Hybrid Digital/Analog, Not “High Definition”

Although the HD Radio® Alliance is spending $200 Million to convince a skeptical America to order yet another first-generation gadget, the clever bit was done years ago by iBiquity, the Columbia, MD company that owns the trademark and patents behind the HD Radio® technology. Most Americans, including reporters and editors, think that “HD Radio®” stands for “High Definition” radio, a natural assumption given our experience of HDTV, High Definition TV. Wrong.

 There is no such thing as “High Definition Radio.” 

HD Radio® is one of several “Hybrid Digital/Analog” technologies that allow a couple of digital transmissions to piggyback on a conventional radio station’s signal. It is currently the only one the FCC has permitted to become operational. 

By dropping the “A for analog” part out of “H-D/A for Hybrid Digital/Analog,” iBiquity has achieved what Wired reviewer Rob Beschizza calls a “naughty backronym,” a term specifically constructed to imply a quality the product does not have. I would have to call it intentionally misleading. The deceptive strategy has worked. Google it for yourself: 56,700 hits for the nonexistent “high definition radio,”  1,020 for “Hybrid Digital Analog radio” (D/A TV gets more), 1,870,000 for “HD Radio.” Media sources that have helped spread the “High Definition Radio” mythology include the New York Times, Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, USA Today, Wired, CNN, NPR, and WGBH. 

HD Radio® is a trade name. It doesn’t have to stand for anything but a product. That product is by no means “High Definition Radio.”