commercial low power FM allocations rather than more HD power!

Comments

[Bob]

I have watched analog DXing opportunities vanish as HD hash infiltrates the AM and FM bands. Even station 50-60 miles away are being impacted. Turning off HD would markedly improve the AM and FM bands. One benefit: My HD Radio (unplugged) is in a plastic case and collects dust, and that keeps nearby equipment from becoming very dusty.

[Harold Jensen]

OMG, how can this company use the word "Research" in their name with a straight face?!

HD Radio is finally growing due to receivers in so many new vehicles, and a lot more after-market home and mobile receivers. It's not a fast process to replace all the existing vehicles on the road. It'll be a multi-decade transition, just like when FM radio first appeared.

[HDRadioFarce]

Check out this Google Trends graph for HD Radio sales:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=hd+radio%2C+hd+radios%2C+portable+hd+radios%2C+hd+radio+portables&ctab=0&geo=us&date=all&sort=0

Struble claims that HD Radio sales are doubling each year.

[Mike]

@Scott: Interesting that you mentioned how station personnel are oblivious to HD Radio, too. As an example, some stations sampled in California reveal that only one is time-aligned, even though that is a requirement in broadcasters' licensing agreements:

http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/roster.htm

Stations don't care. Consumers don't care.

[Scott Gilbert]

I am still a big proponent of HD radio. I think the reason that HD never really took off was the absolutely pitiful way the Alliance advertised it, using cutesy commercials ("You can hear the new radio stations between the radio stations." HUH?) instead of being straightforward and uncomplicated. That, and that most of the sideband stations are no more than a computer in a corner somewhere in the building carrying a centralized feed or playing like an unattended juke box. I keep up databases of stations and DO track the side bands, but when I call to update my data and ask about their HD sideband stations, 95% of the time, the STATION EMPLOYEE that I'm talking with HAS NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! If people at the stations don't know about them, how can we expect the lay public to know?

[PocketRadio]

Try this Google Trends graph comparing HD Radio, Sirius, XM, and Pandora in the United States:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=hd+radio%2C+xm%2C+sirius%2C+pandora&ctab=0&geo=us&date=all&sort=0

There never was any significant level of interest in HD Radio. You should have compared them together to get accurate, relative levels of interest.

[Greg]

Did you get the idea for these graphs off my blog? No problem, just curious.