There is absolutely no point in developing DAB if we don’t know what the long-term plan is. Where we are going with DAB is the big question not being answered by Irish legislators, regulators or the industry itself.The Broadcasting Bill 2008 proposes a licence extension to FM broadcasters if they also simulcast on DAB. Why bother? All that achieves is extending the broadcasters business plan and allowing the listener to hear the same thing on a different band. There needs to be more. How about a licence extension to FM broadcasters who simulcast on DAB using the new technology to display programme related data such as the song now playing or a full EPG or best yet a broadcast website that puts rich content on a DAB receivers display? That way the FM broadcaster can extend their business plan and the listener gets a much better service if they listen to that station on DAB.

Elsewhere in the world some good plans are beginning to come together. In Australia FM broadcasters are going with DAB but they have to make full use of the platform by offering programme related data on recievers screens and operating brand new services only available on DAB. In return they are guaranteed no new entrants to the market for a number of years. Same in Germany.

In the UK the Digital Radio Working Group are recommending that national and regional services transition to DAB as a sole broadcast platform. This will free up considerable FM spectrum for more local and community services. In Norway, a similar market to Ireland, they plan to put everything on DAB and turn off FM altogether by 2014.

In Ireland we need to formulate a long term broadcasting plan and decide how DAB, DAB+ or DRM is going to fit in. After all, in 1988 there was a huge worry in Ireland that only allowing new local stations to broadcast on FM would adversely affect the industry. Those fears were obviously unfounded.

There I was reading the Sunday Buiness Post and an interview with RTE’s Paul Russell on RTE’s DAB launch when I got a bit of a shock at the end. In response to the journalist Catherine O’Mahony I say … watch this space !

The article reads as follows;

Meanwhile, DAB has been parked for now in the world of commercial broadcasting.

Worst affected by this is Dusty Rhodes, a DAB enthusiast who set up Digital Radio Ltd and developed a number of new services for broadcast over DAB.

Now that the commercial sector is excluded from the project, pending the passage of the new Broadcasting Bill, Rhodes’s channels, All 80s and Mocha RnB, will be available online only.

He said it was unfortunate that legislation had not been passed for DAB and he hoped to be back on air next year.

“The test was a huge success, not only technically, but enjoyed hugely positive feedback from listeners.”

Russell agreed it was a pity Rhodes was not able to be currently involved in DAB.

“We’re out there on our own now and hopefully that will change again,” he said. “It was exciting to have someone like Dusty Rhodes involved. It’s a definite loss. We hope we can keep up connections with the commercial organisations because we’ve seen from other countries that this cannot progress without them.”

The success or failure of DAB digital radio depended entirely on the audience, said Russell. In his view, RTE’s digital services would only ever be an add-on to what listeners used already, somewhere to go for 20 minutes or so before returning to a normal favourite station.

“It’s really hard to call. We realise many people are very happy with the radio they have already. Whether they want this or not is really up to them.”

Here is a simple alternative way of looking at national DAB coverage suggested at the Digital Radio Now conference in London recently.Everyone expects that any national radio service currently available to 95%+ of the population should also be available on DAB to 95%+ of the population. This is as it should be but does it mean that to accommodate public and commercial broadcasters that we establish two expensive national mulitplexes with that kind of coverage? The suggestion from London is no.

Why not have one national mulitplex carrying all the current national FM broadcasters from RTE to Newstalk and Today FM. This “super mux” will cover 95% or more of the country. The second mux would then be a quasi-national reaching 80% of the population and carrying new DAB services such as All 80s, Mocha, RTE Choice, Junior etc etc

The result is no listener will be without their current favourite stations and the vast majority of listeners will enjoy a stack of brand new stations. The industry itself saves money by not having to double up on such expensive coverage with two mux systems and the current FM brand leaders maintain their advantage of full national coverage.

Just an idea!