19 Reasons that Digital Radio is Taking Off

1. The impending power increase which will allow greater range of digital signals, so that most metro areas will be well covered.

2. The increasing number of vehicle manufacturers including digital radio as standard equipment, or as factory options. You’re already seeing digital radios available on non-luxury vehicles.

3. The increasing sales of after-market digital radio receivers for both vehicles and non-vehicle use and the extremely low return rate.

4. The decreasing cost of including digital capability in receivers as more integrated chipsets are put into production. Already you’re seeing only about a $10 price adder at the retail level for digital, which means that the cost to the manufacturer is sub $5.

5. The realization by broadcaster that there’s going to be a revenue model for digital radio as the market penetration of digital receivers continues to increase.

6. The growing number of broadcast stations whose transmitting equipment is digital-ready, so adding digital radio service is a relatively small expense. No station is going to replace their transmitters with ones that don’t provide a low cost upgrade path to HD even if they aren’t going to immediately deploy it.

7. The realization by broadcasters that the program source for digital radio does not have to cost them a lot of money, and that they can transition the programming as audiences grow.

8. The realization by broadcasters that the effect of digital radio on analog transmissions is minimal, and that if their analog transmissions are being affected that the way to solve the problem is not by complaining, but by joining the digital revolution themselves to get around the problem.

9. The realization by broadcasters that own both AM and FM stations that a way around the problems with AM radio, especially at night, is to rebroadcast the AM stream onto one of the digital sub-channels of their FM station.

10. The complaints by stations, either too cheap or too clueless to add digital service, that other stations are intruding on their market space means that they’re feeling the pressure to go digital.

11. The gradual replacement of broadcast engineers that are scared of anything digital with those that are comfortable with new technology.

12. The realization that adding digital capability increases the market value of the station.

13. The increased reliability of digital broadcasting over analog.

14. The much better sound quality of digital radio, with the ability to broadcast CD quality sound, something not possible with analog FM.

15. The realization that the alternative to digital schemes such as FMeXtra and HD are greatly preferred over schemes such as DAB+ because “it uses FM frequencies they already own.”

16. The ability to eventually go all-digital, with 300 kbit/sec divided into as many as seven channels, each with a different bit rate.

17. The failure of satellite radio, which is experiencing extremely high churn because of the pricing model they’ve chosen to embrace.

18. The broadening of digital radio from just additional channels of music to applications such as real time traffic (both audio and data).

19. The realization by smaller local stations that digital radio allows them to broadcast much more local content and compete more effectively against stations owned by conglomerates.