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Radio broadcasters are touting it as the biggest thing to happen to the airwaves since the spark-gap transmitter. All they need now is for enough listeners to be able to hear it.

High-definition radio promises FM radio with near-CD quality sound and AM broadcasts that sound as good as current FM.

The technology, dubbed HD Radio by its developer, the Columbia, Md.-based iBiquity Digital Corp., also allows for the transmission of additional information such as song titles or breaking news headlines in the form of text messages along with the audio signal.

“I’ve got one of the HD radios in my office, and the sound quality is just phenomenal,” said Kelly Carls, regional vice president of programming for San Antonio, Texas-based Clear Channel Inc., which owns top-rated radio station WAMZ-FM and No. 2-rated WHAS-AM. Carls oversees Clear Channel programming in Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

“You’re used to how AM has always sounded, and suddenly you get all of these highs and lows that were never there before.”

HD Radio arrived in Kentucky in April 2005, when WHAS began broadcasting with the new technology, Carls said.

It was followed by Atlanta-based Cox Radio Inc.’s WVEZ-FM and then Public Radio Partnership’s WOUL-FM, WFPK-FM and WFPL-FM. The five stations are the only ones in Louisville broadcasting in high definition.

Clear Channel investing $100 million in conversion

Carls said he doesn’t know how much Clear Channel spent on converting WHAS-AM to HD, although the company as a whole is spending more than $100 million to make the conversion for its more than 1,200 stations.

More than 200 Clear Channel stations already are broadcasting in HD.

“Clear Channel is starting in the largest markets, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and are working their way down,” Carls said. “They have committed to doing all of the top 75 radio markets by the end of 2007.”

Louisville is the 55th-largest radio market in the country, according to New York-based rating service Arbitron Inc.

WHAS jumped ahead of conversions in other markets because Clear Channel officials wanted to use the highly rated 50,000-watt station as a showcase for HD, Carls said.

Grants help public stations participate in new technology

The three Public Radio Partnership stations in Louisville began broadcasting in HD in January, thanks to a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The stations spent about $150,000 installing the equipment necessary to broadcast in HD.

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is very much interested in having public radio be at the forefront of the new technology,” said Michael Bright, PRP vice president of programming and marketing. “There were five grants given to stations in Kentucky to help pay for it, and we received three of those five.”

The stations received a total of $225,000 from the CPB. The remaining funds will be spent on additional technological upgrades for the stations, Bright said.

Two more Radio One stations to convert next year

No. 3-rated WVEZ-FM began broadcasting in HD last fall. Its owner, Cox Radio, plans to have two other Louisville stations the company owns, WRKA-FM and WSFR-FM, converted to HD by mid-2007.

A fourth local Cox station, WPTI-FM, will begin broadcasting in HD by 2008, said Gregg Lindahl, vice president of Cox Radio Interactive, a division of Cox Radio Inc.

“We plan to have 80 percent of our stations converted by 2008,” Lindahl said. Cox owns 79 stations in 18 markets across the country.

Radio One Inc., which owns five Louisville radio stations, already has HD equipment installed at WLRS-FM and WGBZ-FM, said Louisville market manager Dale Schaefer. The company hasn’t set a date to flip the switch, Schaefer said, and it most likely will wait until more people own HD receivers.

Radio One hopes to have all of its 71 stations across the country converted to HD within the next few years, Schaefer said.

Competition with satellite radio

Broadcasters are touting HD radio as an alternative to satellite radio. HD Radio and a sister technology known as HD2 offer many of the same features of satellite radio, including clearer sound and more varied programming, but it’s free, broadcasters say.

Programming options will increase greatly with the introduction of HD2, which allows for multiple broadcasting options from a single frequency.

“You have the satellite companies out there pitching a wide variety of formats if you are willing to pay whatever they charge,” Carls said. “With HD, you can take the number of stations in a city and double it out of the box, so you already have a whole lot of extra variety, and it is free.”

Satellite companies aren’t sitting still, however. In March, Washington, D.C-based XM Satellite Radio Inc. introduced two channels that broadcast music in XM HD Surround, a technology similar to home-theater surround sound.

“The reaction has been very positive,” said David Butler, XM corporate affairs director. “Pioneer has announced plans to offer car-stereo capability for XM in surround sound. We expect there will be more ways for people to hear the surround content in the future.”

Feedback about HD Radio so far is limited, several broadcasters said.

For now, few listeners own HD receivers, although retailers, including Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack, have announced plans to begin carrying HD receivers in larger markets.

“People don’t want to buy the radios until there is something to listen to,” Carls said. “We feel like we have to be leaders in that, so then there will be an interest in going and buying the radios.”

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HD2 adds dimension to broadcast band

The HD Digital Radio Alliance, a joint initiative of radio broadcasters working to accelerate the roll-out of high-definition digital radio, in January announced the initial 28 markets where member companies will begin broadcasting HD2 multicast programming.

The HD Radio Alliance consists of seven broadcasting companies from across the country. The companies have pledged to collectively spend at least $200 million to market HD Radio in 2006.

By the beginning of May, HD2 was available in 50 radio markets across the country, although not in Louisville. Once the rollout is complete, the number of stations in each radio market could double.

“It’s moving very rapidly,” said Bob Struble, president and CEO of iBiquity Digital Corp., the company that invented the technology used to broadcast high-definition radio. “There are about 815 HD stations on the air, and 250 of those are multicasting. I think you are going to see nearly every FM station begin multicasting as soon as next year.”

In addition to duplicating their analog programming with an HD Radio broadcast, FM stations also can subdivide the digital portion of their signal to carry additional programming. This allows a station to “multicast,” or broadcast two or more programs simultaneously on the same frequency.

For example, in Atlanta, Cox Radio Inc.’s WSB-FM, an adult contemporary station, is broadcasting a soft standards HD2 sub-channel. In Tampa, Fla., WSUN-FM, an alternative rock station, broadcasts an all-grunge rock HD2 sub-channel.

Individual broadcasters are responsible for programming each of their multicast channels, and all HD2 formats will be commercial-free for their first 18 months on the air.

HD Radio Alliance officials couldn’t say when Louisville would be on the list for HD2.

Eventually, broadcasters say, HD Radio technology will allow the broadcast of as many as four simultaneous streams on a single frequency, which an HD tuner can divide into separate options for listeners to select.

Stations moving quickly to add HD2

San Antonio-based Clear Channel Inc., which owns eight Louisville radio stations, including No. 1-rated WAMZ-FM and No. 2 WHAS-AM, has HD2 sub-channels operating on more than 100 stations, including several the company owns in Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Cox Radio, which owns WVEZ-FM, WRKA-FM, WFST-FM and WPTI-FM in Louisville, launched its first seven new HD2 channels in April, corresponding with Cox’s current analog and HD1 stations in the Atlanta and Tampa markets.

Locally, the Public Radio Partnership, which operates public radio stations WFPL-FM, WUOL-FM and WFPK-FM, hopes to begin broadcasting on HD2 at each of its stations within a year.

Because PRP is not a member of the HD Radio Alliance, its stations can begin broadcasting on HD2 channels whenever they are ready to do so.

The programming to be featured on the public radio HD2 channels hasn’t been determined, said Michael Bright, PRP vice president of programming and marketing.

“All of the big public radio program providers such as NPR and American Public Media are making available their programming to be carried on a second audio channel for free for the next couple of years, so we have lots of programming to choose from,” Bright said. “In addition, NPR has made available five different streams of 24/7 programming they are making available at a nominal fee.”

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Creating HD radio technology: A joint effort

High-definition radio technology dates to 2000, when iBiquity Digital Corp. was created by the merger of Lucent Digital Radio and USA Digital Radio.

Technology from both companies was combined by iBiquity to develop what is now HD Radio, which broadcasts a digital signal rather than the analog signal used by traditional radio.

In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission approved iBiquity’s technology for commercial use.

A group of broadcasters joined forces in 2005 to form the HD Digital Radio Alliance with the goal of marketing San Antonio-based HD radio to the public.

The companies are Clear Channel Inc., New York City-based CBS Radio Inc., Atlanta-based Cumulus Media Inc., Salt Lake City-based Bonneville International Corp., Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp., Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based Entercom Communications Corp. and Braintree, Mass.-based Greater Media Corp.

They have pledged to collectively spend at least $200 million to market HD radio in 2006.

In January 2003, Lanham, Md.-based Radio One Inc.’s WDMK-FM in Detroit was the first station to air a commercial HD Radio broadcast. But the new technology went unheard by the public for a year because nobody in the United States owned an HD radio receiver.

The first HD radio receiver was sold in January 2004 from an Ultimate Electronics store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The receiver, a Kenwood model KTC-HR100 car radio, was purchased by Cedar Rapids resident Nathan Franzen for $350, according to iBiquity.

According to iBiquity officials, about 20,000 HD receivers were sold in 2005. The company projects sales of about 400,000 units in 2006 and 1.5 million units in 2007.

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The equipment:

To listen to high-definition radio broadcasts, you’ll need an HD receiver.

They are available at prices ranging from $4,199 for an Audio Design Associates Suite 8100 model to $269 for a Radiosophy Multistream. Outside of cities such as Chicago or New York, HD receivers mainly are available through online retailers.

HD receivers operate by picking up a radio station’s analog broadcast, then searching for its digital counterpart.

If the digital signal is lost, the receiver reverts to playing the analog signal. Currently, BMW is the only automobile maker offering HD receivers as an option, although several companies are selling aftermarket in-dash HD receivers.