IBiquity Digital cuts deals for chips, radios

By Ben Berkowitz

LOS ANGELES: IBiquity Digital Corp., whose technology will serve as the basis for most digital radio broadcasting, on Monday announced a number of deals for compatible radios and the chips that will power them. Columbia, Maryland-based iBiquity, backed by most of the nation's major radio broadcasters, also announced a new brand name for its technology, "HD Radio."

Radio stations in six major markets, including New York and Los Angeles, will begin digital broadcasts later this year, though consumer radios that can actually receive the broadcasts will not be available until spring 2003. The company said leading car stereo manufacturer Kenwood Corp. would make 17 of the 23 radios it plans to release in 2003 compatible with digital radio broadcasts.

Besides Kenwood, iBiquity also announced a deal for compatible radios with Visteon Corp., a major manufacturer of radios for auto companies, though units from Visteon are not expected until 2004. Both the Kenwood radios and the Visteon radios will be powered by a chipset developed by Texas Instruments Inc., a deal also announced on Monday. "Our challenge has been to get all the elements of the soup together, if you will," iBiquity Chief Executive Bob Struble told Reuters.

The company, backed by the likes of Clear Channel Communications Inc., Viacom Inc. and J.P. Morgan Partners, will derive revenue from licensing its technology to radio manufacturers and the stations that want to broadcast AM and FM in digital format. "The aim is really to have HD be sort of like the 'Intel Inside' that you see at end of every PC commercial," Struble said.

He said the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is in the process of standardizing on the company's technology as the basis for digital radio broadcasting in the United States, with such approval expected by the fall. He also said it would be easy for digital broadcast radio to co-exist with satellite radio, as provided by XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., both of which offer subscription services with 100 channels of all-digital radio. "It's not a very difficult thing to integrate these technologies," he said.

IBiquity recently licensed the intellectual property of a company called Command Audio, which developed technology for on-demand delivery of audio programming and information. Struble said that company's technology would be integrated into the second generation of HD Radios, around 2004.

© Reuters