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Programmer Calls on Industry to Push Automakers on HD Radio

Tom Kent: The sound quality “blows away’ satellite radio

Programmer/syndicator Tom Kent asks the industry not to give up on HD Radio and to lobby the auto industry to make the technology standard equipment in the dash.

“This is the most excited I’ve been about radio audio since I worked at WLS in Chicago back in 1980 and I heard AM stereo,” writes Kent in an open letter to the industry he sent to trade media.

The Cleveland-based Kent just bought a new car that has an HD Radio receiver and says it has the best sound he’s heard from “any radio ever.”

“The audio listening experience has got me really geeked out on HD Radio. My local affiliate WMJI(FM) here in Cleveland sounds amazing in HD1 and HD2,” according to Kent, who adds: “the sound quality absolutely blows away satellite radio” which is also in his car.

He calls on the industry to rally on behalf of HD Radio, because right now “it’s dead in the water.” The only way it will take off is if the automakers include HD Radio receivers as standard equipment, he writes.

IBiquity President/CEO Bob Struble told Radio World at the recent NAB Show that 28 automakers now, or plan to, include HD Radio in their product lines.

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