Cox Studies IDs for Multicast Channels

Following up on a story we reported here some weeks ago, Cox Radio this week is funding focus groups in three markets – Los Angeles, Washington and Detroit – to research how supplemental audio channels should be identified in the future.
The company hopes by moving quickly and narrowing the focus of the research to this question, a finding will be produced that may aid consumer adoption of HD Radios, according to a Cox spokesman. The company says a final report will be publicly available when the study is complete.
RW Online reported in September that the NRSC group working on this topic had disbanded, making general recommendations to focus on the existing “frequency plus a suffix” approach and not “new band” approaches. Cox has supported the “new band” way of identifying the supplemental channels rather than associating them with the main station.