Wait Wait
The “Digital Radio for Ireland” report was launched at the BCI on Friday. It’s an overview of the industry’s position on the future of Irish digital broadcasting compiled from the views of key commercial, public and independent operators including our company.
The report recommends a Digital Radio Forum be established to conduct more research to present in a White Paper for further consultation. The BCI itself welcomed the report saying it “will play a key part in assisting and informing the policy development process”.
So if you’re waiting for the formal adoption of DAB in this country, you can wait.
However, wait is the key word, as the report was generally supportive and positive about digital radio and there is very much the feeling that digital is the future and it will happen.
Many of the reports contributors agree digital will be an integral, though not exclusive, part of the future of Irish broadcasting with most seeing FM as continuing in service for at least another 15 to 20 years. As to which flavour of DAB Ireland will eventually adopt, it’s almost universally agreed that DAB+ will be the platform of choice. In addition multimedia services such as Slideshow are considered key to the success of the platform. Additional new services are also welcomed though not so much from the commercial sector.
The report also shows agreement among all radio operators that the development of digital broadcasting should follow a coordinated policy agreed by all parties and led by the BAI. Some frustration was expressed that this hasn’t been put in place already. Kevin O’Brien, Principal Officer (Broadcasting) at the Department of Communications said “We put in place a framework, ComReg have provided a licence to RTE, RTE have gone ahead with that … the BCI haven’t done so. To be straight, our expectation would have been that they would have done it by now”.
We share his frustration. However as we wait for the nessessary policies to be formed by the BCI, our company intend to take a central and active part in the process. One of our contributions will be a broadcasting trial of DAB+ which will include Slideshow, Tagging, Broadcast Web Site, Filecasting and more.
Over the coming week or two I shall try to post some more detail on the three key areas the report covered namely a survey on digital with existing broadcasters, strategic interviews with key players and research on what Irish listeners want from digital radio.
In the meantime, you can download the entire report here.
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