DAB Radio's Future in UK Not Looking Good

[Carmine5]

The opening two sentences from this news item says it all:

"The growth of digital radio’s listening share in the UK has continued to be minimal, sparking concern that the government’s switchover decision date is unrealistic. The new radio audience figures for the last three months of 2011, released today, show that digital listening now accounts for 29.1% of all radio listening. Digital radio listening must reach 50% of all listening by 2013, if the government can proceed with the switchover process."

http://www.rbr.com/radio/uk-digital-radio-numbers-not-pretty.html

This also explains why an analog cut-off date for radio in the US would probably not work.

 

[mmnassour]

And Ibiquity wouldn't kill for those numbers? ;D

 

[tomservo]

Maybe instead of trying to force everyone to digital, they should just offer DAB as an alternative band, like MW and FM and LW. Make it something semi-unique (which they already do) and be happy with the 30% who have naturally gravitated towards it.

 

[nd2023]

In the US, digital radio listening is somewhere near 0%. It doesn't even show up at all in the Arbitron ratings. And those ratings are sensitive enough to have California stations show up in an NJ PPM because a few people from NJ were on vacation. The only HD2 that showed up was WWMX-HD2's stream in the Baltimore ratings back when it was dance "Mix 2" and didn't have a translator. But that was a stream of an HD2 that showed up because it was well promoted.

 

[ajc_trw]

Maybe instead of trying to force everyone to digital, they should just offer DAB as an alternative band, like MW and FM and LW. Make it something semi-unique (which they already do) and be happy with the 30% who have naturally gravitated towards it.

DAB (Eureka 147) in the UK is on an alternative band. It takes spaces (blocks) between 174 and 240MHz though in the UK they only use 216-240MHz.

DAB started out with a promising future using layer 2 at a data rate of 192kbps. Over time the rate dropped to make room for more stations. Sound familiar?

 

[tomservo]

Not only that, ajc_trw, but they have DAB+ which is apparently incompatible with the older standard, meaning some countries use the newer, more efficient system and some like the UK are stuck with the older system. The same in theory could easily happen here. Or HAS happened, if you consider the need to buy a new radio to hear HD that can't be heard on existing analog equipment.