A good panel with Phil Riley (Chrysalis), Mark Story (Emap), Trevor Dann (Radio Academy), Bob Cohen (Clear Channel).

Phil: DAB is already the dominant medium for digital listening, even though it’s in half the households that broadband/TV is.

Digital’s bloody expensive, and Ofcom don’t realise it. He reckons it’s a £25m cost for the industry. He quotes Chrysalis’s costs: £800,000 for analogue transmission, but £4m total transmission costs. Yikes.

Mentions income from podcasting of £120,000.

Says radio isn’t going away: Galaxy has a 54% reach for 13-19 y/olds in its TSAs.

Doesn’t believe that new virtual online only radio stations are any threat whatsoever to radio. Last.fm is inconsequential, he says.

Mark agrees: they’re not very sticky, and sees a future in customised radio, rather than these services. But says we shouldn’t be complacent.

Sees a revolution in workplace radio. Things have changed from ‘compromise radio’ - the one people least hate - to targeted radio through the web and headphones.

Bob talked about digital allowing additional choice ‘to fill a niche’.

Trevor talked about creating better compelling content, and using the web correctly - not just for augmentation.

Ofcom have just announced their Future of Radio consultation paper.

Not in the presentation I’ve just sat through at their plush Thames headquarters, but of interest to me, was the bit about DAB sound quality (page 113) - a pretty comprehensive review, kicked off by the extraordinary fact that

Of the 210 responses to Ofcom’s discussion document on the Future of Radio, over
70% (153) were either solely (92 responses) or partly (a further 61) regarding the
quality of current DAB digital radio broadcasts.

Interesting, then, the results of an independent survey done by ICM in January 2006, including, interestingly, a healthy sample of what Ofcom call audiophiles (”DAB hi-fi owners”).

And, as the Ofcom document correctly concludes:

So in conclusion, the research showed little evidence that the majority of the public
would agree with those respondents to the discussion document. That is not to say
that those respondents are wrong; it is simply that their expectations of audio
standards are not shared by the vast majority of listeners.

While those who inhabit the alt.radio.digital usenet group have probably already started rubbishing these claims and frothing at the mouth, the facts are clear. If anyone says “DAB sounds worse than FM”, they’re not reflecting the views of 94% of the population.

Incidentally, the document also says that Ofcom “do not rule out the future adoption of DAB+”, although adds a lot of caveats. This rather confirms my position that Quentin Howard’s recent pronouncement that DAB+ will never come to the UK was simply wrong - although, as I said at the time, it’s certainly correct to claim that there are currently no plans to move to DAB+, and this Ofcom document certainly doesn’t change that.

Doubtless I’ll get a lot of comments to this thread. On reading the comments, bear in mind that if 70% of the entire responses about “The Future of Radio” were about DAB sound quality, they’re a tremendously vocal minority and not representative of the general public. As a matter of policy, all comments here are approved if they’re not abusive, they are on-topic, and they don’t get caught by my Askimet anti-spam module.

I should add that these are my personal views and not those of SMG plc, who apparently still own my employer.

The recent Mobile TV show in Munich, Germany, was interesting for a radio person like me.

What an apt country to host a Mobile TV show. Drive 600km north, and you end up in Dusseldorf, where at the Radio Fair of 1954, a company called Intermetall unveiled the first portable transistor radio. Later that year, transistor radio sets were in the shops - at the equivalent of £250 in today’s prices. It wasn’t until the mid 1960s that the prices fell to below £50 each and they began to take off. (You might like to compare that to DAB Digital Radio today). So, mobile radio has had a good 53 years to mature somewhat; and now, mobile television is just around the corner. In some cases, like the iRiver I show above, it’s already here. But what technology should it use?

As I’ve said here before, consumers don’t care about technology. They don’t care about whether it’s FM, HD Radio, DAB, DRM, DVBH or TDMB. They just care that it works. But radio broadcasters should care about mobile TV technology - possibly more than TV broadcasters. And here’s why.

Take DVB-H. For a radio broadcaster, DVB-H is bad news: because it’s not backwards compatible with anything, so you’ll have more transmission costs to get onto this new platform. For a manufacturer or network provider, it’s not particularly good news either: a brand new network will have to be built, and in many cases (the UK included) the frequencies won’t become free for another few years. And for the consumer, it’s also bad news: my device will only pick up those broadcasters who’ve elected to spend money to broadcast on this new network. But Nokia are hugely behind it; and Nokia’s influence shouldn’t be underestimated. A full service is in Finland (soon, if not now), unsurprisingly - and in Albania, rather more surprisingly. For radio - it’s capable, at least; Finland’s Kiss (a station that appears to be run by Nokia, since it does everything Nokia tells them to do) is available, though I’m unclear of the transmission costs. The technology isn’t too far away from DVB-T (Freeview, if you’re in the UK), or DVB-S (Sky). For TV broadcasters, it’s close to a system they understand well - and probably, therefore, worth pursuing.

But that’s until you examine DMB. That’s a DMB receiver above. DMB is based on DAB technology - so, for a radio broadcaster, DMB is good news: because it’s backwards compatible with DAB Digital Radio. That iRiver device picked up Das Erste, but also picks up nearly twenty different digital radio stations. For a manufacturer or network provider, that’s also good news: because the radio companies have already paid to build a DAB network, and the frequencies are already internationally allocated. And for the consumer, that’s also good news: a consumer that thrives on content and choice (and all consumers do, no matter what Mark Ramsey says) will get the content they already know and love with DAB Digital Radio, as well as additional multimedia content with DMB television services. The South Koreans use it, in its terrestrial and satellite varieties, so the devices are there with minimal software changes; trials are also underway in Norway and France - although it’s not launched anywhere other than South Korea quite yet.

Or, take the mobile IP network. For a radio broadcaster, this is kind of okay; these systems normally (but not always) use your existing internet streams; but knowing how slow GPRS gets within central London, I’m not entirely sure whether a unicast internet network is the best plan for broadcasting a mass-market local breakfast show, for example. For the consumer, it’s bad news - because someone has to pay for the mobile bandwidth - and, given the low revenues earned by a typical radio broadcaster, it won’t be them. And it’ll only work on your mobile phone - nothing else. For a network provider, it means little extra investment; but it does mean considerable use of the mobile phone network. Indeed, one person from Orange said that it was difficult - because radio ends up having much longer usage times than TV on her network. However, full TV in this way is already in many European countries.

Wait a second. Did the woman from Orange say what we just thought she said? Yes. Radio ends up having much longer usage times than TV on mobile phones - this coincides with research from Virgin Mobile and BT last year. Hold that thought. Think of what it could do to your TSL/hours figures if radio is on every phone, iPod, or PDA.

A sensible fallback position is to convince the network operators (who currently appear to call the shots around mobile television) of the benefit and worth of radio. Ensure they put an FM radio in every single handset they ever make, for example. Ensure that they understand that adding radio into a handset costs little and is seen as a real benefit by consumers.

And then, tell them that DMB is the only way for them to deliver broadcast television. Because it can deliver radio as well.

The choice of mobile TV technology really does matter for radio broadcasters. If the world chooses DMB, any DAB radio broadcaster will be available on millions of new devices at no extra cost. If the world chooses DVB-H, we won’t be. It’s time to get involved.

(As a disclosure: I do work for a station that broadcasts various services on DAB. My employer is not a WorldDMB member, though - and while they are shareholders in some DAB multiplexes, my employer has a multi-platform policy. I never blog here on behalf of my employer.)

Launched by selected commercial radio stations today in the UK. Full-colour pictures on a DAB Digital Radio - using the WorldDMB standard for DAB Slideshow, and displaying pictures on any DAB Slideshow capable device, like this pre-production iRiver. Nice.

Demo at www.future-of-radio.co.uk if you don’t have one of these devices for yourself.

Participating stations are Capital Radio, Heart 106.2, Magic 105.4, Kiss, Xfm and Virgin Radio Xtreme.

Update: Replaced simulated picture with actual.

Over Christmas, we went to see the parents-in-law, who live in a fairly remote part of the country, with Christmas presents. One of those was a radio we’ve had for a year or so, but which we’ve found surplus to requirements recently, so we thought it was better given to them. It was second-hand, so wasn’t wrapped and almost given as an afterthought.

I must confess to being rather blown away by the response. Firstly, they were genuinely delighted with ‘a DAB radio’ - and said they were thinking of getting one anyway. You should understand that, in their late 60s, they are listeners to their local BBC radio station, as well as Radio 2, occasionally Radio 4, and not much else. I wouldn’t have put them into an ‘early-adopter’ category at all.

I set it up for them. First, I needed to reset it so that it didn’t display lots of London stations: a process convoluted enough to require a short time on my phone’s wireless browser to discover what the arcane sequence was to do that. Second, I needed to break the news, gently, that the radio wouldn’t work where it was. Because they’re in a fairly remote part of the UK, their coverage is poor enough to require the radio to be on the windowsill, rather than tucked in the corner of the room. However, I was told that this wasn’t a problem: in fact, “Radio 2 needed the radio moving around anyway, it goes all hissy”. Gripes about DAB’s coverage are fairly prevalent, but we forget that FM coverage is similarly poor for many people indoors.

Third, on turning the set on, the first comment was “doesn’t it sound good”. I was surprised by this being their first, unbidden, comment. First, they were comparing the sound quality of their local, FM, radio station with that of the 128k DAB signal. To me, there’s little difference (they are different, but neither is ‘worse’ or ‘better’ than the other to my ears). Secondly, the radio itself wasn’t a jump in build quality from their previous one: virtually identical size and sound.

Similarly interesting was when I asked them what their favourite stations were, so I could set the presets. On quoting her BBC local radio station’s name, my mother-in-law then reached for the table. “The number’s down there somewhere,” she said, “ninety point something”.

Finally, I showed her how easy it was to tune in. While tuning it, she recognised BBC7, and was delighted that “it had that”. She was also delighted with BBC Radio 5 Live, a channel that is impossible to pick up on AM where they live.

Market research on a panel of one is not the right thing to do: but my key learnings from this were:

- The additional choice that digital-only channels like BBC7 offer is now understood, and the brands are increasingly being recognised
- DAB indoor reception is poorer than FM: but we forget that FM indoor reception is pretty ropey too
- We have failed to communicate the ease of tuning message: no more fiddly numbers to remember.
- The public still equates DAB, first and foremost, with ‘better sound quality’. I still believe that most people are comfortable with tolerably-good audio quality, and that there is no appetite for 256k services: however, now there are three national commercial music services in mono, and some local music services sounding no better than AM, we need to remember the public’s expectations.

Later…

Three weeks later, they report that their listening habits have changed. Their local BBC station is still the most popular, but they now listen to BBC Radio Five Live for the football, and BBC World Service for the news. Which shows that additional choice is attractive. Who’d have thought it.

The first time, I think, I’ve seen DAB Digital Radio mentioned in a book (”Out of the ordinary”, by Jon Ronson - a collection of his recent newspaper articles and diary entries).

Interesting. Why does Jon feel the need to tell us it’s a ‘pocket DAB personal radio’, not just a ‘pocket radio’?

The same reason that we talk about owning an iPod, not an MP3 player.

The more that other people feel like Jon - that having a DAB radio is a badge of honour, and worth showing off - the better.

In a post to his blog, Mark Ramsey warns about the dangers of choice.

Words of warning for those who think a zillion channels of anything - satellite, hd, or Internet radio stations - will give more people more of what they want and make them happier as a result.

Too much choice is a turn-off.

Read this piece from Australian TV

The Australian TV story talks about making purchases - and appears to claim that less people buy jam if there is more choice of jams to buy in the first place. I think it’s wholly irrelevant when you look at the media choices we make.

Contrary to popular opinion, satellite radio (in the US) or DAB Digital Radio (in the UK) does not succeed because it offers a gazillion extra channels. In London, my FM dial offers me around 15 channels, while my DAB Digital Radio offers me around 50. I listened to around four or five channels when I had an FM radio, and I listen to around four or five channels now I’ve a DAB Digital Radio. The DRDB’s research, from memory, doesn’t show that people with DAB listen to many more radio stations (although does show that they do listen longer than an average radio owner).

The point isn’t that I’ve three times the channels to choose from (I have), but that I now have three times the chance of finding a channel I like. That channel might be one also available on FM, but might also be one new to digital. For me, I listen more to BBC Radio Five Live (in analogue it’s on scratchy medium-wave), and LBC (in analogue it’s on an FM signal particularly badly affected by pirates), as well as the BBC World Service, a new-to-digital channel (in the UK, at least).

As radio businesses, we need to appreciate that it’s not just other radio stations that can steal our audience away: it’s everything from Pandora and last.fm, to iTunes and in-car CD auto-changers; and shortly, mobile TV. I’m a long-time reader of Mark’s insightful blog; but the benefits of adding more choice is clear - it allows radio businesses to retain current listeners and attract more listeners, even if they listen to one of your other digital-only services. (You *are* selling these as a network sell, aren’t you?)

Mark’s regularly posting against HD Radio; I’m not convinced that the technology is right, but the fact that it offers more choice is a benefit, not a drawback.

Incidentally, my favourite jam is Bonne Maman, but if that choice isn’t available, I’ll happily cope with Robertsons. If neither of these choices are available and I can only choose from the crappy supermarket brand, I’ll pass, thanks. I’m clearly in the minority in terms of jam buying, at least in Australia.