My Nan has a DAB receiver that picks up squat, I use Internet radio but as it takes 20 minutes for my laptop to boot its about ready to go as I’m walking through the door. That leaves Satellite but unfortunately that’s always tuned to kids TV.

So the future of Radio, that would be FM then.

Digital Radio has a long way to mature before it replaces FM. I need to be able to buy a BBC ready Internet radio tuner or a DAB tuner (or even a satellite tuner) at reasonable price that can just be plugged in and works.

So the technicalities of platforms don’t matter to me as a listener (although they do to my inner geek) but what they do is make listening possible where it wasn’t before and widen scope. The challenge for the broadcasters is to increase the scope and public awareness of programmes too so we can maximise the benefits we can get from the new technologies.

You said the following in your post:

“Its certainly true in my case (and by extension in the case of every right-minded person) that the platform is a virtual irrelevance save for one factor, DRM.”

and

“But what I really want from radio is for it’s output to be comprehensively archived, instantly accessible and ubiquitous.”

Those two statements are contradictory, because only certain platforms can deliver on-demand content (which you say you want), so the platform cannot be “an irrelevance” to you.

I think what you (and James) are referring to is the actual technologies being irrelevant to people, which is true: no-one could care less whether the system’s name is DAB, DVB-H or DMB or eMBMS or 4G etc.

The reason why there is so much discussion of platforms, though, is because platforms define what you can receive on them. For example, you can receive on-demand content via the Internet whereas it’s impossible to receive such content via one-to-many broadcast systems such as DAB.

Ultimately, platforms are like football referees: the better they are the less they’re talked about, and vice versa. And the reason why there is so much discussion of platforms is simply because DAB isn’t up to the job, and it hasn’t been up to the job for most of the last decade – as the rest of the world will testify, as the rest of the world decided not to use DAB.

The German commercial radio groups have got the right idea: scrap DAB/DAB+ and combine Internet with broadcast (presumably they want to use a modern broadcast system rather than DAB/DAB+). That would then deliver what consumers want: lots of choice, on-demand content, high audio quality, interactivity/personalisation. They’re basically the requirements that a digital radio system must deliver in order for the system to be fit for purpose at the present time. DAB fails to deliver a number of those things, hence we have lots of talk about platforms.

Content is of the utmost importance, but platform is still highly relevant. Radio needs to be free and simple to consume – the old fashioned recipe. New platforms enhance this, but won’t quickly replace it.

Back to basics now, what I don’t understand is the “speech radio” = “content” assumption that is being made here.

Admittedly, a lot of “pop radio” appears to nothing more than a bland repetitive playlist, with consolidation and networking exacerbating this. However, in both the BBC and commercial sectors, we must still appeal to the masses. An extremely well produced “AcousticCountryOneHitWondersOfThe80s FM” service is all very nice – but how do you fund it?).

What I’m trying to say (reference James C’s recent tweet that “20% of all radio listening in UK is to a speech station”) is that “music radio”, whether it be local or national, is a fundamental part of our industry – and our future.

Yes, it needs to be done to a decent standard (ie: content), but iTunes, Spotify and the like, whilst brilliantly innovative and gradually growing in popularity, will take a very long time to replace present day music radio. Partly because of platform, but largely due to the lack of content. Mr Public at home/work/in the car wants a ready mix of the music he knows and loves, assisted discovery of new music that he is likely to love, a local/national/relevant news service, travel information, other entertainment/info and contact with the rest of the human race – plus a real person to relate to and to hold it all together.

So, content, as ever, is king – but in the immediate and near future, don’t brush aside the importance of your traditional “music radio” service. Its so much more than it might appear – the numbers at rajar.co.uk prove that!

We just need to continue to do it well.

My analysis of the situation suggests that in the future, broadcast radio will be used for delivery of “live” speech radio. This will be mainly in the form of news and specialist news services such as sports news, business news and local news.

Perhaps some of the specialist music services will survive too, but “pop radio” seems as up-to-date as a Bacolite radio or black and white television.

I enjoy tuning in to the live schedule that someone’s laboured to assemble – doubtless the same unconscious sense of shared experience that prompts you to watch a bastardized cut of a much loved film when it turns up live, rather than reaching for the directors cut on bluray at your leisure.

But what I really want from radio is for it’s output to be comprehensively archived, instantly accessible and ubiquitous.

I’d like every scrap of magnificent (and not so magnificent) content indexed and available for replay almost as soon as its been broadcast.

In that respect platforms just become a way to access particular views of a single ever expanding body of work; the vast corpus of radio shows is a sort of huge coarse grained itunes; podcasts are individual tracks promoted for approval; schedules are popular extended sets mixed by meta DJs; “Live” radio is a constant stream of the latest additions; listen on demand lets me construct my own playlist.

The platform may restrict which of these slices of content I’m able to access at any one time, but just as a matter of horsepower and connectivity, not of policy.

Granting my particular wish seems to involve:

1) Archiving the content as it’s produced in a timely way, keeping it indefinitely, and navigating it successfully (doubtless the first two are already done and the third under constant development)

and

2) Skirting round the obstacles imposed by performing rights and DRM to allow it to happen.

The first seems like it’s just a matter of time and brute force. The second looks a little closer than it was, but it needs a sort of universal consensus that still seems distant.

Here’s my tenner – you sort out the micropayments.

Let me deviate slightly off the beaten track for a minute. Now, we all know a lot of stations don’t consider “speech” content as king and a music jukebox as the almighty answer to…

a) think the listener is okay to tune into a select amount of records that repeat themselves quite often – Where really, most music is readily available on iTunes or now, services such as Spotify. Really they’re a big threat to mainstream radio.

b) saving money – Content (in the eyes of commercial especially) costs money. That’s the attitude of the big corps from the sounds of the recent events of the “Heart” rebrand. Is networking worth a bunch of ex-TV, ex-Celeb, ex-Whatever not to do with radio and expect to deliver good quality content in a restrictive manor surrounded by adverts?

c) thinking the listener wants music content only – The GWR/Capital/ILR models have obviously carried through and have stripped and been teared apart. It’s a shame there’s been a lack of innovation in comparison to the BBC who have seemed to keep a good balance on all their network stations. Not that I believe in cutting off older presenters in the sake of keeping a young remit. If presenters are clever enough, they can still relate to young audiences in other ways.

I know the average joe doesn’t care about delivery platforms which I think you’re right on. Mixing DAB into this age I think has confused a lot of people and has introduced a severely old platform that really maybe should of been dumped in the wake of DAB+. With a rough idea of how much it costs to deliver on DAB, I can see why content is being slashed to get the station on all platforms as possible.

I could go on all day, but the simple message from me is…

If radio continues this path (with the majority of big stations taking music over speech), a lot of younger generations will lose touch on what radio is all about. Thank-god the BBC is still around to show us how it should be done.

Platforms = yes. We do talk about them a lot.

But that’s because the purposes they serve and the benefits they offer vary SO enormously between them.. from broadcast radio, which offers a small (either in terms of distilled quality or carefully researched advert-filler music) range of linear content to a large audience, to the internet which offers a vast range of content in random access form to what often amounts to a tiny sustained minority – those who are aware, and appreciate that particular idiom.

The question is – in my opinion – how else does one classify both content and audience conveniently, save for in terms of platform?

And I – and many others – have long wished for, investigated and generally failed to find a means by which the range of distilled quality at the ‘small audience’ end of the scale might find an audience the size of that which is served by broadcast radio… is that the ‘magic bullet’ of platform?

*Please note: these are the ramblings of a tired bloke who kinda understands what he’s trying to say, but can’t quite communicate them with any erudition at all.*
j

The radio of the future can have thousands of stations; it can be in our cars, laptops, ipods on our TVs, in our showers; they can have video displays and tell us the weather or be pausable or recordable; Christ they can leap off the bed-side table and take us on in a game of chess…but if every station they offer insist on “banging out the hits” with “memories and music” and the “top ten at ten” they’ll find themselves playing chess on the shelves of Curries.

Fact is the world has changed. We want more from our radio. We want speech. We want to be challenged.

We. Want. Content.

So that’s about 0.5% of the industry converted then. Shame Mark Thompson/Herr Bauer/Mr Global don’t read blogs.

This is probably why I assumed Real was still required.

I will try the nationals from your link and compare with Freeview.

You may be aware of Radio Paradise (internet). They seem to achieve remarkable quality on 128k and 192k AAC although I suspect a little ‘shaping’ going on expecially in the upper bass region.

Does R2 output get similarly shaped? The music on R2 sounds especially ‘lush’ almost as if one of those old EMT 950 turtables were still being used.

“Freeview radio – using optical digital audio output from a DVD/HDD/Freeview recorder via a DAC – is the next best quality (not ‘hair-raising’ though) and then iPlayer radio via the DAC. (Not live BBC internet radio though as it still requires Real).”

Actually, live BBC internet radio no longer requires Real (at least for nationals) and is significantly better quality. Please have another go – www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/ – if there’s one thing I’ve achieved, it’s what I believe to be the highest-quality digital streams available. Technically, it’s better than DAB; subjectively, at least, it’s also better than Freeview and Sky.

The ‘Gold Standard’ – for me – is a good hifi FM stereo tuner and a decent FM roof aerial. No other ‘platform’ can get the hairs on the back of my neck going up during a live R3 recital or a R4 drama.

Freeview radio – using optical digital audio output from a DVD/HDD/Freeview recorder via a DAC – is the next best quality (not ‘hair-raising’ though) and then iPlayer radio via the DAC. (Not live BBC internet radio though as it still requires Real).

I don’t even count DAB as a serious platform (hackle raising rather than hairs!) Even my Pure Evoke Flow internet/FM/DAB portable in the kitchen sounds better with FM and ‘Play it again’ on BBC streamed from my wireless network than DAB.

I have also heard FM and DAB pitched against each other from a top brand tuner (Arcam T32) being fed with signal from professionally installed FM and DAB roof antennae. (Line of sight to Rowridge transmitter and perfect reception on all BBC radio.)

Even in this ‘best case’ comparison DAB was hopeless at anything other than very simple musical material. When things got ‘busy’ DAB just collapsed everything into a flat, compressed wall-of-sound where fainter instruments in the mix would come and go depending on how loud/dynamic a part of the music was.

One thing that is fundamental to our future of radio is not how we listen but how we can listen. I don’t mind if i listen on DAB or FM, as long as i can get a decent signal. As a broadcaster, you are aware of what platforms you are broadcasting on. Five Live, for instance, now has music reviews and live sets on sometimes. This is possible, in part, to DAB – it makes it listenable. It’s still fairly terrible on AM, but DAB is good.

But, i want to be able to listen to the radio in the car. DAB in the car – if you can guarantee me a signal, then yes. Internet radio maybe even possible over the 3G networks, if there was full coverage.

I’m drifting. Ok, to answer the question. Yes – too much is talked about what platforms there are. It’s a call for the government, for the CEOs of the big companies, for the BBC, to agree a standardised format – one that will work everywhere, with every station, in quality. Role it out, and make it work. And also, make it work across europe. Make intelligent devices, not poor consumers who need an FM radio for here, a DAB radio for there, a DAB+ radio for europe, and stuck with AM for this and that because nothing else is possible.

Blanket decisions can be bad, but if it saves me money and it’s better (or as good as) what I had, then i don’t mind how i get it.