<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-GB" link="blue" vlink="blue"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black">Where I became all confused was the news
that DAB was cheaper (did they mean for us or for Government?)(or
both?) which kinda went against what the discussions 12 months ago
on this board where folk were bailing out because it was too expensive ……
this type of stuff tends to confuse a mere insect like me. </span></font></p></div></div></blockquote><div>You originally said that DAB was cheaper for "the country as a whole", and that's right. It's cheaper for the BBC to broadcast ten stations nationally on DAB than it is for them to broadcast ten stations on AM/FM nationwide. The phrase I normally use is "cheaper per station for national broadcasters", which is true.</div><div><br></div><div>When I worked at Virgin Radio, the price for national AM was more than the price for DAB.</div><div><br></div><div>It's also much more expensive if you're a local broadcaster. You can't broadcast to a small local area on DAB (yet); the multiplex areas are much larger and have plenty of complex single-frequency-network nonsense that bump the price up. And Arqiva's fees.</div><div><br></div><div>The Government doesn't pay to use spectrum. Even after FM switchover it can't sell the FM spectrum because folks like you will still be using it. I don't quite know why they're so keen on FM switchover, other than the BBC will be in a worse position having considerably less of the available spectrum than is currently the case.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-GB" link="blue" vlink="blue"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="black" face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black">As for the tweet from the no doubt anon
person, if he or she wishes to relate to me as ‘the resident ranter’
I couldn’t give a flying cactus, I’m afraid to say that it’s
all the ones who sit at the back and crawl under the seats who allow a lot of
the nonsense to thrive. Standing up and being counted, making a point in a
forthright and clear manner without beating about the bush does not constitute
a rant.</span></font></p></div></div></blockquote><div>You're right; if, of course, the rant is justified. And concise. ;)</div><div><br></div><div>//j</div></div></div><div dir="ltr">-- <br></div><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://james.cridland.net">http://james.cridland.net</a> - get my weekly newsletter<br>
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