Participants in the Electronic Program Guide development for HD Radio are looking for industry feedback on their new 50-some page report, available on the NAB FASTROAD Web site: www.nabfastroad.org.
Plans are underway for a computer simulation trial, followed by a field trial in Boston; the group hopes to wrap up the field trials this fall, according to BIA’s Rick Ducey.
EPG brings some intelligence to the way radio stations are discovered by consumers, said David Maxson of Broadcast Signal Lab, who is working on this project. Combing through organized EPG menus on a receiver display or on the Internet is “better than punching buttons or hitting the Scan button,” he said during a Webinar Wednesday devoted to the topic.
EPG is also the first step towards making time-shifting possible and it makes radio “stickier.” Whereas consumer electronics retailers don’t see radios as particularly feature-rich devices, with EPG, they could be. Also, EPG could help stations retain audience and become “stickier,” said Maxson. “You can forward-promote on a display that’s right in front of the user.”
The EPG group is mindful of limited budgets and resources at stations these days and says their proposals are not time-intensive nor expensive to implement.
Let Rick Ducey know what you think after reading the proposal at [email protected].
