and another thing............

At this blog we really do not worry about sounding like 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'. Indignation is our thing. So lets tackle digital radio as a change from our usual focus on television. If ever there was a technology looking for a problem to solve, this is it.

Clearly sending video pictures over the airwaves takes up large amounts on bandwidth. It makes sense to adopt a technology, in this case digital transmission, that makes best use of the space available. By comparison audio channels occupy a tiny amount of bandwidth. Since the police and fire services were moved out of the FM band there is currently little problem with providing extra channels. Reception of the analogue signal generally provides a very high quality audio output, approaching Hi Fi standards. DAB, on the other hand, is alleged to provide poor quality, especially in fringe areas. Not surprisingly there is growing antipathy to DAB; see the Save FM site for instance.

The DAB- standard which the BBC has pushed forward in the UK has been largely ignored in the rest of the world. Those countries which are going digital are mostly adopting DAB+. This means that if you do buy a new digital radio for your car; it will stop working at Calais.

We wondered what the BBC did with the 12% of the Licence Fee that it did not spend on programme content. Part of the answer is that it likes developing new media standards. Somewhere in a back room at the BBC are a team of engineers who made this technology work. By adopting digital radio we will be giving them job satisfaction; with pride they will be able to point at your DAB reciever and say 'I designed that codec'. So for a mere £200 (across the nation) to upgrade the radios in your car and house you can bring happiness to a techie. Sweet!

That is the problem with the Licence Fee. You give money to the BBC and they have to spend it on something. You will not be consulted on whether that something is what you want. It would look bad if the project got abandoned. So you now have to pay out on new hardware to save face at the Beeb.

The government has decreed that 50% of radio listening will need to be digital before it will set a changeover date. So if you are tempted to surrender your analogue radio for a digital one (the scrappage scheme as it is being called) think again. Yes your old radio might be sent to a good home in Africa; but you are bringing nearer a costly and pointless imposition on the rest of us.

Fortunately it seems that content providers are beginning to realise that digital radio is a dead end. This week another radio station pulled the plug and turned itself into an internet only station. With mobile internet becoming a reality, people can still listen on the go. Lack of content is going to kill digital radio. Yay!