With the completion of a full switchover to digital television now imminent, focus is likely to increase on radio and its progress in the digital world. The story of digital radio in the UK is one of slow, steady progress, and lively debate, rather then breakthrough.
We have reached a point where over a quarter of all listening is via digital but there is a lot to do before the majority of listening moves off analogue, and a switchover would be accepted, and welcomed, by listeners.
As most people are aware, there are significant barriers to change.
Firstly, many listeners remain very content with their current analogue radios and see no real need to change. Indeed, radio listening has held up rather brilliantly in recent years despite the explosion of choice in a digital world.
Secondly, even if people have shown interested in upgrading radios, coverage has remained too patchy to guarantee a robust signal when travelling across the country.
Thirdly, digital radio has lacked unified, knockout communication which has made a compelling case for the benefits of digital radio.
Finally, there has not been broadscale industry, political and industry consensus about the way forward. Indeed, many people still believe that DAB is a technology that is unnecessary because internet enabled devices will make broadcast technology redundant. It is a question that I asked hard on taking this job but it is clear that radio, like television, will need a broadcast "backbone" for many years to come if it is to deliver robust free reception to a morning traffic jam on the M6. There is much comment on the 主播大秀's obsession with DAB but our objectives are simple: ensure cost effective, universal access to our services (including the digital stations) while stimulating competition and innovation which helps grows radio as a whole.
Last week we hosted a meeting of car manufacturers at the 主播大秀 and , Minister of Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, as well as other senior industry voices.
Even hardened cynics saw that progress has been made since we started pulling together as an industry to build a digital future.
Specific news included:
- The government confirmed its commitment to move radio to digital and to plan the move towards a switchover via a which is endorsed by the 主播大秀 and the major commercial radio companies.
- We announced that we would build out DAB coverage for our national stations from just over 90% to 97% of the UK population between now and 2015. This will cover all towns with a population of 5000 or more as well as delivering more robust coverage of the 25 large cities and towns. The whole motorway network will have very good coverage, and we are aiming to get close to FM for all primary roads.
- The car industry indicated that DAB will (or has) become part of the standard spec in all new cars by the end of 2103 at the latest. (So far this year, 18% of new cars have DAB as standard versus 5% last year)
- Absolute Radio announced two more new digital stations (Absolute 60s and 70s) and the 主播大秀 confirmed that as well as supporting current digital stations, it would launch a special temporary digital service to provide increased coverage of the Olympics.
- Finally the industry confirmed that it would launch a much more unified approach to marketing digital radio.
There is much to do, but radio deserves to benefit from a digital future with increased choice and better functionality.
DAB is part of the story, not all of it, as we must innovate on the internet and ensure that listeners can benefit from the better digital functionality (catch-up, programme information etc).
As for an FM switchover, it will only happen if we make a clear case to listeners on the benefit of change, because evidence shows that when they switch to digital they like it and don't want to go back.
However, my sense is that what seemed unlikely to most people two years ago is now looking possible and may well become inevitable.
Tim Davie is Director of Audio & Music