[cma-l] FW: Community & Local Radio - the Digital Issue
Canalside's The Thread
office at thethread.org.uk
Mon Nov 17 13:10:04 GMT 2014
Cheers Glyn
I shall keep my eyes on the situation
Nick
_____
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Associated
Broadcast Consultants
Sent: 17 November 2014 11:22
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] FW: Community & Local Radio - the Digital Issue
Nick,
Current DAB IS too expensive - the Muxcos deliver a gold-plated solution
that often covers huge areas of little interest to small community stations.
But the Ofcom trial last year in Brighton, and upcoming 3 further trials is
assessing the feasibility of delivering DAB much, much cheaper and restoring
the balance somewhat on that delivery platfrom. So far it's looking
hopeful, but it's early days.
Glyn
--
Glyn Roylance - Principal Consultant
Associated Broadcast <http://www.a-bc.co.uk/> Consultants
On 17 November 2014 11:04, Canalside's The Thread <office at thethread.org.uk>
wrote:
Dear Everyone
Do some people seriously believe that we can migrate to DAB ?? I’m not a
tecky man, and reading a lot of this is very entertaining and educating
but the understanding I had was that it was mega expensive ! have I got
the wrong end of the stick somewhere here ??
I think the only thing we could migrate to under the restriction is two
yoghurt cartons and a piece of string or a megaphone on top of the Town Hall
:-)
Nick
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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 17 November 2014 10:19
To: tlr at gairloch.co.uk; The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community & Local Radio - the Digital Issue
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 <http://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-experienc
e-triumph shows just one example of a platform-agnostic radio. Now, why
can't we have more of them?
james.cridland.net <http://james.cridland.net/>
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