As I am sure you’ll all have finished reading Digital Britain by now … I found myself reading this piece in the Indie last week and soon found myself saying oh yes more than the Churchill dog. In it Nicolas Lezard questions the logic behind the Government’s plans for DAB radio.
The one surprise in the piece is that he misses out the obvious one point of competition from (digital) internet radio, esp with continuing merging of TVs and PCs and similar devices. It seem to me, this is a big part of the question of whether DAB is actually needed at all ??
In the government’s vision when 50% of listening is on digital – by 2013 - and when DAB coverage reaches that comparable with FM, then all national FM station will only be allowed to broadcast in digital and their FM signals will be cut off. Now there will be a 2 year count down to this date – currently predicted by the end of 2015. So, let’s get this right, when 50% of listening is via digital the government are planning on cutting off 50% of a broadcasters listening audience in one swoop. But everyone will have a DAB radio etc by then you cry … Hmmm.
Better still for broadcasters, if the proposed move to DAB is not achieved on time then the government and Ofcom will still terminate their FM licences, and then re-advertise the national licences. What a great deal.
Why it’s a Mess
I should clarify, this is not a statement writing off digital radio broadcasting, just the DAB version of it. Who broadcasts nationally on DAB Currently? That will be the BBC. Is that it? Not quite, but it would not be wrong to say that the BBC is propping up what seems to be a commercially unviable platform. Planet Rock is the only commercial national digital station, available on the platform, which is not also available on analogue.
Part of the point of DAB was meant to be the attraction of getting lots of new radio stations, not just a means to transfer the ones we already have to a digital platform. Channel 4’s decision at the end of last year to pull out of the 4radio project to develop second national digital radio multiplex platform seemed to indicate a lack of interest in DAB from a commercial viewpoint. Whilst CH4 blamed economic climate for pulling out, the writing seemed to be on the wall for the project a good year before the economic climate change.
At the time when Ofcom decide to award the licence to the second multiplex, the owners of the first one – Digital One ( Gcap) told Ofcom there was no demand for the additional capacity, and that it had unused capacity for anyone wanting to launch DAB services, so a second national multiplex was un-needed and unwanted.
This may be why in the report the government proposes new legislation to allow current regional multiplex owners to extend in to currently unserved areas, without the need for a new licence, and also to allow – in fact encourage, cajole – adjoining regional multiplexes to merge. “These powers will allow the existing regional multiplexes to consolidate and extend to form a second national multiplex.” The carrot for the multiplex owners is the promise of operators’ licences until 2030. The problem is many of these regional multiplex operators have no desire to merge and produce the government’s second national multiplex vision, and some will actively oppose it.
The government also has another problem. Yes, sales in Digital radios are on the up, but 52% of listeners had not changed their main radio because they were ‘quite happy with my existing radio’. That’s the point. Ofcom says that whilst you can get digital on a number of platforms, we need a dedicated digital platform or else we’re all doomed Captain Mainwaring. Now I own a FM/DAB /Internet radio. It’s great, I love it – but I use it to listen to Radio 2, 4 and 5 Live on DAB (and even then, often I do Radio 2 on FM), and then I listen to Internet radio and podcasts or ‘listen again’ shows, and I can stream my music from my PC on it. The DAB aspect is actually the least appealing bit of it, if I am perfectly honest.
Add to this that the version of DAB we currently use isn’t that great – and that the government sees no current need to upgrade it. The Report dismisses the call for a decision of technology, and dismisses this as unimportant. “[T]hese opinions give too much regard to technologies and too little the real drivers of change, the listener” So when the footnote states, for example, that “DAB+ is a non-backward compliant variant of DAB which uses newer compression techniques providing a more spectrum efficient broadcast signal”, this doesn’t matter to the listener? What tosh. It would matter if they had a Radio that stopped working if we moved from DAB to that; but it would also matter because of the improved sound quality that the listener would be, erm, listening too.
The government will get around this by mandating / encouraging manufacturers to ensure that all Digital Radios can handle DAB, DAB+ and DMB-A formats.
There is a great bit in the impact assessment on the ‘do nothing’ option:
” The UK, with little direct Government intervention, is a world leader in the take-up of digital radio. It could be argued that whilst the framework in which this has been achieved is not ideal, the market could alone continue to deliver growth to a point where radio’s digitalisation naturally occurred. Benefits: There are no obvious benefits to broadcasters, multiplex operators or manufacturers of a ‘do nothing’ scenario. For listeners, there may be a related benefit because existing analogue radio receivers would have remain fully functional for longer; however, this should be offset by the slower introduction of new stations and functionality to DAB listeners.”
There is that mention of ‘new stations’ again. Let us say this again, these new proposals are all about shifting EXISTING FM stations to DAB, not the creation of new ones which, as CH4 have demonstrated is not that straight forward. In reality, if an organisation wanted to start broadcasting in digital, then the internet would be the way to go. There are many reasons for this: cheaper; easier; not regulated by Ofcom. Brands can launch their own stations now, and build listenership on the back of that brand – such as The Sun newspaper has recently done, albeit in a limited fashion, with the launch of SunTalk
Mobile
So far DAB been ignored by mobile phone operators. Nokia have said that they have the ability to add DAB radio to their phones, but will only do so if and when there is a genuine need/demand for it, partly because of what a huge battery sapping technology it is. If you put batteries in the average current DAB radio and an old fashioned portable FM radio the DAB will pack in ages before the FM one does.
And then there is Spotify and LastFM and other streaming music sites, which can allow you to create your own radio – if music only is your interest.
So why is the government ploughing ahead with this anyway? Answers on a postcard …
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