More than 1,300 digital HD2, HD3, and HD4 channels across the country are broadcasting programming, which can be heard with an HD Radio receiver.

HD Radio Technology also transmits show Program Service Data – such as song titles and artist information – that display on the CUE audio screen. It can be paused up to 20 minutes, allowing users to resume the program – similar to a DVD – if they interrupt a program while driving.

In the Cadillac CUE system, HD Radio users will have the added feature of iTunes® Tagging, which allows listeners to tag their favorite songs for later preview and purchase on iTunes.

“HD Radio Technology is an excellent addition to CUE, the groundbreaking user experience for connectivity and control which will debut in the new XTS luxury sedan in spring 2012,” said Cadillac Product Director Hampden Tener.

But that’s not the whole story.  Much as it has been in the past, HD Radio will continue to receive stiff competition from the usual suspects: Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, iPod connectivity, and, most interestingly, access to a Pandora application directly from CUE.

Personally, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with HD Radio. Since it’s inception, HD Radio had a tough time correctly branding and positioning the service, which, remember, doesn’t stand for High Definition (it doesn’t stand for anything, and is technically the proper name of the product created by iBiquity).  I love the idea of HD Radio: it widens the terrestrial radio band and gives the listener more choices with minimal effort.  All that’s necessary is an HD Radio receiver.  But within the last few years, instead of creating new, unique content on the HD1, 2 or 3 stations, radio owners are dumping formats from the traditional FM band and placing them on HD Radio.  For instance, while it saves face for CBS to tell fans of West Palm Beach’s rock station WPBZ that their station still exists, even though it was displaced from FM earlier today by an Adult Top 40 format, it’s just on an HD Radio station (and also streaming online).  In other words, there are few unique HD Radio stations that make HD Radio a compelling option, especially when presented on the same platform as Sirius/XM and Pandora, as we’re seeing in the aforementioned CUE system (sidenote: I find the most intriguing HD Radio offerings to be those that combine two of the best features of terrestrial and satellite radio: localized and niche programming.  For example, WXDX’s HD2 stream is devoted entirely to the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins.  At Detroit’s WRIF’s, their HD2 stream goes under the moniker of RIFF2, and is comprised entirely of music – new and old – from the Motor City.)

HD Radio’s major problem is that consumers still have a hard time pinning down exactly what HD Radio is.  While including the offering in more cars, where the majority of the time spent listening to terrestrial radio takes place is a start to increase awareness, I have a hard time believing your average new car buyer will take the time to embrace or even casually explore HD Radio.  Pandora announced earlier this year they’ve reached 100 million users, with 36 million of those users accessing the site monthly, and with more internet radio applications likely to be included in automobiles within the next few years, HD Radio has a tough hill to climb.

The gadget has been a hit at the CES 2011 conference (today is the last day), getting nice reviews from Consumer Reports and Droid Nerds. Here’s a YouTube interview about the device from the Nerds, and a Parrot video for the product below that.

Since it billboards itself as functioning with the iPhone, I’m wondering how well it will work with Android devices like my Droid X. If the reports are positive in that area, I’m going to give it a try.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this Thursday in Las Vegas. While all the biggest buzz around the show is in anticipation of new tablet competitors for Apple’s iPad, we can still expect to hear announcements of new radio gadgets across the spectrum, from analog broadcast and HD Radio to satellite and internet radio. Some companies have already started with their press releases, while we’re left guessing what will be up in other segments of the industry.

None other than Clear Channel Communications has announced its intent to “have a vital presence” at CES, touting its iheartradio mobile app. The app, which is available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7, allows the user to tune in the web streams of 750 Clear Channel-owned terrestrial stations. In addition to a deal for iheartradio to become available in some Toyota vehicles, Clear Channel promises that “numerous vendors” will display “iheartradio-capable” products… whatever that means. I’m not sure I really get the attractiveness of tuning a distant Clear Channel station via the internet in your car when there are likely plenty of stations with nearly the same playlist on the local FM dial. But I guess I’m not the target market.

We should expect plenty of home internet radios to be announced from companies like iHome, which made a name with iPod docking radios, and Grace Digital Audio, which was an early player in standalone radios able to tune in internet audio streams. Also expect more car stereos and add-on kits that make it easier to listen to internet radio on the road via an attached smartphone. Pioneer tried to make a splash at last year’s CES with a car receiver designed to play Pandora streams via an iPhone, integrated so that the driver can control the Pandora channel via the receiver instead of the smartphone. I didn’t hear much more about it once CES was over, though the receiver garnered respectable reviews.

iBiquity is still stuck at CES 2010

On the satellite radio and HD Radio fronts things have been quiet for the pre-show period. I expect we’ll hear about some more factory-installed Sirius and XM capable car radios, especially since a rebounding auto industry this year is something Sirius/XM is depending heavily upon. I’m anticipating something similar from HD Radio, and I won’t be surprised to hear iBiquity–HD Radio’s parent company–trot our their not-so-new deal with Ford again. In fact, it doesn’t seem like iBiquity is even ready for CES this year, since their press release site is still touting a special section to highlight HD Radio at the 2010 CES from twelve months ago. Regardless of HD Radio’s tardiness, it seems as though mobile in-vehicle electronics will be a significant focus of the show, with keynotes from Ford’s CEO and Audi’s chairman of the board.

For us policy geeks there’s a “one-on-one” with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Friday afternoon. I’m not sure much of that session will be radio-specific, but he is likely to talk quite a bit about wireless spectrum, which certainly affects internet radio, especially mobile. I wonder if anyone in the industry will take him to task over the Commission’s failure to implement any real network neutrality for mobile broadband. I reckon the electronics industry stands to lose quite a bit if consumers’ wallets are penalized for streaming radio and video on the go.

Unfortunately, the Radio Survivor 2011 budget doesn’t come close to allowing us to send a correspondent to Vegas to cover the show first-hand. Nevertheless, the deluge of press releases this week should provide plenty of grist for the mill. We’ll do our best to chew it up and try to digest what it means for the state of radio in the forthcoming year.

On Monday the trade publication Automotive News reported that the number of car makers offering HD Radio is up, mostly relying on stats provided by iBiquity, which owns the technology. According to the article pricey brands Volvo, BMW and Rolls-Royce now offer HD Radio as standard, while twelve other brands offer it as an option. Curiously, only one Japanese brand, the Toyota division of Scion, offers HD.

However, there are a lot of things one can buy as an option on a car, so the more important question is, Is anyone buying? On the surface, thing don’t look too bad for HD. Apparently 438,000 automotive receivers were sold in the nine months ending June 30, contributing to a total of three million HD Radio receivers sold in the US, both car-based and not. By comparison about eight million cars were sold in the same period, meaning only about five percent of new cars sold were equipped with HD Radio.

After reading a recent Radio World article, I wonder if at least part of the blame is due to the difficulty of actually buying the option. Writer Thomas R. Ray III, who is normally a cheerleader for HD Radio, recounts the difficulty he faced in getting an HD receiver in his brand new Ford Escape. It turns out the Ford dealership had never heard of HD Radio, and so he ended up with a factory-installed analog radio. He encountered further trouble integrating an aftermarket receiver because of the Ford’s much ballyhooed Sync system.

As long as HD Radio remains an option on most cars, I don’t think it’s going to see the kind of growth it needs to become a mainstream technology. As it is, there isn’t enough to recommend HD Radio to make it work the extra hundred bucks or so to the average car buyer, who is probably more concerned with a CD player or iPod connectivity. I remember back when I was a kid in the 70s that AM radios were standard and FM was an option. It wasn’t really until AM/FM radios became standard that you saw FM radio start to take off. I’m not convinced HD offers nearly as much extra as FM did thirty years ago.

Pioneer's Pandora controlling receiver.

As we reported back in January, all the big radio hoopla at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show as about the incursion of internet audio services like Pandora into car stereo systems. Things have been quiet on that front until I noticed an article in the New York times last week that asks “Will the Internet Kill Traditional Car Radio?.” It looks like writer John R. Quain is one of the first press reviewers to have his hands on one of the new Pandora-equipped car receivers, the Pioneer AVIC-X920BT.

Quain reports that the sound was not quite CD quality, but better than some satellite stations. Tethered to his iPhone he noted that

AT&T’s 3G wireless service is notoriously patchy in New York City, so there were occasional dead spots when the music dropped out as the cellphone searched for a signal. Furthermore, the software will not let you create or add new Pandora stations, a nod to concerns about distracted driving.

His is the only review–such as it is–that I could find, though it does look like the Pioneer is shipping.

For everyone else who doesn’t yet have Pioneer’s top-of-the-line car receiver, listening to internet radio in the car still means connecting it via a cable or bluetooth and messing with your smartphone’s controls. And, certainly, 3G data coverage is going to be one of the most limiting factors, especially outside major cities or off major interstate highways.

Until a critical mass of car receivers will interface smoothly with smartphones and wireless broadband is more consistently available, traditional broadcast and satellite radio are going to be the choice for most folks who want to listen to something besides their own CDs and MP3s.

While there are quite a few streaming radio apps for all the major smartphone operating systems, I’m quite doubtful that too many listeners will be clamoring to listen to a local or distant cookie-cutter active rock or adult contemporary commercial station over their smartphone instead of just scanning the radio dial. I’m guessing that services like Pandora, specialty internet-only stations and unique non-commercial broadcast stations like KEXP or WFMU will end up being the winners when mobile internet radio becomes truly practical.

Ever since radio lost its prominence to television as America’s number one form of entertainment, it has been in the background of American life. The primary place where many people listen to radio has been in their cars on the open road. The audience for traditional AM/FM forms of radio is shrinking, but the market for personalized Internet radio services such as Pandora radio continues to grow. Drivers have sought to bring Internet radio with them on the road since mobile smartphones such as the iPhone, Blackberry or Android phones started offering mobile Internet radio applications.

The problem is how to do this. Launching the radio apps on phones and then connecting them to a car stereo’s auxiliary port has so far been the only way to take Internet radio to its fullest potential. But this creates further distractions for the driver and can contribute to driver error and traffic accidents. This week the Ford Motor Company announced their solution to this dilemma.

A new upgrade to its SYNC systems named AppLink will natively and wirelessly use radio applications such as Pandora or Stitcher radio from smartphones, allowing the driver to use these applications hands free. After Ford rolls out the new software update later this year, all SYNC enabled vehicles will be able to use AppLink. The system works by syncing smartphones to Ford’s SYNC systems and then the user navigates Pandora or Stitcher using voice commands.

Imagine driving down California’s beautiful coastal highway one and saying to your car “change station to the Beach Boys.” On the stressful commute home from work, command your car to play relaxing reggae, classical music or any other commercial free genre or artist station Pandora has to offer. Compared to the now ancient auxiliary port, this is a huge step forward in bringing Internet radio on the road. The Stitcher radio app is an Internet radio service that allows users to listen to talk and news radio from a plethora of sources such as N.P.R. Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and many other radio and podcast stations. As an N.P.R. addict, I would love the ability to listen to my favorite shows whenever I want simply by telling my car “Play all things considered.”

These are just the first two radio applications that Ford is releasing though AppLink. There is also another application available at launch called OpenBeak that will read Twitter updates out loud. But who really cares about Twitter while driving (sorry Twitter addicts). The software update is expected to rollout mid summer, first on Ford’s new Economy car the Fiesta and later as an upgrade for all other SYNC equipped vehicles. At launch AppLink will only work with Google Android and Blackberry smartphones, but Ford promises iPhone support later this year.

As more and more car companies are able to safely bring Internet radio into the automobile market, could this be another nail for AM/FM’s coffin? Only time will tell.

Sirius CEO Mel Karmarzin attributes the rebound to “the broad appeal of our unrivaled programming, the benefits of a recovering auto industry and an improving economic environment for consumers.” I’d reckon that increased car sales is probably the biggest factor, given that satellite radio is heavily dependent on its appeal to drivers, most of whom still can’t listen to internet radio while on the road. The downside of this reliance is that the first year or so of satellite radio service for a new car is free. The real sign of recovery will be whether or not these new non-paying subscribers re-up when they have to shell out for it. For the quarter that just ended 45.2% of customers decided to stick around and pay, which is a little better than the 44.6% who did in the first quarter of 2009.

The news caused Sirius stock to bump back up over a dollar today for the first time since February. Nevertheless, the company remains delisted from out of compliance with NASDAQ. It will be interesting to see if Sirius’ subscriber base grows over its 2008 level again, or if 19 million ends up being a plateau. Satellite radio faces very still competition from mobile broadband this year as higher-speed 4G rolls in many major cities and those first Pandora-capable car radios hit the streets.

Is the iPad good for mobile internet radio?

Already some of us have been listening to live streaming internet radio on our mobile devices, like iPhones and Blackberries. But, as I argued last month, the experience still doesn’t quite add up to true mobile internet radio, especially because when you’re using cell data like 3G it saps the heck out of your battery. My experience streaming live radio on my iPhone gives me a little more than an hour before I’m nearly out of juice. The new Apple iPad looks to be a great mashup of an iPhone and netbook, which are both decent devices for listening to internet radio on the go, but also have their drawbacks.

The fact that some iPad models offer 3G wireless data connectivity out-of-the box, for a very reasonable $30 a month without any contracts make it a great candidate for mobile internet radio listening. It won’t necessarily be any better for the car than an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone. But in other mobile circumstances it shows distinct promise.

So the question is, will the iPad bring us one step closer to truly mobile internet radio? Based on early specs, and having never touched it myself, the answer is a distinct maybe.

The first important factor is battery life. If the battery poops out after only an hour, then it’s only good for short trips. But if you have a longer train or bus commute, or are outside away from a wi-fi connection you probably want at least two good hours. While Apple specifies that you get 10 hours of active wi-fi use on a charge, no 3G batterly life specs are published. With a much bigger battery than an iPhone one would expect that constant 3G use would go longer, but we’ll have to wait until the first longer-term reviews come out.

The next big issue is sound quality. I currently use my iPhone, netbook or MacBook Pro to stream audio in a variety of circumstances, including home and when away in hotels. They’re all fine for using with headphones or external speakers, though the iPhone is the clear winner for fidelity. But I don’t always want to use headphones or lug around speakers. In a pinch the iPhone’s speaker is better than nothing at all (sounding like a pocket radio), and the netbook is barely any better. My MacBook’s speakers are the best in this category, but at the same time it seems wasteful overkill to use this powerful laptop computer just to listen to radio. My hope is that it will sound at least as good as a MacBook Pro, which itself is on par with a portable radio the size of a paperback book. We’ll have to see how the iPad’s speakers measure up against these competitors.

The final big factor is multitasking, and on this measure we already know the answer: there is no multi-tasking on the iPad. This is important because all of the streaming radio apps are not made by Apple, and you can only run one non-Apple app at a time. So you want to listen to a live feed of a Cubs game while Tweeting? No can do. Catch a live feed of the State of the Union while reading the New York Times online? Also a big no. So, unless Apple decides to add the ability to listen to live streams to the iPad’s iPod app–which is allowed to multitask with other apps–this is probably the biggest count against the radio capabilities of the iPad.

At least as far as mobile internet radio is concerned, the iPad looks like a tiny step forward. If the 3G battery life and sound quality are up to snuff, then it’s a bigger step. But without multitasking where you can listen to a live stream while using other apps, the iPad is not the next big thing in mobile internet radio.

Like PE says: Don't believe the hype!

I guess Ford announcing stronger support for HD and the new iTunes tagging features count for something. But where the rubber meets the road is whether car buyers are willing to pony up the extra cash for the higher-end stereos. While Ford is doing better than Chrysler and GM, the last time I checked, the auto industry isn’t exactly thriving. And let’s not forget that just few years ago the big hype was how the auto manufacturers were embracing satellite, yet that seems to have mostly resulted in lots of XM Sirius-equipped rental cars.

I keep searching for information about all these new non-automotive HD receivers and I keep coming up with the same iBiquity press release regurgitated all over the place. The release lists off a pile of model numbers, but no other info that might help me evaluate how great these new receivers might be.

According to iBiquity there is no CES 2010 news!

Only This Week in Consumer Electronics has any useful information, including the most valuable data of all: price. Amongst the models listed by TWICE, at $69 the lowest cost receiver is Radio Shack’s FM-only Gigaware-branded add-on for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The price isn’t outrageous, and marks only a $10 – $20 premium over a typical FM-only radio for the iPhone. Past that, all of the new HD receivers come in over a hundred bucks. That includes even the entry from discount electronics brand Coby, whose HDR700 has a street price of around $99.

I really believe that price is the key here. With the collapse in the quality of commercial radio programming, HD Radio really has not been able to sell itself on programming, despite the largest broadcasters like CBS Radio blanketing their stations with ads touting HD’s virtues. The quality issue is also debatable. So, at best, I think HD Radio is still a curiosity for most people who might be attracted by having a few more channels at their disposal, or having AM news, traffic and weather on the FM HD channels. But what are people willing to pay for this curiosity?

Putting aside geeks, radio-heads and gadget freaks, my bet is that the average shopper is willing to pay a $10 to $20 price premium to get HD Radio. That’s why I think the pricing on the Radio Shack iPhone add-on is about right. But that one device isn’t going to greatly expand HD radio listenership. First, because it’s limited to iPhone and iPod Touch owners, and second because I’m doubtful that too many people want to hang an extra little device off their player. I sure don’t.

Once you move into the world of what we might call “premium” or higher-fidelity radios–a market pioneered by the Tivoli Model One–or A/V receivers, then it looks like that $10-20 price premium is starting to become a reality. But again, I’m really not sure how big the market for these items are. I’ll agree that A/V receivers are popular, but how many people really listen to radio on them?

The way HD Radio is going to make it into more households is when there’s an HD-capable $50 radio on the shelf of every local store that sells electronics. That radio doesn’t need to be fancy, but it’s got to have a speaker and a handle, run on batteries or AC, and look like a radio. It shouldn’t be a headphone-only radio, but it should have a headphone jack. It has to be the kind of radio you can take into the garage or the backyard, keep in the kitchen or on the bedside table.

Simply, for HD Radio to take off, the average person walking into the store looking for a new radio (not looking for an HD Radio) has to see an HD-capable radio and decide that the extra $10 or $20 is worth it. As long as HD Radio is depending on folks to go out of their way to seek out and buy HD Radios it will always be a niche market, struggling on the sidelines.

Beyond that, once HD Radio is a $10 – $20 premium on boomboxes, iPod docks and compact stereos then it has a shot at real popularity and use. In the car make it part of every stereo, including the base-model. These are the devices most people use to listen to radio, and right now the HD Radio options for them are skimpy, to say the least.

If the public were dying for HD Radio it would be a hit already. Give them the option to hear it without spending a lot of dough, and HD Radio has a fighting chance. But 24 new models, with only one under $100? Forget about it for 2010.

Although I am not a car owner myself (I traded my old Subaru for a new bike this year–no lie!) the automobile is still the site of much radio listening, and the realm of some interesting tech developments. Internet and iTunes tagging appear to be the radio stars this year, with satellite playing a supporting role. As one of our readers pointed out, Ford recently announced that it would offer a factory-installed HD Radio receiver that includes iTunes tagging. In addition the company said it’s working on integrating tagging with Sirius satellite radio, which will also feature the ability to record and playback up to 45 minutes of satellite audio. Shades of Apple’s “live-pause” in the new iPod Nano?

Pioneer's Pandora controlling receiver.

Alpine also takes the iPhone route to offer Pandora in your auto with its iDA-X305S receiver. No to be left out Ford promises Pandora integration along with Stitcher, which is apparently the news/talk yin to Pandora’s yang, and something I’d never heard of before. Yet again, Ford’s approach requires an intermediary, with SYNC project manager Julius Marchwicki promising,

in the future, if you bring Pandora or Stitcher into the car on your phone, it will work seamlessly.

Photo credit: chriscoyier/flickr

I’m also pretty unimpressed with the iTunes tagging feature. That’s primarily due to the fact that there’s very little impressive programming on HD Radio, such that I have a hard time imagining too many people diving for the “save” button. If it’s commercial radio they’ll have the song beat into their skulls every time they get in the car anyway.

Aside from Ford’s announcement, there isn’t much action on satellite radio so far at CES, though the Seeking Alpha blog’s Brandon Matthews passes along rumors that XM Sirius “completely changing its product line.” Matthews also notes that the CEO of mobile audio manufacturer Audiovox would be “unveiling new and exciting Satellite Radio products” at CES. But so far nothing for the car has appeared at the party.

A part of me is glad to see that radio is still grabbing some headlines at the big electronics hoedown in the desert. Maybe even analog broadcast might get some love.