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digital radio receiver the following summer, but as in the case of Europe and elsewherethere was no early market demand. While terrestrial broadcasting was trying to enterthe digital market with IBOC, two U.S. satellite companies – XM Satellite Radio andSirius Radio – had commenced operation of direct satellite to home and satellite to carsubscription services, each offering more than100 audio channels. But even these valueaddedsubscription services appeared to be meeting with consumer resistance. Clearly,the general public was not moving to embrace digital technology nearly as quickly asinvestors had hoped.Public Radio’s Digital ExperienceLeaders within the public radio system were directly involved in the digital technologydebates of 1990s, and were making preparations for securing federal funding forexpanding into HD Radio once the FCC had settled on the technical standard. OnOctober 9, 2003, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) awarded more than$3 million in its first round of station grants to a total of 42 public radio stations insome thirteen “seed markets” (CPB, 2003). By the end of 2006, grants totaling $41million had been awarded to 548 stations across the nation, but some 319 stations hadyet to take advantage of the $75,000 seed grants (Janssen, 2006). Those who resistedthe funding offer explained that the CPB monies represented only a fraction of theestimated $177,000 cost per station to mount an HD Radio service. Despite themulticasting potential of the new digital system, many station managers were reluctantto allocate precious dollars for digital expansion when it was such a low priority, giventhe absence of listener demand. Yet, other station managers argued that the move tomulticasting was essential, given public radio’s mandate to meet the diverse programmingneeds of multiple audiences not being served by the analog signal. In an effortto build a loyal core audience, public radio stations had largely abandoned their earlier“checkerboard” or “block” programming philosophy – something for everyone at differenttimes of the broadcast day -- during the 1990s. The opportunity to offer multiplechannels via HD Radio meant the chance to win back listeners who had felt disenfranchisedwhen public radio stations began following the advice of consultants who knewhow to generate audience numbers, even if it meant angering small specialized audiences.By September of 2007, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that 310 publicradio stations were broadcasting in digital, with 78 stations multicasting. Of those 78,56 were offering two channels and 22 were offering three (Janssen, 2007).The Case of KUER FM 90 in Salt Lake CityAs early as 1995, KUER General Manager John Greene was meeting with his ChiefEngineer, Lewis Downey, to begin laying the groundwork for taking advantage ofdigital audio broadcasting once the standards were in place and the FCC commencedawarding digital transmission authorization. Greene and Downey closely followed thedevelopments at the national level and were very much aware of NPR’s engineeringleadership in moving the HD Radio initiative forward. Well before technical standardswere approved and the first CPB seed grants were made, Greene began brainstormingabout what the forthcoming delivery system might mean for local public radio stations,and specifically for his own station, licensed to the University of Utah (Greene, 2008a).Although the adoption of digital technology was still a long way off for KUER, the long22Feedback January 2009 (Vol. 50, No. 1)