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Media
Smaller radio groups reconfirm opposition to DAB shift
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 23 September 2011
It’s no secret that some of the smaller radio groups in the UK are against proposals backed by government, the BBC and the bigger radio firms to force the listening public onto the DAB digital network by pulling most stations off FM in a few years time. And now they’ve put that opposition into a formal response to media regulator OfCom, who have been consulting on the issue.
Radio groups UKRD, Tindle, Celador, Media Sound Holdings, Town & Country plus the owners of truly independent stations like The Revolution in Oldham and Juice in Brighton have put their names to the document, which says that their services should be able to opt out of the FM to DAB exodus because they believe the digital network is still unproven, that it remains unpopular with listeners, and that it will potentially be superseded by other technologies before it’s even taken off.
Speaking for the group, the boss of UKRD, William Rogers, always vocal on this issue, told Radio Today: “What this consultation shows us is that DAB is a hopelessly inappropriate platform for the existing FM local services to migrate to and it’s time that local commercial radio services were excluded from the present DAB planning process and allowed to continue broadcasting on FM. We don’t need, want or support this change. Things are tough enough as it is without the government heaping more costs, uncertainty and damage on the local commercial radio sector. DAB for local commercial radio is inappropriate. It should be dumped”.
Responding to the coalition of smaller stations, Ford Ennals of Digital Radio UK – the body set up to promote and oversee the move to digital – told Radio Today that the idea of keeping smaller and community stations on FM is already being considered, so the wishes expressed in this document do not necessarily conflict with his and the government’s plans to make the national and bigger FMs exclusively digital services. New radio sets that can merge FM and DAB transmissions (and web radio) into one electronic programme guide would also make that scenario more viable.
