[cma-l] DAB Radio

Mon May 18 18:11:39 BST 2015

I think that a Community station would look on DAB as an enhancement to its existing platform, bringing the distinct benefit of freedom to fully use advertising.
And of course a larger audience possibly, depending on where and how it's carried.But the path to becoming a regional commercial station is specifically not available - and being in line with the big boys is only possible at a prohibitive cost.Also of course, the benefit to the conventional Community station of maybe 20 times the audience would appear to be be small.

From: james at cridland.net
Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 15:43:16 +0000
To: peter at engineeringradio.co.uk; info at a-bc.co.uk
CC: cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
Subject: Re: [cma-l] DAB Radio

Yes. But the question is - does it completely change the business?
If you think of DAB as an ancillary platform, it doesn't. If you think of it as a fundamental change into a regional commercial station, that's quite different.

On Mon, 18 May 2015 15:57 Peter Symonds <peter at engineeringradio.co.uk> wrote:
A few community stations I know of are running on a yearly budget a lot less than it costs to fund a slot on A regional DAB MUX. Hence you would be asking them to double (or even more) their budget.
Pete
On 18 May 2015 at 15:26, Associated Broadcast Consultants <info at a-bc.co.uk> wrote:
An extra thing I forgot to say is that with Small Scale DAB you'd instantly avail of the user-friendly tuning and station awareness functionality of DAB on users radio sets - especially if your station is called something like !Aardvark FM!   That would be worth quite a lot in itself.
Glyn

On 18 May 2015 at 15:17, Associated Broadcast Consultants <info at a-bc.co.uk> wrote:
Shame - I was all ready to jack-in the day job and take-up a £70-80k a year community radio job ;-)
I wouldn't write-off Small Scale DAB so readily.  Yes, the maximum power for the trials is a fraction of what the incumbents use, but it could still provide useful coverage at a "local radio" level.  Take for example the map on this page that shows coverage from a 50w Small Scale DAB transmitter on a tall building in the town centre of Swindon - using standard Ofcom levels.  Other DAB coverage map suppliers are available.
Of course the incumbent mux in the area (which uses 3 transmitters, probably all with much higher power) covers a larger area, but I've spoken to many a station manager who is more interested in density of coverage in the populated area than "covering sheep" (their words).
An additional consideration for Community radio is that generally (I'm not saying always) it is easier for them to raise funds for "one-off" capital investments (eg: purchase of a transmission chain) than to raise funds for an ongoing (and relatively high) ongoing operational cost like leasing capacity from an incumbent Mux.  It's to do with the way grants-giving bodies typically operate.   Yes yes, maybe they could capitalise on bigger revenue from a bigger coverage area, but that is a risky game to play - if it were that easy all the incumbent Muxes would be full to capacity.

Horses for courses I say.  If SSD muxes are licenced it can only be a good thing because it widens choice for smaller stations, which will widen listener choice (Ian will like that quote!)
Glyn
-- 
Glyn Roylance - Principal ConsultantAssociated Broadcast Consultants

On 18 May 2015 at 14:52, James Cridland <james at cridland.net> wrote:
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.

-- 
Glyn Roylance - Principal Consultant 

Associated Broadcast Consultants

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