Radio: Sing-a-long to Lyin’ Diane’s HD Radio swan song

Memo to Lyin’ Diane Warren, the new president of that Archdiocese of Ruse - the HD Digital Radio Alliance: Give me a break and give it a rest. No one’s buying your deceptive HD Radio campaign. Capishe?

I’m talking about the headline in one of the on-line trades just before Christmas: HD Alliance Continues Aggressive Marketing Campaign.

I ask – you’re continuing what aggressive marketing campaign? Did I miss something? If so, why?

I liked the line you used in one of the trades about taking advantage of improving the chances of your radio campaign being heard during lighter spot loads. Are you claiming that your message was lost because it was wedged in with all those other spots? I’m sure that one’ll go over well with clients that bought time on radio over the past couple of months.

So what is it that you’re trying to sell, Lyin’ Diane?

HD Radio’s workability? Its signal quality? Its HD-2, HD-3 audio?

Even your previous employer, Clear Channel, has backed off from supporting HD Radio except for that brief press release about its poorly named Real Time traffic service on HD Radio. Let’s see. How many cars are HD radio equipped? Thought so.

Just a few weeks earlier they threw in the towel on their what-were-they-smoking-when-they-came-up-with-this HD Radio format lab.

Maybe the HD Radio Alliance fooled some of radio chains some of the time but evidently Bain-Lee’s not among those easily conned.

I hope you’re prepared for those smaller chains that wised up and will not renew their licensing deal. It’s easier for them to cut their losses now and rework external broadcasting toward streaming audio on line.

In due course, one of the major chains will concede and your con game will end.

The Alliance makes one realize that there is something intrinsically childish about con artists. They just can’t get past a kid’s level of ethical development.

It didn’t help HD Radio’s dubious reputation when consultant and paid iBiquity shill Fred Jacobs did his stab of betrayal and was outted for his questionable and quickly-yanked research study.

There was that 41-question survey about HD Radio from Jacobs for iBiquity mentioned in a Radio-info.com forum on October 31 that was hastily replaced by a sanitized 16-question version. Some believe the original study was designed to set up the former – ahem – leadership at the Alliance.

Christmas was a bust, Lyin’ Diane – was it not?

Let me rephrase that. All of 2008 was a bust.

Now, look us in the eyes and tell us how many HD Radios have you really sold this year?

You’re lyin’, Diane, if you blame the economy for poor sales. Your sales were pitiable when the economy was hot.

How about this tally? For the second year in a row the HD Digital Radio Alliance ran more radio spots than any other marketer. That adds up to 1,697,082 spots, up 250,000 from a year ago.

You beat Walmart’s 1.64 million; Geico’s 1.56 million; Verizon’s 1.24 million, and Home Depot’s 1.22 million.

You still didn’t answer the question, Lyin’ Diane. Could you please look us directly in the eyes and tell us how many HD Radio units you really sold this year?

A few months back All Access carried an interview with Joel Salkowicz of Pulse 87.7. He had this to say about the Alliance’s radio campaigns:

In the current economic climate, it’s hard to imagine today’s typical radio company making the necessary investment in Programming for HD because they can’t realize an IMMEDIATE return on investment. A half billion dollars worth of air time has been thrown at promoting HD Radio! The most generous estimates put the number of HD radios out there at somewhere around 500,000. That’s about $1000 in airtime to sell each new radio. Kinda makes the $100 (or so) per subscriber in acquisition costs the satellite companies have been spending look pretty reasonable.

Here are the cold hard facts, Lyin’ Diane. If I were selling against radio I’d use your campaign as the perfect paradigm of how radio cannot sell products.

Now between us we know two facts: 1. HD Radio is something no one wants or needs. 2. Your creative can’t save it. It’s the equivalent of audio wallpaper.

Enter the huckster, iBiquity President and CEO Bob “Booble” Struble.

Let’s read his 2008 in review: "Despite the economic downturn, HD Radio technology made significant strides in 2008 with broadcasters, automotive OEMs and receiver manufacturers. With the backing of almost every major electronics manufacturer, HD Radio receivers will be at the forefront of the digital transition in 2009."

iBiquity deserves blame – I mean acclaim - for conning –I mean convincing – the major radio chains to invest millions in HD Radio conversions as well as paying those hefty license fees. Whoever sold that bill of goods should be up for the Bernie Madoff Integrity Award of the year.

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Their campaign made other carpetbaggers blush.

I’ll credit iBiquity for their obdurate campaign to market a product no one would be interested in at a time when post-deregulation radio was badly in need of hook to push its product as “new and improved.”

Instead of exploiting a multi-platformed Internet presence, the NAB endorsed HD Radio. Think of where radio would be today had it gone full tilt boogie on the Internet?

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Your problem was not just getting HD Radios under the Christmas tree. It was trying to get them to work.

Now you’re saying that for the side channels to work efficiently, you need a power increase, right?

You’re telling me that the product you claimed worked yesterday is not working today?

Here are the facts as plain as I can make them. If the FCC approves that ten-fold power increase you’re lobbying for, it will junk up the analog band with enough interference to render listening to analog FM impractical.

Don’t believe it? Ask any engineer who’s not on your, ahem, “payroll.”

Now, let’s get back to your latest “new radio campaign,” Lyin’ Diane.

You’re making still another attempt to push a product that the public has already told you through lack of sales it has no interest in?

Please don’t confuse yourself with the fact that the Great Recession – or whatever we end up calling this meltdown –turned U.S. shoppers frugal.

You see an abrupt turnaround in the economy?

Do you really believe consumers will spend $100 for an HD Radio? How about $50? $25? Even $10?

You know that the CES opens in Vegas on Thursday, Lyin’ Diane?

So far, the big buzz is about old media connectivity to new media. Let me explain.

For video, its televisions with built-in Internet connection for downloading or streaming video and ordering films on-demand from Netflix.

For audio, its portable Internet radio for both home and car.

HD Radio? Lyin’ Diane, I’ve got just the promotion for you. Take a page from “Where’s Waldo?” Ask “Where’s HD Radio?” One difference. You’ll have a better chance of finding someone named Waldo at the CES than spotting a display of HD Radios.

Here’s another fact, Lyin’ Diane.

In three months, we’ll begin hearing about a few over leveraged broadcast chains going belly-up. *

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How about the roughly $200,000 it cost the average station to go HD Radio?

How many jobs have your folly cost the radio industry, Lyin’ Diane?

Maybe in your world it makes sense to replace working air talent and support staff with a frequency no one listens to and doesn’t generate a penny of revenue?

HD Radio - it’s not the gift that keeps on giving; it’s the mistake they keep on making over and over and over.

iBiquity, if it had a sliver of integrity, would kill HD Radio now. End it cold.

If a TV show doesn’t get its requisite audience, it’s cancelled.

If a movie doesn’t fill seats, it’s not booked for a following week’s run.

If a product doesn’t sell, you stop marketing it.

If a product doesn’t sell, you pull it off the shelves.

Unless it’s HD Radio.

Well, maybe they’re not removed from the shelves. In many case, Lyin’ Diane, they weren’t even stocked in the first place – right? Right.