Is DAB effectively dead?
Posted by Dimitrios Matsoulis on April 7, 2008
Is DAB effectively dead? If we judge from what is happening in the UK, it is probably a matter of time. Although there are currently 6.5 million DAB receivers, defections towards other types of access to audio content have started to become intolerable.
Things of course needed not be like that. DAB was supposed to be the digital FM replacement at a time when competition from the Internet was practically non-existent. A quick standardisation Europe-wide and a forced switch to digital radio broadcasting with a deadline date for analogue brodcasts would have easily done the trick. But what happened instead? As usual, there were no firm decisions in order to keep everybody happy. Radio stations were kept content as they did not have to modernise any equipment, while changes were minor with digital-on-analogue services like RDS and text on screen.
Were consumers happy? FM reception was always a problem, but in the 90s there were hardly any alternatives. Now go forward one decade to present time. Internet radio gives thousands of choices. There is podcasts, videos on demand, program downloads, you name it… Even the most hardcore radio enthousiast cannot keep their ears shut any more.
The UK has been one market where DAB got into a fairly decent start. However, the aggressive push by BBC has possibly created a negative effect, especially now that the very same people that sold DAB so hard effectively bypass it with Internet services that are much better and have infinitely more chances to evolve with time. At the moment, BBC radio streams grow six times faster than DAB, while the later does not cover the entire nation and is approximately four times more expensive to run than FM radio!
The problems faced are long-standing and changes are slow. It’s no secret that DAB sound quality is problematic and although a solution exists with the use of the AAC/AAC+ codecs and the introduction of DAB+ no such firm moves have been announced by the BBC. Channel 4’s plans to broadcast in DAB+ have been stalled by the Ofcom -the independent UK radio regulator.
As a result, no DAB radio supplier is in a rush to sell DAB+ receivers, despite the fact that DAB+ multiplexing is three times more efficient -in other words there is room for three times the stations of simple DAB- while the emission cost is roughly divided by three! Bear in mind that DAB+ is a cheap upgrade since it uses the same network with DAB. Imagine what would happen if new equipment was necessary…
But even if all necessary moves were done right now, time is running out or has maybe run out already. Internet and wireless technologies like multicasting and 3.5G/4G are a small revolution and cannot be ignored. As almost all users have now developed a huge appetite for web-like functionality and de-localised services, it is highly unlikely that a few radio stations -no matter how good they are- are going to make a difference.
Admittedly, DAB is one of those technologies for which I have never felt sorry for not having. It never took off here in Greece, as indeed in most countries. It is one of the times when not adopting a certain technology has turned out to be an advantage that opens more opportunities with fresher and more capable alternatives.
Link: Register
