Following the publication of Lord Carter's Digital Britain report earlier this month, the Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB) – the trade body representing DAB radio in the UK – has hit back at recent critics of the proposed analogue to digital radio switchover.
TechRadar reported earlier today on anti-DAB diatribes by The Times's Libby Purves and (via MediaGuardian) ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie.
The DRDB's Mandy Green reminds us that Mr MacKenzie "has a vested interest in seeing analogue radio continue as he wants to bid on the existing analogue national commercial licences when they come up in a few years time.
"Digital Britain proposed the licences for TalkSport, Classic FM and Absolute are rolled over in return for continued investment in DAB. This would scupper any plans MacKenzie might have to secure one of the national licences for himself."
How many analogue radios in UK?
Yet while MacKenzie's vested interests in delaying the switchover to digital radio are fairly clear, what of Libby Purves' accusations in The Times earlier this month that "hundreds of millions of non-digital radios exist"?
According to the DRDB, this is not the case, who note that "Ofcom says that far fewer (around 46 million) analogue radios are in regular use in UK homes." Additionally, the DRDB predicts that around one-third of those radios will be DAB by the end of 2011.
And as for the regular criticisms levelled at DAB from hi-fi buffs and audiophiles, the DRDB's line remains the same. "Hi-fi enthusiasts buy less than 1% of the 10 million radio products sold each year," argues the DRDB, plus, "more than 80% of 20,000 DAB owners surveyed found the sound quality "good to excellent"."
In-car and eco-friendly
Finally, in relation to the issue of DAB radio in cars, the DRDB reminds us that, "seventeen of the top car manufacturers offer DAB as standard or an optional upgrade" and, on the power consumption issue argue that "many DAB radios are accredited by bodies like the Energy Saving Trust, using a quarter of the power of a low energy lightbulb and costing just 60p a year with average use."
Clearly it is the job of the DRDB to defend and promote DAB at every turn, but the facts and figures above do put the recent anti-DAB criticisms into a little more context.
"Far from "disenfranchising" listeners, DAB offers unique stations for children, the gay community, traffic information, "green" issues, extra sport, unsigned bands etc," according to the Digital Radio Development Bureau.
"[DAB] often doubles the number of radio services available, bringing a new listening experience to millions of people….[while] analogue radio is a 19th century technology struggling to stay in touch with the 21st century."
For more on the DRDB, check out the organisation's website.
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
purplewalrus
July 3rd
4. I'm not against DAB, I love BBC6 & 7 and BBC5 is clearer on DAB than AM however, the quality of sound is no where near good enough at the moment, not just when listening through a good hifi system, but even on the portables now. There are still tooo many issues to resolve before DAB can truly. Carry on the work by all means but leave FM alone until these issues are addressed. And please let's have honesty in the debate, cut the spin, admit what the probems are, what he drivers are for the switch off of FM. Some hope eh?
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kevcal
June 30th
3. I actually have a very good digital signal most of the year (see below) - but when the F1 was on, I preferred watching it on analogue - it just looked better... not so sharp (despite fiddling with TV setup) as all digital signals seem to be.
Other problem now the summer is here, are the atmospherics - I'd prefer to watch an analogue signal that's noisy with ghosting rather than a digital one that pixelates with the sound breaking up..
The trouble with digital - you either get a 'good' picture or essentially no picture (no halfway house) and I hear digital radio is the same. In a perfect world digital would be the way to go, but I don't believe it's good enough for public consumption yet unfortunately.
Hopefully in 2012 when complete switchover happens, we'll see how things improve (hopefully more bandwidth for channels rather than more useless channels) - problem is when the analogue is switched off, that's it, no going back I imagine.
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watcherzero
June 30th
2. The faster the switchover happens the faster they can reenable all those secondary transmitters and get you all your channels back again, they cant switch them over till the changeovers complete becasue they would interfere with the existing analogue broadcasts of neighbouring regions.
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kevcal
June 29th
1. Errr.. FM sounds good enough on my car radio.
I guess the digital-radio switchover will be as badly managed as the digiral-TV switchover is; refer to problems with Rowridge documented on ukfree.tv for the lack of interest shown by Ofcom & Digital UK to users' plights.
I despair at this greed and relentless pursuit of technology for technology's sake :(
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