This article was in the most recent Inside Radio sheet.  This is important reading if your station is promoting an HD component…

Here’s the way I see it.  After more than a year marketing HD radio with partnering radio stations… where are we?  Is there any consumer interest?  I think the 2 things that are crippling this is 1.  Cost to purchase the unit.  And 2.  lack of real quality/unique programming.

Until these items are fixed, there will be no demand and no product on the shelves…

Justin Kaiser
Creative Identity Group

Readers chime in. Trying to buy an HD Radio at retail has not been easy. Inside Radio reported Tuesday on our experience with a weekend shopping spree in New York, and our attempt to find and buy an HD Radio receiver.

While we love the technology and the sound quality, retailers appear to be the weak link in moving HD Radio forward with the consumer. We asked readers to let us know about their shopping experiences … and they did.

Sarasota FL: “At Sound Advice, the local high-end store, the salesman and I agreed on a model and he had it installed. Only upon tuning around after installation did we learn that this particular head unit (a sheepish Kenwood phone rep let us know) ‘was not multi-cast ready’. We could tune in HD1…but no side channels. A bust!”

Connecticut: “Went to Best Buy — Brookstone — Sharper Image — Circuit City. Zero units in stock. ‘Yeah, we get some calls for them. Hear we’re gonna stock some soon.’ That’s the response from store clerks. I see nothing on TV or in the daily newspapers (about HD). Or on billboards. No ads for HD paid for by the radio industry to create awareness or a
need for HD Radio sets. Ads saying you can have HD in your car, den, walkman, poolside, kitchen, bedroom, etc. Where’s the Industry push?”

Chicago: “I tried to buy an HD receiver for my home stereo system last weekend at Best Buy. There weren’t any HD receivers there, and the salesperson tried to sell me an XMHD receiver. I ended up explaining to him what HD was. I checked the car radio section and they had only one.”

St. Louis: “My experience was in a local Best Buy, and the clerk escorted me to the HDTV display, confidently telling me that there was no such thing as HD radio, and that it was an Interent urban legend! If our retail partners don’t see fit to properly train their sales force, perhaps we should put our efforts into encouraging online purchases. While not able to offer “instant gratification”, we can at least offer our listeners a higher expectation of dealing with competent and well-trained representatives. I bought mine online and got free shipping!”

Kansas City: “Whenever I’m passing through a Best Buy or a Circuit City, I’ll stop and check to see how much store employees know about HD. I often get blank stares. At one Circuit City, I tried listening to standard radios and reception on all of them was poor. The employee [said] they don’t get good reception in the building. Anybody tried a master antenna? How can you sell anything, much less an HD Radio, if you can’t get a good signal into your demo radios?”