[cma-l] Germany switches to DAB+

[Two Lochs Radio]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  Hi Alex,


  For me I think the biggest issue of switching to DAB+ is the listeners, as I dont think we have their full support to move to DAB anyway (Does the 'Man on the Street' even really know what its all about). If we dont have full audience support now with DAB, how are they going to feel if we change direction and move to DAB+.. How many sets are there out there that are DAB only and would never support DAB+ (and I would guess cost a fortune in the first place as its an early model)..


  The only way we could do it in my honest opinion is with a full scale move by the BBC and Government and a huge investment by both.. 
I understand that point of view, but I disagree that it is the only way. Also, did the man in the street have any idea what DAB was about in the first place - apart from the dishonest 'CD-quality radio hype'. With 80-90% of people consistently saying they are satisfied with the range of radio services and platforms available to them, this was never a consumer-driven development.

An alternative to the German big-bang strategy is to start deploying DAB+ in the areas that do not yet have any DAB coverage, and then over the years start working backwards in towards the early areas.  As a bonus you might even get the requisite listener-driven demand as the populated centres start clamouring for the same grade of service as being delivered to the outliers.

In technical terms DAB and DAB+ can coesxist, and by luck the regions that do not yet have DAB, and therefore woudl be the places to start DAB+, are also ones where the existing BBC DAB multiplex has insufficient capacity to replicate current FM services.

There appear to be around 13m DAB radios out there, mostly DAB-only. That's half the number of receivers the industry predicted for this date back in 2006. 

But in any event in my proposed present-day strategy we wouldn't have a big bang retrofit - and the incumbent sets would be getting old and outdated anyway. In fact all the same arguments currently being applied to older FM radios!  Cars, which might drive into DAB+ areas, are generally already able to receive DAB+, and so are all new receiver designs. 

After a few years when all the willing adopters have shelled out for updated radios, the industry could even fund a so-called amnesty - subsidizing the upgrade of old DAB radios to DAB+ models. Now where have I seen that idea before?!!

The really frustrating thing is that the same strategy was being proposed (by others more prominent, not just little me!) back in 2007/8 and if the BBC/DCMS/Ofcom had been grown up enough to make the right decision then we would be in so much better a position now, for no greater amount of money spent, and DAB receiver sales would probably be on the climb instead of in decline. (NB FM receiver sales continue strong, but Ofcom et al conveniently ignore the number of them in mobile phones, keeping the FM sales looking artifically lower.)

Alex

PS from our quirks dept - almost every single steam shower cabinet on the market today in the UK has an FM radio in it as standard issue - I haven't seen a single one offering DAB! Total number of FM-capable tuners in the UK appears to be in the 90m-120m range.






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