For the past few years, RTÉ and a number of commercial stations including our own All 80s and Mocha R’n'B stations, have been running trial DAB broadcasts in the Dublin area. This trial ends in a few days with good news and bad news.

The good news is that RTÉ have aquired a full DAB licence and launch six full services from Monday. The bad news is that commercial stations such as ourselves are still waiting for legislation to be passed to enable us to do the same. While we wait the trial licence has expired so we have to come off the air.

It is unfortunate the necessary legislation was not in place by the end of the trial. The trial was a huge success not only technically but enjoyed hugely positive feedback from the listeners with DAB in the Dublin area. We expect the new Broadcasting Bill to be passed shortly and our hope is to be broadcasting on DAB again as soon as next year.

In the meantime we continue to operate with our cable television partners and of course on-line. To keep up to date on developments on DAB in Ireland, subscribe to our RSS feed here.