And the good ideas keep on coming…

From Inside Radio:

On the heels of the release of Apple’s new iPod, Inside Radio has learned Polk Audio will announce the next generation of HD Radio tuners this afternoon that will establish a direct connection between HD and iPods – and in the process bring e-commerce to HD. In an alliance with Apple, Polk’s new I-Sonic ES2 HD Radio will include an iPod docking station that features a “tagging button” which will allow listeners to buy songs they hear on HD Radio stations via iTunes. The advancement requires HD stations to encode their signals and insiders say eight radio groups have committed to encoding

So let me understand this…

HD radio has been reduced to being a storefront for iTunes?

So I listen to my HD radio, tag the songs I like, download them to my iPod, and listen to my iPod rather than my HD radio, right?

And who makes the money in this transaction? The people who own the store, the people who license the music, or the station that tags the songs?

If the value of HD radio were primarily a music discovery service for iPods, HD is about to have a ton of competition it didn’t count on.

Check this out – you won’t find it in the radio trades. You actually have to look to posts from folks who understand technology:

I suspect that Apple created this feature with more than HD Radio in mind, and plans something along the line of Rhapsody’s hardware tagging feature, which lets users tag radio songs on Sandisk and Sonos players for purchase or subscription download. Given the uncertainty about whether the iPod Touch (shipping 9/28) will be able to play internet radio stations from Pandora and other webcasters, it’s likely that Apple will eventually announce that its iTunes Tagging feature will work with some set of internet radio stations. What’s uncertain is which webcasters stations will be included — iTunes radio stations and/or partner webcaster(s) to be announced later.