For those of you who are sick of me discussing HD radio – and I know that’s most of you – at least allow me the opportunity to mention a print article that includes an interview with me. It’s from the San Diego Union Tribune.
As I skim the piece I really need to shake my head – and not up and down. It includes a sidebar that lists San Diego’s HD stations and seems to go out of its way to plant the term “side channel” in consumer vernacular.
This is not the UT’s fault, of course, it’s ours.
Who in our industry decided to use the ridiculous and forgettable and muddled term “side channel” as a marketing term for consumers?
If I might say the obvious, we don’t have “channels” in radio, we have “stations.”
And these stations aren’t really to the “side,” they are beneath (as if their geographic location has any consequence whatsoever anyway).
Doesn’t something to the “side” mean it’s inherently less important than what’s in the center? How do you build a “side” brand without communicating that it’s comparatively less important? After all, a “side”-car can’t drive itself and a “side”-bar is a related distraction to the point of the story.
If our goal is to confuse a bewildered audience, then we’re doing a heckuva job.
How about a “side”-order of fries with your meal?
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