Sample and Hold

Nov 1, 2006 12:00 PM, by Chriss Scherer, editor

        

On Sept. 18, 2006, WIYY-FM, Baltimore, officially became the 1,000^th station to commence HD Radio transmissions. The number of stations transmitting HD Radio signals has nearly doubled since September 2005, and Ibiquity hopes to see 1,200 stations on the air by the end of this year.

The surge in the HD Radio roll-out has followed the push from the HD Digital Radio Alliance to promote HD Radio to consumers. The alliance has also been working to coordinate multicast roll-outs across the top 100 markets as a way to further promote HD Radio.

The twice-monthly Digital Radio Update e-mail newsletter from Radio magazine includes an overview of the stations within each state that are transmitting an HD Radio signal. This data, supplied by Ibiquity, shows that the distribution of the roll-out varies widely by state. It's not surprising that California would have a high count. It stands at 109. Texas (74), New York (68) and Florida (63) are also HD Radio leaders.

There are no HD Radio stations in Hawaii yet, which may not be a surprise to some. However, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota also have no HD Radio stations on the air. It's clear that the larger markets have the means and the drive to implement HD Radio.

Station count information was obtained from the Ibiquity website on Oct. 18, 2006.

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