[cma-l] The BBC to fund DAB coverage up to 97%.

[Clive Glover]

Ian

At the Digital Radio meetings which I have attended (along with Jaqui and others) we have tried to get the Government and industry people to make clear in their publicity etc what exactly they mean by "digital" but they have always insisted on deliberately conflating all forms of digital radio (by satellite, by cable, by FreeView as well as DAB) as "digital". However when I very specifically asked the marketing people about their plans to create a digital "tick" campaign to show which radios in the shops were "digital" they first told me that these would only be DAB ones, thus specifically excluding those (increasingly common) which also include "Internet radio" (i.e. streaming). The next meeting they contradicted that but I suspect the plan is still to try to sell obsolete DAB sets as "digital" in line with the advertising campaigns to promote "digital radios" (which always show Pure sets, even on the BBC!).

The RadioPlayer people have made little secret of their plans to create a RP app for iPhones and Android, plus probably a version for FreeView, Sky & FreeSat and - perhaps - a version for portable radios. Internet streaming is already well on its way to becoming the main "digital radio" format in practice even though purists will of course point out it is not a broadcasting technology, but  a communications technology (just like Sky TV in the early days and look what has happened to that!).

One day - perhaps - someone in Whitehall will realise they are heading down a cul de sac  with a large brick wall at the end.....

Clive Glover
On 21 Oct 2011, at 18:00, Ian Hickling wrote:

> I didn't see the original announcement.
> So - does this mean that the BBC and presumably H M Government still pushing the ancient Eureka 147 format - which is effectively extinct except for the UK?
> Or is the term "DAB" used here meant to be a synonym for "Digital Radio"?
> I think we need to have this clarified.
> 
> ------------------------------------
> Ian Hickling
> Partner
> 
> transplan UK
>  
> 
> 
> From: tlr at gairloch.co.uk
> To: clive.glover at lineone.net
> Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:23:11 +0100
> CC: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [cma-l] The BBC will fund taking DAB up to 97% coverage
> 
> Exactly Clive.
> I note that the no doubt very carefully worded BBC statement says "national DAB coverage". This almost certainly deliberately excludes rolling out the "local" DAB coverage which the commercial companies are also refusing to fund.
> 
> So there is another subtle shift in policy here - the "switchover" (as they still insist on calling it down in Whitehall) will now be triggered when digital listening on national services reaches the appropriate limit. 
>  
> What's more, here in Scotland not having a commercial multiplex means also not having all the BBC National services.
>  
> In areas with no commercial multiplex we get no BBC Radio Scotland on DAB (really!) nor BBC Radio nan Gaidheal (the national Gaelic service). This is because the single BBC DAB multiplex is already stretched to the max capacity/min quality limits to carry the England-based services.
>  
> In highly populous areas, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, the BBC gets round the problem by renting extra capacity for these services on commercial multiplexes, but of course it can't do that anywhere in the north/northwes of the UK where there are no commercial multiplexes.
>  
> It also means we don't get the regional news opt-outs from the national Radio Scotland service that we currently get at peak times on FM.
>  
> They could have sorted all this by using the northwest as a pilot area for DAB+.
> 
> Alex
>  
>  
> 
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