Right now terrestrial radio stations that are switching over to HD Radio are touting it as a revolutionary way to listen to crystal clear CD-quality content (read: advertisements), but the real benefit to stations upgrading to HD Radio will be it's multi-casting abilities. Oh sure, AM radio will sound like FM does now, and FM stations will be "CD quality," but it's the ability for stations to reintroduce previously phased out content that really gets the juices flowing.

Stations that dropped their niche music programming for Bubba The Love Sponge will now be able to bring back their playlists, albeit in the form of DJ-less jukeboxes (which might not be so bad). An even better example of the newly available bandwidth comes from a San Francisco based news and talk station that will add Cantonese and Mandarin language support to address the growing Asian demographic.

XM and SIRIUS do point out that while these DJ-less playlists may be nice, they don't compare to Satellite Radio because Big Radio likely won't want to shell out the cash needed for the staff to create new programming.

In the end, it's not sound quality that makes the difference (afterall MP3s are a step back in quality from CDs for the most part) it's content. If Big Radio actually lets DJs who love their music do the programming they want, the future may not be so bleak with HD.