The Digital Britain report (published Mid June 09) by Lord Carter recommended that all national radio broadcasters cease to broadcast on FM in 2015. But recently there have been more and more voices going against the recommendation.
The regulator Ofcom suggests that the timetable be tied to milestones in the use of digital radio sets. Currrently 32% of British households are DAB enabled, but Ofcom say only when 50% are enabled should the switch begin. Paul Donovan, a radio critic, thinks 2015 is unrealistic, he predicts 2025 is a more relastic time frame. And now Tim Davie, the Director of BBC Audio and Music, has admitted DAB radio is not inevitable saying “since I have arrived at the BBC, I certainly haven’t seen it as inevitable that we move to DAB.”
As time has gone on the original claims of “near-CD quality” for DAB struggle to hold ground, and the quality seems to be ever decreasing. With FM transmitters being quite cheap, and the number of negative comments growing steadily, FM radio could be alive for a fair old while yet.
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July 7th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I, like most people, have several radio sets and so although I am ‘DAB enabled” I have to say that it is not only much poorer tonal-range quality than FM, but also very difficult to get a signal indoors.