1. DAB RADIO: NICE PLATFORM,
SHAME ABOUT THE TAKE-UP
GRANT GODDARD
24 June 2008

2. • Consumer take-up both of DAB receiver hardware and of listening to
digital-only radio stations has been slow, in spite of considerable
investment in content and in transmission infrastructure for the
platform by the BBC and commercial radio since 1995
• Despite lack of consumer interest, the Digital Radio Working Group
has recommended that ‘DAB’ (Digital Audio Broadcasting) become
the primary digital radio platform in the UK, and that an “aspiration”
date of 2020 be adopted for digital switchover
• Regardless of the potential offered by other digital platforms,
including IP-delivered audio, the Government is insisting that DAB
remain the preferred platform for broadcast radio in the UK
Although the switchover from analogue to digital transmission is well under
way in the TV sector, migration is so underdeveloped in the radio sector that a
Digital Radio Working Group has been convened by the Department for
Culture, Media & Sport to move the issue forward. The Group’s Interim Report
concludes that, “for the foreseeable future, the UK market must adopt DAB as
the main digital radio broadcast platform”. For this to be achieved, the Group
recommends that “Ofcom and Government should make clear statements of
their intention to build a digital radio future” and “should state that DAB will be
the primary digital delivery mechanism in the UK, at least for the next 15 to 20
years”. The Report advocates that this can be achieved by creating a
“combined marketing message” from all parties involved in promotion of the
platform – the regulator, the BBC, the commercial radio sector, the UK-based
DAB radio receiver manufacturers, the radio transmission companies and the
Government.
It appears that the one stakeholder who remains to be convinced that DAB is
the radio platform of the future is the consumer. The facts are these. DAB was
launched as a broadcast platform by the BBC in 1995, followed by commercial
radio in 1999. By Q1 2008, more than 7 million DAB receivers had been sold,
and 27% of adults owned a DAB radio at home. Despite these successes,
80% of the total 10 million new radios purchased annually in the UK are still
old-fashioned analogue (FM/AM) rather than DAB; only 11% of radio listening
is via the DAB platform; and only 4% of all radio listening is to ‘new’ digital-
only radio stations. In other words, even amongst the 27% of adults who own
DAB radios, the overwhelming majority of their listening is to ‘old’ analogue
stations that they could already receive on their FM/AM radio receivers.
There has been no shortage of effort to push DAB. The BBC currently spends
£30 million per year on the five digital radio stations it launched in 2002, and
its DAB transmission costs add a further £10 million per annum. Commercial
radio says it is spending £26 million per annum on DAB. Additionally, the BBC
and commercial radio have jointly funded since 2001 the staffing and activities
of the Digital Radio Development Bureau to promote the DAB platform. The
BBC has regularly run major marketing campaigns since 2002 to promote its
DAB services, each lasting four to six weeks, on TV, radio and online. In total,
the infrastructure, content and marketing costs of the DAB platform run into

3. hundreds of millions of pounds to date. Yet, the digital switchover of radio is
so far into the future as to be intangible (the Interim Report suggests 2020 be
considered as an “aspiration”).
The end result is that consumers are still not excited enough by the DAB
proposition to go out and buy receivers in sufficient numbers to propel the
platform into mass acceptance, even after a decade. An Ofcom survey in
2007 found that only 18% of consumers in England were likely to purchase a
DAB radio during the next six months (15% in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland). It also found confusion amongst consumers around the terminology
‘DAB’ and ‘digital radio’. Despite 85% of UK households having access to
digital TV at home, only 39% of adults were aware that they could access
digital radio channels via their TV set. Even consumer awareness of the term
‘DAB’ has only reached 75% in England, according to Ofcom.
Why does the consumer seem so underwhelmed by DAB? Maybe it is
because the wide ‘choice’ of channels promised by DAB is somewhat of an
illusion. In addition to two national DAB multiplexes (one BBC, one
commercial), most areas of the UK are served by one local DAB multiplex,
although London is unique in being served by three local multiplexes.
Someone who purchases a DAB radio receiver in London will initially be
pleased to find 52 stations listed on its interface. However, of these 52
options, 23 are merely relays of stations already available on FM/AM in
London, 3 have closed down (and are broadcasting a ‘sorry’ text message), 2
are part-time, 2 are religious, 8 serve ethnic minorities and 1 transmits only
birdsong. That leaves 16 full-time mainstream stations, of which 4 are
BBC/non-commercial and 12 are commercial. Of the 12 commercial stations,
3 are relays of analogue brands that lack an FM/AM transmitter in London,
and 6 have no ‘live’ content. That leaves the consumer in London with only 3
BBC services and 4 commercial services that are ‘live’ stations created for the
digital platform (and which are not part-time, religious, ethnic, birdsong, traffic
news, closed or existing analogue brands). Outside of London, the number of
stations offered on DAB is considerably narrower.
Not that the UK consumer’s lacklustre interest in DAB is evident in the
whirlwind of positive publicity that envelops the platform. In the UK, Ofcom
insists that DAB is “currently the only platform offering national and local
services to fixed and portable/mobile devices”, despite the FM platform being
incorporated into around half the mobile phone models offered in the UK
(whilst none currently have DAB). Abroad, the World DMB Forum is busy
telling Europeans that DAB “has achieved major success” in the UK and that
this “huge success of DAB… can be replicated in other markets”. The Digital
Radio Working Group’s Interim Report points to “encouraging signs” that
France and Germany will adopt variants of the DAB transmission standard,
but our view is that, with no possibility of DAB being implemented in the US, it
will remain a non-universal standard in the increasingly global marketplace for
consumer hardware.
To its credit, the BBC has done everything within its power to make the DAB
platform a success. It has invested substantially in programming, developed

4. new channels that offer consumers content not duplicated by its analogue
stations, and has marketed the DAB platform at every opportunity. Although
the commercial radio sector complains regularly about the BBC’s market
power, its own DAB ventures have benefited immeasurably from the sheer
scale of the BBC marketing push. However, none of the BBC’s five digital
radio stations has yet achieved more than a 0.5% share of radio listening
nationally, even after five years on-air. Commercial radio’s DAB content
strategy has been less focused than the BBC and, as a result, its efforts have
produced more uneven success.
But even the BBC realises that DAB will never replace FM as the main radio
broadcast platform, and so it is likely to exist for some time as an adjunct to
FM. On the multiplatform radio receivers of the (near) future, DAB might be
just one option alongside FM, AM and IP. Although publicly the BBC will
continue to beat the drum for DAB (“DAB is a success story”, said Jenny
Abramsky, Director of BBC Audio & Music in February 2008), privately it
understands that no single platform is likely to replace FM.
In the same week that the Digital Radio Working Group concluded that “DAB
is the most appropriate replacement for analogue radio in the UK”, the BBC
has organised an ‘Internet Radio Summit’ attended by radio equipment
manufacturers to “discuss the future of internet radios and how they can be
effectively promoted to the public”. The stated aim of the day is “to form an
alliance of the major players in the industry to jointly work on issues that affect
the development of internet radio”. It is the clearest signal yet that, even
though the UK radio industry is totally committed to promoting DAB to
consumers as the ‘new technology’ for radio, the battleground might already
be moving on to another platform (IP-delivered audio) that can offer ‘listen
again’ and ‘podcast’ programmes which DAB cannot, and that can promise
consumers a diversity of content as yet unfulfilled by DAB.
Even the Digital Radio Working Group’s Interim Report admits that “IP is likely
to play a vital role in the future digital radio landscape”, though it still argues
that “it is not sensible, at this stage, to switch to technologies which are not
compatible with the more than 7 million DAB sets already sold”. So, instead of
embracing IP or other developing digital platforms, the UK is planning to
saddle itself for the next 20 years with a broadcast technology that was first
demonstrated in 1985.
[First published by Enders Analysis as report 2008-63e.]
© 2008 Grant Goddard
Published by Radio Books
http://www.radiobooks.org
http://www.grantgoddard.co.uk