[cma-l] Germany Turns off DAB

[Clive Glover]

Interesting article from The Register (www.theregister.co.uk)

Germany flicks off-switch on DAB
By Jan Libbenga
Published Monday 28th January 2008 11:57 GMT

Germany will end Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) next year after a  
ten years experiment. Public radio stations demanded another €180m to  
keep it going, but the independent commission responsible for the  
allocation of licence fees says it is over.

DAB has been under development since 1981, and Germany was the first  
country in Europe to start test transmissions. However, the technology  
never caught on - only a couple of public and regional radio stations  
participated in experiments and 200,000 digital receivers were sold.

Part of the problem is that analogue FM never went away and most  
people didn't seem to care for the clear digital-quality sound, and  
were left nonplussed by such benefits as easy tuning and message  
displays with song names and titles.

DAB is struggling almost everywhere in Europe. The standard never  
really succeeded in Europe except in Denmark and the UK, where this  
year the upgraded DAB+ format will be launched (including podcast  
services).

Experts believe Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) and DVB-T have  
surpassed DAB technically. German public broadcaster ARD says it will  
somehow continue experiments with digital radio. ®