[cma-l] Community & Local Radio - the Digital Issue

Mon Nov 17 10:18:40 GMT 2014

Thanks for this, Alex.

My "DRM+" comment was because the initial document in this thread
recommended it as a solution. It's a great technical solution, but it isn't
a good fit when you consider the market.

I'm deliberately not meaning "industry-led". I'm meaning "market-led",
where the market includes consumers, receiver manufacturers, car
manufacturers, retailers and an awareness of the media marketplace, as well
as technologists and as well as the industry. This is something that the
writer of the original paper has ignored, and that's disappointing. He's
clearly passionate, but naïve to assume that there is an appetite for
another broadcast radio platform. He's downright damaging to the industry
to claim that community radio should move to DRM+ at this point in its
development.

DAB was initially designed for audio clarity (especially on the move); but
most consumers didn't care about that, so after a while, we now have DAB
being used as a method of broadcasting more choice - including, uniquely in
the UK, more content providers. I agree that DAB+ is preferable: it's the
standard everywhere else, after all - and argued strongly for the BBC to
take the plunge and begin adopting it during my time there. My idea was to
move simulcast stations over to DAB+ as soon as possible, which would have
had the effect of not reducing any listener choice. However, this damages
the "50% total hours via digital radio" target for switchover, and
therefore - in spite of it being the right way to move to DAB+ - didn't
answer the main requirement for the broadcasters, and that's to remove dual
transmission costs.

I agree with you about hybrid radio, and the benefits. That's why I spent a
lot of personal time and money getting RadioDNS off the ground.

*>>I'm not aware of any radios that even offer the obvious option of
switching between FM and DAB (and network/DTV as well I guess) according to
which is giving the best reception of a chosen programme service.<<*

It is obvious, but also rather difficult to achieve. My last car's DAB
radio did this (I bought it in 2004), and flicked between DAB and FM in a
relatively non-satisfactory way. The BBC turned that facility off (because
listening on FM doesn't help the 50% target, and because each platform has
different delays).

Selected new Samsung Galaxy phones contain a RadioDNS-compliant FM tuner
that allows a listener to automatically flick to Internet Radio if the FM
signal disappears - and back again. It also adds images and more
information.

Hope all that helps. Cut down on the personal accusations, and focus on the
discussion, and it's a much more interesting conversation, I think.

james.cridland.net

On Mon Nov 17 2014 at 9:47:44 AM tlr at gairloch.co.uk <tlr at gairloch.co.uk>
wrote:

>   Thank you James - I too appreciate appropriate use of the ancient art
> of rhetoric in discussion (though I suspect you weren't intending it as a
> complement).
>
>  For the record, I wasn't in any way promoting the use of DRM+ for UK
> community radio, so I'm not clear why you referred to it in replying to my
> posting. I note you also implied in another reply that Phil Dawson had said
> Radio 6 Music was available only on DAB, which he hadn't. Perhaps you
> prefer misdirection to rhetoric in discussion!
>
>  Thank you also for clarifying your personal use of the term "market-led"
> - I had misunderstood you to mean "consumer-led"/"listener-led", but I
> guess you were meaning more what I would have called "industry-led". FM
> radio, vinyl records, cassette tapes and CDs were all technological shifts
> in consumer media that had similar technology market issues as DAB has, but
> all four of those were devised by technologists as market responses
> deficiencies in the existing technologies perceived by the users as well as
> the industry ("build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to
> your door"). DAB on the other hand came about in response to perceived
> economic advantages to the industry, and not in response to any direct
> consumer desire or call for improvements to existing services. Whilst its
> advantages are incremental (more channels in dense markets), it's adoption
> by consumers requires a step change (new radios).
>
>  But back to the point at issue - I was distinguishing DAB and DAB+. Since
> the term "DAB" may refer to either, for the sake of clarity, I'll refer to
> the original MP2-based system as *DAB-* and the newer aac-based system as
> *DAB+*.
>
>  My point was, and remains, that I believe the DCMS/BBC/Ofcom (and many
> industry pundits/DAB- proponents - you know who you are) seriously
> mis-served the UK listening public by doggedly pursuing a purely DAB *-*
> strategy over the last 6 year or so since the advantages of DAB+ and the
> certainty of multi-standard receivers became overwhelmingly apparent.
>
>  There was an argument at the time that a 'mixed message' created by any
> talk of a newer system could damage a fledgling industry, but that seemed
> at the time, and still does, to be a false worry, because (a) there was a
> strong drive already to the production of DAB-/DAM+ multistandard
> receivers, and (b) there was an opportunity to introduce DAB+ first in
> 'virgin territory', where there was, naturally, no significant existing
> installed base of older DAB--only receivers that would be made obsolete,
> and also where there was a clear need for BBC/community multiplexes with
> greater channel capacity as there were unlikely to be additional commercial
> multiplexes interested in serving many of these areas - as has proved to be
> the case so far.
>
>  As an aside, we have 13 in-use FM receivers in the household (not at all
> unusual when you tot them all up), and only one is capable of receiving
> DAB. The radios range in ages from 2-30 years, and all can receive more
> stations on FM than on DAB, so DAB offers us little enticement at the
> moment. With DAB+ and a more comprehensive set of services it might have
> been more attractive.
>
>  I agree about the value of the 'hybrid radio' concept. Throughout the
> recent DAB era there has been no technological barrier to making radios
> that offer just the same features on FM as they can on DAB (tuning by
> station name, live record/pause/replay, 'now playing' display etc) - all of
> this has been well within the capability of standard FM+RDS since the
> inception of DAB, and cheap chipsets have been there to support it for at
> least a decade (as evidence I have a 12-year-old cheapo "MP3 player" that
> has FM radio with record and replay built in). It is a shame that, with a
> very few notable exceptions, the industry has failed to produce services
> and receivers that provide a uniform set of features for listeners,
> regardless of whether the source is FM or DAB. I'm not aware of any radios
> that even offer the obvious option of switching between FM and DAB (and
> network/DTV as well I guess) according to which is giving the best
> reception of a chosen programme service.
>
>  Alex
>
>
> On 16 November 2014 at 16:38 James Cridland <james at cridland.net> wrote:
>
> Not sure you've understood what I was saying, but thanks for lots of
> anti-DAB technology rhetoric.
>
> By "market-led", I'm talking about the international market, including
> receiver availability and market conditions as well as technology - things
> that this paper ignores. I love DRM+ as a technology - though there's not
> much wrong with FM, either. The bald facts are that there are no DRM+
> receivers available anywhere in the world at any volume; and as for DVB-T
> Lite, that's fanciful nonsense, requiring an entirely new transmitter
> network. Meanwhile, DAB+ has wide take up across Europe and Australia, and
> is now in (so they say) 70% of all new cars as standard bought in the UK.
> It is nonsense to expect community radio to willingly accept DRM+ as a
> future standard if there are no receivers out there.
>
> I remain against any government-mandated switchover, and point to the
> future of radio as being multiplatform. Community radio would do well to
> pressure receiver manufacturers to be platform agnostic and embrace the
> benefits of hybrid radio, which would then enable a level playing-field for
> all broadcasters, irrespective of chosen platform.
>
> http://www.mediauk.com/article/34394/radioplayer-on-
> a-radio-a-user-experience-triumph shows just one example of a
> platform-agnostic radio. Now, why can't we have more of them?
>
> james.cridland.net
>
>
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