New Radio Technologies Offer More Stations
Over the past decade or so, two alternative radio technologies have helped expand radio beyond its traditional AM and FM bands and bring more diverse sounds to listeners: satellite and HD (digital) radio.
Satellite Radio
“[Pandora’s iPhone app has] changed the perception people have of what Internet radio is, from computer-radio to radio, because you can take the iPhone and just plug it into your car, or take it to the gym.”
TIM WESTERGREN, PANDORA FOUNDER, WIRED.COM, 2010
A series of satellites launched to cover the continental United States created a subscription national satellite radio service. Two companies, XM and Sirius, completed their national introduction by 2002 and merged into a single provider in 2008. The merger was precipitated by their struggles to make a profit after building competing satellite systems and battling for listeners. SiriusXM offers about 160 digital music, news, and talk channels to the continental United States (and about 130 online-only channels), with monthly prices starting at $14.49 and satellite radio receivers costing from $50 to $300. SiriusXM access is also available to mobile devices via an app.
Programming includes a range of music channels, from rock to reggae, to Spanish Top 40 and opera, as well as channels dedicated to NASCAR, NPR, cooking, and comedy. Another feature of satellite radio’s programming is popular personalities who host their own shows or have their own channels, including Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, and Bruce Springsteen. U.S. automakers (investors in the satellite radio companies) now equip most new cars with a satellite band, in addition to AM and FM, in order to promote further adoption of satellite radio. SiriusXM had more than twenty-five million subscribers by 2013.
HD Radio
VideoCentral 
Mass Communication
bedfordstmartins.com/mediaculture
Going Visual: Video, Radio, and the Web This video looks at how radio adapted to the Internet by providing multimedia on their Web sites to attract online listeners.
Discussion: If video is now important to radio, what might that mean for journalism and broadcasting students who are considering a job in radio?
Available to the public since 2004, HD radio is a digital technology that enables AM and FM radio broadcasters to multicast two to three additional compressed digital signals within their traditional analog frequency. For example, KNOW, a public radio station at 91.1 FM in Minneapolis–St. Paul, runs its National Public Radio news/talk/information format on 91.1 HD1, Radio Heartland (acoustic and Americana music) on 91.1 HD2, and the BBC News service on 91.1 HD3. About 2,100 radio stations now broadcast in HD. To tune in, listeners need a radio with the HD band, which brings in CD-quality digital signals. Digital HD radio also provides program data, like artist name and song title, and enables listeners to tag songs for playlists that can later be downloaded to an iPod and purchased on iTunes. The roll-out of HD has been slow, but by 2012, major auto manufacturers were putting HD-equipped radios in most of their new models.