[cma-l] DAB Radio

Mon May 18 18:21:04 BST 2015

"But the path to becoming a regional commercial station is specifically not
available"

I think it *is* specifically available. A DAB licence has none of the
restrictions that a community FM licence has - on format or advertising.
And I think that's the point I'm making.

"Also of course, the benefit to the conventional Community station of maybe
20 times the audience would appear to be be small."

Agreed.

I think you can have your cake *and* eat it, should you wish to both offer
a community service on FM but also do radio across a wider, less
restrictive licence.

This is where we came in - a station for the asian community is [if they
want to be] a community of common interest, not of locality.

//j

On Mon, 18 May 2015 at 18:11 Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 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 <http://a-bc.co.uk/dab-coverage-maps/> 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
> <http://www.localdigitalradio.co.uk/SwindonTX.png>, 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 Consultant
> Associated Broadcast Consultants <http://www.a-bc.co.uk/>
>
>
> 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 <http://www.a-bc.co.uk/>
>  <http://www.a-bc.co.uk/index.html>
>
>
>
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