Radios Digital Dilemma: Broadcasting in the Twenty-First Century [Hardcover]

Radio's Digital Dilemma is the first comprehensive analysis of the United States digital radio transition, chronicling the technological and policy development of the HD Radio broadcast standard. A story laced with anxiety, ignorance, and hubris, the evolution of HD Radio pitted the nations largest commercial and public broadcasters against the rest of the radio industry and the listening public in a pitched battle over defining the digital future of the medium. The Federal Communications Commission has elected to put its faith in marketplace forces to govern radios digital transition, but this has not been a winning strategy: a dozen years from its rollout, the state of HD Radio is one of dangerous malaise, especially as newer digital audio distribution technologies fundamentally redefine the public identity of radio itself.

Ultimately, Radios Digital Dilemma is a cautionary tale about the overarching influence of economics on contemporary media policymaking, to the detriment of notions such as public ownership and access to the airwavesand a call for media scholars and reformers to engage in the continuing struggle of radios digital transition in hopes of reclaiming these important principles.

1. Identifying Radios Digital Dilemma  2. The Developmental Trajectory of U.S. Digital Radio  3. The Fundamental Detriments of IBOC-DAB  4. FCC Deliberation of HD Radio  5. The Troubled Proliferation of HD Radio  6. Tweaking an Imperfect System  7. HD Radios Murky Future  8. Confronting Radios Digital Dilemma

Radios Digital Dilemma chronicles the development of digital radio broadcasting, which has been fraught with difficulty as evidenced by the fact that what we have come to understand as radio in the twentieth century still has no feasible dl.