AIRWAVE EVOLUTION

As more stores begin selling HD radio receivers, South Florida broadcasters are expanding their programming

"It was great," he said. "I was just scanning the dial to see what was on it, came across Hot 105, and they were playing a bunch of soul oldies."

It was not the station's regular broadcast that the Fort Lauderdale man was listening to, but a secondary channel that can only be heard with an HD radio receiver.

Since then Kerwin, who works as a naval architect, has been telling others how much he enjoys WHQT's HD 2 channel, which delves deep into R&B music of the '50s, '60s and '70s.

While most consumers aren't familiar with HD radio, broadcast companies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per station to upgrade their equipment in an effort to attract more listeners.

The digital format allows existing FM stations to "multicast," meaning they can offer more than one stream of audio on each frequency. The quality is also better than traditional radio.

With the popularity of iPods growing and more cars coming equipped with satellite radio, listeners have more options than ever before. Radio companies are hoping to keep listeners from being siphoned away by providing more choices and better content.

"It is a testament to innovation and technology and a huge set of opportunities that are ahead for just about everybody to improve their listening on radio,' said Jimmy Schaeffler, senior analyst with the Carmel Group. He says having good programming that gets people excited will be vital in prompting people to buy the receivers.

Hot 105 general manager Jerry Rushin jumped at the chance to offer a broad mix of R&B oldies on the station's HD 2 channel.

"We have a chance to play a lot of those 'oh, wow' tunes," said Rushin, "where people say, 'Wow, I haven't heard that since I was 7 or I was 9.' "

While most regular radio stations select their music based on extensive research to target a specific audience, for Hot 105's HD 2 station, Rushin and Hot 105 chief engineer Mitch Wein simply choose songs they like to hear.

Hot 105 is one of many stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market that are now broadcasting in the digital format. Eleven of those are also airing secondary HD radio channels.

While HD radios have been on sale for a couple of years in electronics stores, the little-known technology got a key boost earlier this month when Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, began selling a model, which costs just under $200.

"What you see in the Wal-Mart deal, especially with its 2,000 U.S. outlets, is what a consumer electronic device needs to really take hold," analyst Schaeffler said.

Another boost is that BMW is offering HD radio as an option in all of its 2007 vehicles. Schaeffler says having satellite radio receivers in cars as they roll off the assembly line has been vital to the growth of XM and Sirius and will be equally important for HD radio.

THE INITIAL PHASE

During this initial phase, all the secondary channels are commercial free, so there is no source of revenue for the stations. And with few people listening, they need to be run as cheaply as possible.

Most at this point are little more than a computer hard drive rotating songs and recorded station announcements. There are no live DJs.

In choosing what kind of programming to put on their secondary HD channels, most broadcasters are going with niche formats close to what is being aired on their primary existing stations.

When country music station WKIS-FM 99.9 decided what to put on its second channel, program director Bob Barnett said they stuck with what they knew.

"It would be pretty difficult to go to the country audience and say, 'Hey, check out our new classical station on HD 2," Barnett said. "So we figured what we'd do is program something that would be compatible to this audience and develop it from there."

Barnett explained that since today's mainstream country music tends to be targeted toward women, they decided to make WKIS's HD 2 channel male oriented.

The station calls itself Gretchen, after singer Gretchen Wilson, who Barnett credits with redirecting country away from the crossover sounds of recent years, returning it to its redneck roots. The new HD channel can also be heard on the station's website.

Bob Starkey of Cutler Bay first heard it earlier this month on his home computer. Now he's a regular listener and is considering buying an HD radio receiver for his truck. "These guys are playing some of the older country, they're playing southern rock, just stuff I really like," he said.

NEW FORMATS

While most HD stations program their secondary channels with music similar to their existing stations, not all are.

Clear Channel's latin urban station WMGE-Mega 94.9, which markets itself as "Latino and Proud," airs gay-oriented programming on its HD 2 channel, which is called "Pride Radio."

Classical music fans in South Florida lamented the death of WTMI when its format changed in 2002. But today two stations, WLRN-FM 91.3 and WLVE-Love 94, air classical music on secondary channels.

Some companies, however, are waiting for more HD radio receivers to be sold. Lincoln Financial's WMXJ-Majic 102.7 broadcasts its main station in HD, but program director Bob Hamilton says they haven't decided what to do with an additional channel. "We're putting some ideas together, but don't have any immediate plans," he said.

But in the coming months many broadcasters are hoping to spread the word about HD radio.

Rushin, Hot 105's GM, is confidant the new form of radio will eventually find an audience. "It's just something different, and people find it very refreshing," he said.

"I think it's going to grow like crazy. Probably in the next year, it's going to really take off."