[cma-l] DAB Radio

Mon May 18 17:27:41 BST 2015

I think it's a little presumptuous stating that "also sounds as if small-scale DAB will be mostly un-listenable anyway".

DAB is expensive but that's because it's currently "allowed" to be, as there is no other option - it's all or nothing. My only option for Severn FM was to sign up for 48 months to our local "incumbent" Mux Provider  with 2 years  payment in advance so use a 4 site SFN covering more than the County and 4 times my target audience area - incidentally that was for a 64K mono MP2 stream as well.  A single or two site SFN (100w ERP each) using Software Defined Radio (mmbTools) running on very low cost hardware would certainly cover our target audience area very nicely. Once setup, the running costs would be  VERY low.

The incumbent Mux provider (in my area at least) do not provide a cost effective  solution for Community Radio. I certainly wouldn't need 4 or 5 9's availability and  also the backhaul to the Mux from the encoder could be operated over the net to further reduce backhaul costs. We have had a working solution for 2 months (albeit under Suppressed Radiation Conditions to comply with the 1989 legislation).

If SmallScaleDAB is managed correctly, it can only be a success - and maybe also help the "bigger boys" to bring out more suitable propositions  - again in my area at least.

Andy

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 18 May 2015 14:52
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List; tlr; peter at engineeringradio.co.uk; Glyn Roylance
Subject: Re: [cma-l] DAB Radio

For clarification, cost of someone's salary is the cost to the business, not the equivalent money that person earns. For new employees, I've always doubled the salary as the total cost to the business for that employee, and am assuming the same here.

But yes, DAB's expensive. Small-scale DAB might not be as pricey; but with the sort of transmission coverage levels being talked about, it also sounds as if small-scale DAB will be mostly un-listenable anyway, remembering that DAB doesn't degrade gracefully into hiss but instead squelches into abrupt silence.

The question is - could being on DAB earn you enough money as a business to cover the cost? DAB would give you much more broadcast area, and wouldn't have any restrictions on advertising (assuming you were to split your output somehow). Would you think of yourself as an FM station with a DAB addition, or a DAB station with a cheap FM marketing opportunity? Would you use FM to do worthy community broadcasting and training, and your DAB to produce something that is less self-indulgent and more consistent to listen to, using the same resources and same studios? Great broadcasters graduate from FM to DAB only when ready?

There's an opportunity here if you'd like to take it. Depending on why you're in this game, this glass is half-full from where I see it.

//j

On Mon, 18 May 2015 at 14:31 Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com> wrote:

Or 12 peoples' salaries for just one eighth of the year based on the average allocation from the Community Radio Fund.

  _____  

Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 11:38:49 +0100
From: peter at engineeringradio.co.uk
To: tlr at gairloch.co.uk; cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk

Subject: Re: [cma-l] DAB Radio

To be honest that is 3 peoples salaries if you where to pay them the UK average...

Pete

On 17 May 2015 at 10:23, tlr at gairloch.co.uk <tlr at gairloch.co.uk> wrote:

So, apart from your sneering comments, James, what you seem to be saying is that Glyn was pretty much on the, er, money!

Glyn wrote "Step 1 - Find a large, very large bag of money"

James wrote somewhere between "the cost of someone's full-time salary" and "around £70-80,000 per annum"

Alex

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