Agreed.

I learned some scary lessons when my college station wanted to become the first HD station in its market. It sounded so forward in 2006.

Then we learned that HD Radio is not an open implementation. It doesn't even stand for "High Definition" -- it's just letters as trade marked by Ibiquity. You pay them a lot up front for their equipment then fees each year based on your audience size.

We also noticed that no one was installing HD Radios in cars. Most of our listening audience is in the car. Eventually (in 2012) I bought a portable HD Radio for $50... and had to stick it out the window or directly on the dash to get HD signals. It was easier to stream radio from a 3G phone.

They don't even sell HD Radio dongles. You can't just get line out analog -- only headphone. They don't seem to want anyone to use the tech as an add-on. Do they think people sit at home when they want to listen to the radio? It's still just... radio. It's still pre-selected content limited to a geographic region based on propagation characteristics at an elevation.

Meanwhile every radio station that got suckered into the deal still tell listeners about it. They got caught in contracts and can only pray to amortize the costs. In contrasts, streaming on the web is profitable and gets new listeners.

I haven't even seen digital radio outside Norway. I was last in western Europe in 2013, so I may be out of date. Norway isn't even in the EU, so has this made it even as far as Sweden or Finland?