Commercial Radio Australia are to trial sending Podcasts over-the-air via DAB+ to a listeners radio eliminating any need to connect to the internet.
Podcasts are great. You pick what programme you want and listen to it when it suits you best. The downside is you need to find them, download them, and transfer them to an mp3 player and so on. Broadcasting Podcasts direct to a radio receiver eliminates all that downside leaving listeners with just the benefits.
This is what we love about DAB radio. Lots more stations, Slideshow displaying …

To the annoyance of DAB detractors digital radio continues to grow in the UK.
The latest RAJAR results for digital radio are stunning.
In Reach, that is how many people use it however briefly, digital radio is heard by 38.5% of the population at some stage during an average week.
Most importantly in Share, that is out of all listening to all radio how much is shared by digital, the amazing result is 24%. Wow! Just on a quarter of ALL radio listening in the UK is now done using a digital receiver …

This week the Broadcasting Authority (BAI) announced their contract negotiations with all three potential operators of digital terrestrial television (DTT) have now failed.
The process started over two years ago with the award of the licence in principal to Boxer, the combined Denis O’Brien Communicorp and Swedish Boxer group. After a year they withdrew from the process citing the economy and breakdown of negotiations with RTÉ as reasons.
The licence was then offered to the runners-up, OneVision, the Eircom/TV3 consortium. After another year they too withdrew also citing breakdown of negotiations …

A new DAB trial has begun in the South-East of Ireland serving Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny.
The trial, operating under a one year ComReg licence on Band III 9B, is being run by Total Broadcast Ltd in Waterford. Initially the trial is simulcasting local radio services.
The trial will encompass tests on station bitrates, transmission power and location in addition to a planned trial of DAB+.
The multiplexer itself was constructed by the team at Total Broadcast. Knowing the system from the ground up will allow the company to experiment greatly …

It is with profound regret we’ve had to remove our online All 80s service as we have been unable to renegotiate an equitable music royalty rate with the main music copyright agencies.
The online rate quoted by both the PPI and MCPS/IMRO is 0.001 cent per song per listener. Though it sounds miniscule collectively it equates to € 260 per listener per year. If we have just 1,000 listeners it’s plain to see that a royalty in excess of a quarter of a million euro becomes an unworkable sum.
We very much …

The first speech by Bob Collins, the new Chairman of the BAI, appears to mark a departure from the Authorities traditional focus on the administrative end of regulation to a more visionary stance.
Mr Collins called on the commercial broadcasting sector to take a more active part in emerging technologies. “Commercial broadcasters cannot stand back and see digital radio as being only something for public service broadcasting” he said. “Digital radio is an area where we have to be involved. We can’t stand back as observers of technological and editorial development …

The BBC are to expand it’s national DAB network with 60 additional transmitters.
This will result in DAB digital radio being available to 90% of the population. This almost global coverage is one of the key targets of last years Digital Britian Upgrade plan which laid the roadmap for the transition from FM to DAB.
Of interest to the island of Ireland is the installation of seven additional transmitters in Northern Ireland bringing DAB to Enniskillen & the North Antrim coast as well as bolstering coverage in Belfast.
Despite plans to drop two …

Commercial Radio Australia today released data relating to the first six months of DAB+.
Some of the headlines;

449,000 people are listening to digital radio each week
80% of them would recommend it to a friend
63% of the population are aware that DAB+ has launched in Australia
38% of people expect to purchase a set in the coming year

Considering DAB+ is on-air in just five cities for six months 449,000 people, or just over 2% of the population, is a great start. It goes to prove that when broadcasters “agree on technology and compete …

Digital Radio Ltd are happy to announce our official support for the RadioDNS project.
RadioDNS enables radio broadcasters to link their FM/DAB signal to IP delivered services significantly enhancing the radio listening experience. This means an FM/DAB radio or mobile phone with wi-fi can identify a radio station from its DAB or FM signal. Using that information it can connect to the radio stations web-server to display additional content on the radio itself.
Radio DNS is very clever in its simplicity and its supporters include very large broadcasters in Europe, United States …

The Australian is reporting that more than 100,000 digital radios have been sold Down Under in the six months since DAB+ launched there.
The figure, twice as many as expected, was revealed by Frontier Silicon the company which supplies the chips and software for the majority of receivers in the market. Chief Executive of Frontier Silicon, Anthony Sethill, says they expect a further 250,000 sales this year meaning Australia will have 400,000 units in the market by Christmas.
Joan Warner of Commercial Radio Australia said they will “have official figures in March …