HD in Switzerland “practically buried already”

[radioskeptic]

Yesterday the online trade paper “Persoenlich.com”carried a story with the headline, “Praktisch schon wieder beerdigt: HD-Initiant Ruoss sieht Projekt gescheitert” (“Practically already buried: HD entrepreneur Ruoss sees the project [as having] failed”).

They were talking about Projekt HD-Radio Schweiz, which included five Swiss commercial stations: Radio Argovia, Radio Basel, Capital FM, Radio 24 and Radio Sunshine.  In February of this year, the five had petitioned for licenses to begin "HD" broadcasting this fall, and they got their licenses in June.  But the money wasn't there, because there's obviously no ROI – and because  no Zurich station could be found to make it truly national event.

The surprise announcement that HD broadcasts of the five would not begin simultaneously next month as previously planned was made by Radio Sunshine owner Markus Ruoss, who had organized the project.

See http://www.persoenlich.com/news/show_news.cfm?newsid=90185 (in German)

There are three other reports (all in German), using words like "steht vor dem Aus" and "für dieses Jahr ins Wasser gefallen."  And all of them refer to the “Persoenlich.com” story.  Here are the URL’s:

http://www.infosat.de/Meldungen/?msgID=59896
http://www.satundkabel.de/index.php/nachrichtenueberblick/radio/73919-digitales-radio-steht-in-der-schweiz-vor-dem-aus-qhd-radioq
http://www.digitalfernsehen.de/news/news_954896.html

[audioguy]

Very interesting that you posted this, and quite timely-- because I will be traveling to Basel this fall and will have a chance to express my observations about HD radio to the administration there.

[KB1OKL]

I was in Germany for several months in 1980 and the German people seemed very technologically advanced. This proves it.

[audioguy]

Earlier this year I visited the IRT in Muenchen. They told me that they are not interested in HD. They are implementing DAB+, although uptake has been slow... it seems there is not that much interest in digital radio over there either.