So I’m sure that you have all heard them by now….those very annoying HD Radio commercials that seems to be propagating across the airwaves. It seems like in my 45ish minute drive to work, I always hear at least one, 5 days a week. Up until a short while ago, they didn’t really bother me, in fact, I pretty much just ignored them. But having finally heard enough, and wanting to always move forward in the name of progress, I decided to take a trip to my local BestBuy store. According to the commercials, HD Radios were “All over” many local stores, include BestBuy, so I figure that there would be a nice selection and maybe now was finally the time to actually upgrade…..though what I got was far from that.

I strolled into the store late one afternoon on my way home from work, after hearing yet another commercial. I walked briskly through the store back to the “bookshelf” systems looking for a nice little compact HD Radio. Much to my dismay, however, I was greeted with the “wide variety” of a whole two choices. One was $200, while the other was $250. Neither offered anything other than an HD Radio…. Needless to say, I was very annoyed. I mean seriously, they have been pushing these damn things for months now, and in that time have only managed to stock a whole two models?!?! This tells me one of two things. Either:
a) Nobody really gives a damn about HD Radio, and they all are listening to their iPods instead.
or
b) This area (Columbus) just has so little choice in HD stations that the stores don’t even bother to stock radios.

Now I’m not going to claim to be a genius, and I may not even be smart, but it seems like for $250 dollars, I could buy a very nice MP3 player, and be able to listen to my ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY, for the same price. Once again, I ain’t going to claim to me smart, but somehow, listening to exactly what I want to, for the same price, seems like a MUCH better deal to me. I just really wish I knew what these people were thinking when they decided to air these commercials. To me, the “all over” claim seems…..well to be an outright lie. I’m not really sure why they are pushing this so hard….it seems like it’s going to all turn out to be a flop. I’m sure it’s related to the switch to digital TV in Feb. of 2009…..but still. If you are going to advertise something, at least make sure that you have them to sell!!!! Anyway, that’s just my two cents…..