HD: If a Tree Falls & No One Hears It . . .

HD radio's scattershot development has raised a chicken-and-egg question for stations and audience. (Brainerd Communicators)

When Bridge Ratings, a radio consulting company, conducted a survey about HD, it found that 75 percent of respondents have heard of the new technology, thanks to radio's aggressive ad campaign. But only 13 percent of the sample could say what HD radio is, and only 7 percent expressed interest in owning an HD set.

Bridge projects slow, poor growth for HD, especially compared with the galloping interest in Web and cellphone radio. "New cell phone capabilities which will turn the mobile phone into a more dynamic part of daily life will potentially surpass Internet radio as the most significant challenger to traditional radio," Bridge concluded. "Based on what we know now, we do not see HD Radio as a significant contributor to boosting listening to terrestrial radio."

Bob Struble, president of iBiquity, the Columbia-based company that developed the HD technology, disagrees. With Circuit City and Best Buy adding HD radios to their product line, and Ford and Volvo installing HD radios in their cars, he sees a brighter future. "We're still early in the game," Struble says. The company won't say how many HD radios have been sold, but industry observers put the figure at fewer than 500,000.

The slow adoption is the main reason some stations have not added HD-only programming. "It's still an evolving technology," says Dan DeVany, general manager of WETA (90.9 FM), the public classical music station, which has no extra HD channel. "I'd like to see more of those units sold before we'd plan anything."

The chicken-egg question for HD radio is whether stations should invest in new programming now to lure new listeners or after an audience develops. And if stations wait, why would anyone invest in a new radio?

"You're onto something there," Struble says. "The initial push was around the basic concept -- there's a lot more out there. But there's a very important role to be played by individual stations." He hopes more stations will do as Baltimore's 98 Rock does, giving listeners of the indie-rock station a taste of its classic-rock HD station for four hours every Sunday morning.

But far from pushing their HD offerings, most stations seem only halfheartedly invested in the technology. Most Washington stations barely mention their HD channels on their Web sites, let alone on their airwaves. For example, you'd almost have to be clairvoyant to know that WPGC (95.5 FM) offers an all-gospel service on its HD second channel.

HD remains a promising technology, but so far, many more people listen to the new programming via online streaming than on an HD radio. Listeners are voting with their ears, and they're choosing Web-based and mobile audio, in part because most HD radio programming just isn't compelling enough to lure people to a different gadget.