WGBH may buy WCRB? (HD2 discussion)

[Aaron Read]

Anecdotally I believe you are right, Larry.  I don't think anyone's done 
a real study of it but generally speaking, NPR and its affiliate 
stations have done MUCH more to promote and leverage HD Radio than 
commercial outfits have done.   There's exceptions on both sides, but in 
general I think that's true.

Also anecdotally, I have heard from WGBH staff that there are quite a 
few fans of the all-classical service on the HD2 multicast channel.  Not 
as much as a regular analog station, of course, but a lot more than you 
might expect (a few thousand was the estimate I heard).  Certainly 
whenever the HD2 goes away, the phone rings off the hook.  Or so I'm told.

BTW, the nice thing about HD Radio is that you really don't have to 
process it much.  I know some stations that are using the Neural Audio 
pre-correction "processor", and nothing else, on their HD Radio streams 
and it sounds really, really good.  That extra high-end really shines 
with the inherently low noise floor of HD Radio.

At WEOS we run the audio into our Omnia 6EX and then the audio for HD 
gets passed through a Neural Audio pre-correction processor.  Frankly I 
think it's overkill.  It sounds okay on talk but for anything with music 
suddenly the music is just really really LOUD.  I mean, in some ways it 
sounds great but it's a little jarring in the transition.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron Read                  |  Finger Lakes Public Radio
friedbagels@gmail.com       |  General Manager (WEOS & WHWS-LP)
Geneva, NY 14456            |  www.weos.org / www.whws.fm

 >Larry Weil wrote:
 >But I think if WGBH/WCRB
 >were to make it known that an HD receiver would make it possible to
 >get the classical programming where they might not otherwise, a few
 >people might get them for that reason.  I get the feeling that a lot
 >more public radio listeners have HD radios than commercial radio
 >listeners, especially in areas where it's been promoted by the public 
 >stations.