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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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.
We have a numbe of radio sets and regard Radios Three and Four as the jewels in the BBC crown. We can and do listen to DAB stations, but can only do so using tuners with external aerials and the Onkyo tuner can only get a signal with a signal amplifier. This means that for other use we have to use either FM (again only if there is a lengthy aerial extended) or analogue. A particular personal complaint here is the huge amount of time taken off Radio Four LW for ball by ball commentary as a result of the plethora of international cricket matches. We can do without FM, if we have to, in order to have DAB, but dread the dropping of analogue which for speech, is adequate on LW and can be received everywhere, using even cheap, lightweight sets. Rural areas are msot unlikely to be able to use portable DAB radios for the foreseeable future. Why should rural listeners lose out for a dubious benefit – I’m blessed if I know!