James Cridland

James Cridland's blog

A radio futurologist writing about what happens when radio and new platforms collide

« | Blog index | »

DAB+ goes live in Australia: watch

Posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 10:47am. #

I hadn’t appreciated, until I watched the above video from Joan Warner (the CEO of Commercial Radio Australia) how the launch of DAB+ was achieved earlier this year in Australia.

Watch it. The amount of coverage of this story was incredible – all over the television, and impossible to ignore.

When was the last time you saw this amount of coverage for the radio – and unprompted discussions of the features (pausing, rewinding) by news hosts? Quite awe-inspiring.

(I’m grateful to Joan for letting me steal her DVD and post it here)

4 Tweets

6 comments

Steve Green said at October 30th, 2009 at 12:58pm

“When was the last time you saw this amount of coverage for the radio”

Are you excluding the BBC’s 22 high-impact TV advertising campaigns it has shown for DAB over the last 7 years, or are you including those thousands and thousands of TV adverts as being “coverage for the radio”?

jamesstodd said at October 30th, 2009 at 1:04pm

Can’t imagine UK radio playing together nicely like this? RT @matt: Make’s UK radio’s squabbles seem childish…: http://bit.ly/3GfUtR

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Ben Cropp said at October 31st, 2009 at 3:51pm

Oh Steve – I think James means UNPROMPTED coverage by commercial and public service TV. That is – not orchestrated by or for a broadcaster. In fact, it is far and away more in terms of PR than we in the UK have ever achieved – give credit where its due – I for one UK person am blown away by it.( Oh, and do you work for the BBC?)

James Cridland said at October 31st, 2009 at 6:56pm

Steve Green, who runs the digitalradiotech website, harrasses me and others in the industry. Every comment by him in my blog will henceforth be accompanied by this text, which will also serve to highlight his appalling behaviour to others; and I am no longer permitting more than one comment per article from the harrasser Steve Green.

David Beard said at November 6th, 2009 at 7:50am

James –

Useful post which perhaps I can enrich ?

As an Australian (albeit living in LDN now) and having involvement in media over there, the level of coverage reflects a few points about the Australian DNA.

1 – The Australian commercial media has a much greater hold than, say, in the UK. To that end, *any* stories to bolster their sales pitch (and, of course, told by their own), is always going to get coverage.

2 – Similar to (1), the industry is a bit “clubby” – maybe reflects the nation size ? So, jamborees such as these always go down well.

3 – The quality / depth of output of current affairs over there is, well, thin. I am just back from a week in Sydney – it always amazes (= frightens) me what passes for “news” in a major metro market, at primetime.

4 – The country has always been a bit nerdy when it comes to technology. Some call it an “early adopting” nation. Either way, new toys make the news.

-= David

Leanne Humphreys said at November 12th, 2009 at 11:00pm

David – Oh poor sad embittered expat.! I too am an expat living in Mexico and have worked in media around the world. Media in Oz is not clubby – it is incredibly competitive and TV gives radio no breaks at all. ABC wouldnot thank you for your comments on news coverage nor would the news talk radio stations. Get off your high horse. By the way, as an Australian you should know we are early adopters and known world wide for that – it’s hardly nerdy.

Leave a comment

To prove you're human, type the two words below into the box provided.

This website uses Gravatars (the pretty pictures of commenters). Upload yours here.

Additional comments powered by BackType