[cma-l] UTV Radio chief exec warns of 'two-tier' future

[Ian Hickling]

Obviously Mr Taunton hasn't done his homework.

Ofcom has stated very clearly that there are no plans to cease FM broadcasting.

 

I do wish some of these high-flying executives would engage brain before operating mouth.

 

We've had multi-platform radio receivers offering LW/MW/FM for 55 years.

Adding another platform - or two - isn't really that impossible.

 

Ian Hickling

Partner

transplan UK

 



 
> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 09:56:11 +0200
> From: salvatore.scifo at communitymedia.eu
> To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
> Subject: [cma-l] UTV Radio chief exec warns of 'two-tier' future
> 
> Source:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/03/utv-radio-two-tier-future
> 
> 
> UTV Radio chief exec warns of 'two-tier' future
> 
> Local radio stations left behind on analogue would cease to exist after 
> digital switchover, says Scott Taunton
> 
> * John Plunkett
> * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 February 2010 16.59 GMT
> 
> 
> The UTV Radio chief executive, Scott Taunton, today warned that digital 
> switchover risked creating a "two-tier" environment in which small local 
> radio stations left behind on analogue would cease to exist.
> 
> Taunton, whose company owns TalkSport and 14 local stations, attacked 
> plans to shift national and large regional services to digital audio 
> broadcasting (DAB) while leaving smaller local stations and community 
> broadcasters on FM.
> 
> The UTV Radio chief executive said not enough investigation had been 
> done of a rival technology, DAB+, which would have the capacity to 
> transfer all stations to digital, including smaller local commercial 
> broadcasters.
> 
> "It will create a two-tier system," Taunton told the House of Lords 
> communications committee's inquiry into digital TV and radio switchover.
> 
> "It's like keeping analogue television services while moving the vast 
> bulk of services on to digital television, and expecting consumers to 
> come out of Sky or their digital service and back to analogue to listen 
> to them."
> 
> Taunton said his group, which left the commercial radio trade body, the 
> Radio Centre, in protest at its policy towards the government's digital 
> economy bill, had "significant concerns" about the proposed 2015 
> switchover to DAB.
> 
> "There are a number of avenues that we don't believe have been fully 
> investigated at this stage. We don't believe there is a significant 
> benefit in rushing through the legislation and tying ourselves to a DAB 
> platform that gives a digital future to some stations but leaves 100 or 
> 120 commercial stations on AM and FM," he added.
> 
> "We operate FM radio services – Tower FM in Bolton and Radio Wave in 
> Blackpool. They serve their communities very well but there is not the 
> capacity for them on the [DAB] multiplex. Under the current proposals 
> they would be left behind on FM, and in all likelihood these audiences 
> would be eroded to the point where they would not be viable in the future."
> 
> William Rogers, the chief executive of local radio group UKRD, which 
> also quit the Radio Centre over its approach to the digital economy 
> bill, said the bill was "ill-considered" and "poorly executed".
> 
> But John Myers, the former chief executive of GMG Radio who wrote a 
> government-commissioned report into commercial radio ahead of Lord 
> Carter's Digital Britain report, said any delay of the bill would be a 
> disaster for local radio and called on media regulator Ofcom to support 
> smaller stations by giving them local licences. GMG Radio is part of the 
> group that publishes MediaGuardian.co.uk.
> 
> "The whole world is going digital. For radio to remain analogue in a 
> digital world is not viable," Myers told the committee.
> 
> But radio analyst Grant Goddard painted a bleak history of digital radio 
> in the UK, listing some of the 14 digital-only stations that have closed 
> in the UK since DAB radio launched in 1999, including ITN News, 
> Primetime Radio and Capital Disney.
> 
> "They failed to attract a sufficiently large audience. Not one single 
> digital station [in the UK] has managed an operating profit," said Goddard.
> 
> "The commercial radio industry mantra was 'build it, they will come'. 
> There was no massive marketing, no huge expenditure. Throughout the 
> early years of DAB the commercial radio industry wanted to believe it 
> was just around the corner, that you just had to hang on and wait. But 
> they never actually did come."
> 
> Goddard said DAB might become a home for niche services, such as traffic 
> and travel information, Premier Christian Radio and the BFBS armed 
> forces channel, rather than mainstream broadcasters.
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