From MediaBuyerPlanner.com (certainly a target of interest to broadcasters):
While analog radio will perhaps phase out over time, even Robert J. Struble, chairman and chief executive of iBiquity, doesn’t expect that to happen overnight. His most optimistic predictions for a complete HD takeover are for 12 years from now, though he thinks that’s unlikely.
A couple of points worth noting:
First, even the head of iBiquity doesn’t believe that analog radio will be history.
Second, his most optimistic projection is, by his own definition, most optimistic.
Third, note again the company distancing itself from the “presumed” association of “HD” with “High Definition,” an argument that holds as much water as Bill Clinton’s famous question “It depends what the definition of the word ‘is’ is.”
Here’s what I wrote back in April, based on a study by Forrester:
by 2010, nearly 10 million households will use HD Radio. Unfortunately, says Forrester, two million more households will listen to Podcasts, ten million more will subscribe to Satellite Radio, and twenty-five million more will stream audio from the Internet on their computers, through their iPods, via their cell phones, etc.
If you roll back the time clock by 12 years, the Internet was in full force but there was barely a world wide web. Projecting the future 12 years from now when it comes to technology is a sporty game, to be sure. And even Forrester’s estimate, only five years out, shows that the iBiquity guess is not just optimistic but fantastically pie-in-the-sky.