The government gives Classic FM a £6M subsidy just for broadcasting on DAB.
It would cost Classic FM £6M to broadcast nationwide on DAB - but they choose not to.
Not sure if this is right?
A national FM transmission cost for 99% population (not land) coverage is about £3.6m PA according to the BBC annual report, Classic FM is about 95% coverage so will be less, say about £3m PA?
A national stereo Digital (DAB, DTT plus internet) transmission cost is about £1.5m PA (for about 93% DAB coverage) according to the BBC annual report so Classic FM will pay about the same.
Before a DSO Digitalone has to improve coverage to 95% to match FM coverage, but the extra running costs will probably be much less than the earlier estimates (as existing masts and sites will be used) so may increase to say not much more than £1.8m PA for all platform digital transmission per station (rather than £6m PA)?
So there is not any subsidy?
However the Ofcom licence fee for Classic FM, Absolute and Talksport has been greatly reduced in order to promote digital radio (reducing income to the Government, which is a loss to the Government finances), it could be argued that the national analogue radio licence fees were too high compared to other countries and as the article below says ad revenue on FM and AM licences will drop as listeners go digital?
edit http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1050560/classic-fm-talksport-licence-fees-cut-nominal-amount
Ofcom has slashed the cost of Global Radio's and UTV's licences for Classic FM and TalkSport after a review ruled new entrants would not be prepared to pay for the licences.
The changes follow the Digital Economy Act, which provided for the three national analogue radio licences to be renewed without a competitive auction in return for support for the DAB platform from radio companies.
The licences for Classic FM and TalkSport will now be set at £10,000 a year for the next seven years. Absolute Radio, the third national licensee, has until the end of the month to apply for an extension of its AM licence.
In October 2010 Ofcom said it was considering the value of the licences to a new entrant in the period from the start of the renewed licence term to December 2015.
Global Radio currently pays £50,000 and 6% of qualifying revenue classed as national analogue ad revenue and sponsorship on Classic FM, per year for the Classic FM licence. UTV pays £100,000 per year for the TalkSport licence.
Ofcom ruled that although the national analogue licences generate profits for the incumbent licence holder, and are likely to continue to, these analogue profits will reduce over time as analogue listening as a proportion of total listening falls.
Ofcom, in a statement today, said a hypothetical new entrant would not be prepared to make financial payments in return for the right to broadcast nationally on analogue for the period under consideration and as a result, the incumbent licence holders could retain their licences in a hypothetical auction for a "nominal amount".
...and dropping out of DAB would cause the charge that Classic FM pays to the government to increase from about £3M to about £9M...
If the Digital One licence is handed back Classic FM could broadcast on local DAB muxes and still qualify for the FM licence rollover. Ofcom's definition of "national DAB transmission" is 80% coverage of the UK (by whatever means).
Classic FM's transmissions on FM only cover 90.9% of the UK population, and that will shortly be matched by Digital One (they have a few new sites planned). Classic has never been a fully national station like the BBC networks are.
ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also Public Service Broadcasters.
They are.
In fact what I meant to say is 'Broadcasting infrastructure is too important to be left to the free market'
ITV and Channel 5 are purely commercial concerns, but we still make sure of universal provision via Freeview Lite.
I would suggest Classic FM is at least as valuable a national asset as Channel 5 TV.
Commercially funded broadcasters can still make excellent programming, but without the right infrastructure a lot of people will miss out on those programmes.
Again, I can't see anything wrong with using a small amount of public money to ensure universal provision of D1.
We need a second commercial multiplex anyway, so D2 could be a purely commercial concern with just coverage from the main transmitters.
In fact what I meant to say is 'Broadcasting infrastructure is too important to be left to the free market'
ITV and Channel 5 are purely commercial concerns, but we still make sure of universal provision via Freeview Lite.
It was strongly rumoured that ITV seriously considered dropping their PSB duties a few years ago, in order to
save the expense of having to be present at all 1154 transmitter sites post DSO. Also rumoured was they explored the option of retreating from analogue early, again to save money.
What would have put them off, was losing position 3 on the various digital EPGs, an allocation others would kill for.
The five main PSB TV services have to be allocated the first five positions on a UK EPG.
Interesting. I suppose this means if the BBC national stations on DAB match the 97% coverage of FM they could be thinking of switching off their analogue networks in 2016 putting pressure on the commercial stations to follow suite.
On DAB, Global Radio is supportive of the digital radio future. “It’s very important we have a positive decision from the Government on the DAB switchover in December, Ashley said on the upcoming announcement in December.
“What we need is for the Government to say DAB will be the predominant radio listening platform in the future. That will unlock the funding to take it forward.”
I think he is talking about local and D1 DAB funding?, If D1 does extend to match Classic FM's FM 90.9% coverage at least it it is on Freesat and Sky (rather than Freeview Lite) or internet for the very remote areas.
It's the same existing muxes that can either have DAB or DAB+ stations, so as more DAB+ enabled sets get sold as more people use DAB, the likelihood of some DAB+ stations appearing is higher, but it's unlikely all existing UK stations will move to DAB+ so they can be used with current non DAB+ enabled sets.
If commercial groups get behind launching D2 proving more bandwidth, then many of the mono stations on D1 may go back to stereo using current DAB on better bitrates, rather than go DAB+, but new stations may go DAB+.
I think it would depend on the radiation patter of the aerials. The two local FM stations which are currenlty on this mast ( Mix 96 ( 96.2) and BBC 3CR ( 94.7 ) ) are direcitonal towards Aylesbury and do not reach Buckingham very well. IIRC, the best signals in Buckingham are from Oxford and Bow Brickhill.
Does this further investment in DAB mean the end for any future plans for the UK to migrate to DAB+?
That was the case well before any investment. The industry and experts alike agreed on one thing with the DCMS - no DAB+ for the foreseeable future, if ever. Whilst the DCMS is dedicated to making DAB+ a standard requirement in future sets, the radio industry advised by its experts also have the right to refuse to use it, and they're prepared to exercise that right forever. I'd expect any future Digital 2 launch to be exclusively DAB only.
That was the case well before any investment. The industry and experts alike agreed on one thing with the DCMS - no DAB+ for the foreseeable future, if ever. Whilst the DCMS is dedicated to making DAB+ a standard requirement in future sets, the radio industry advised by its experts also have the right to refuse to use it, and they're prepared to exercise that right forever. I'd expect any future Digital 2 launch to be exclusively DAB only.
We were reminded in a recent edition of “Radio User” ( August or September – can't quite recall ) that since 2009, every decent-quality DAB radio ( i.e. Roberts, Pure, etc and not budget ones from ALDI or Tesco ) can have their EPROMS flashed ( or similar ) to be able to decode DAB+. Indeed my Roberts Solar DAB II has such a USB socket for that purpose. So what you're saying is that despite every sensible radio since 2009 being able to go to DAB+, this will never happen, and they're all white elephants ?
And the pre-2009 ones were inefficient, so really we shouldn't shed too many tears about properly recycling those decade-old bricks when DAB is replaced.
So music fans ( the sort who enjoy Classic FM ) are likely to lose FM and have to listen to their music on muffled DAB, not only losing the highest frequencies but also the positional information so important in opera and choral singing. Yes, drivers in their tin boxes, getting stressed up and poluting the atmosphere on the way to work, won't notice the difference to Miley Cyrus or Five Live whether it's on AM, FM, DAB or mobile phone. But the rest of us might, and deserve better...
Then there's the DAB transmission system, a blundering mistake from the start, beginning with transmitters on regional TV towers and masts, failing to get to the people living in the valleys and urban centres between regional transmitters. Now ( as the subject of this thread suggests ) we get in-fill like no tomorrow, adding more and more transmitters like a sledgehammer cracking a nut until we get the mirage of continuous coverage.
And as some of you have mentioned, the telephone-numbers sums involved just in financing national radio channels is out of this world, and we need new better ways of employing the technology to reduce costs.
The only hope of replacing the mess that is national digital broadcasting in the UK is to change it to come from properly planned local centres ( more kudos to MUXCO ) along with the micro DAB transmissions that we've been talking about recently, covering individual communities and their immediate hinterland. As I've always said, a cellular structure for DAB transmissions is what we should have. One town, one motorway roundabout, one large event, one MUXCO area...
I think it would depend on the radiation patter of the aerials. The two local FM stations which are currenlty on this mast ( Mix 96 ( 96.2) and BBC 3CR ( 94.7 ) ) are direcitonal towards Aylesbury and do not reach Buckingham very well. IIRC, the best signals in Buckingham are from Oxford and Bow Brickhill.
If the Digital One licence is handed back Classic FM could broadcast on local DAB muxes and still qualify for the FM licence rollover. Ofcom's definition of "national DAB transmission" is 80% coverage of the UK (by whatever means).
That's OK - change the threshold to 90% or 95%. We (the public!) really should be getting something extra for the £36M we've pumped into Classic FM since 2007.
Classic FM's transmissions on FM only cover 90.9% of the UK population, and that will shortly be matched by Digital One (they have a few new sites planned). Classic has never been a fully national station like the BBC networks are.
Fine. You want a free market? Let's stop the subsidies and leave them to it. Keep the BBC and auction everything else to the highest bidder. Anything anyone doesn't want to pay for gets shut down.
You don't want a free market? Well, if we're going to interfere, let's interfere to get national coverage and (if at all possible) quality stations. Let's not limit the interference in the free market to handing tens of millions of pounds of cash subsidies to the incumbents.
I wouldn't put my neck on the line to argue for or against market interference overall - but if you're going to interfere, do it properly.
So music fans ( the sort who enjoy Classic FM ) are likely to lose FM and have to listen to their music on muffled DAB, not only losing the highest frequencies but also the positional information so important in opera and choral singing.
The bit rate on Classic FM DAB was recently reduced from 160k to 128k to allow Teamrock and Capital xtra to launch, for those who care about audio quality may have have been too much, maybe it can be returned to 160k or even go DAB+ if stations leave D1 perhaps to local or D2 muxes?.
Then there's the DAB transmission system, a blundering mistake from the start, beginning with transmitters on regional TV towers and masts, failing to get to the people living in the valleys and urban centres between regional transmitters. Now ( as the subject of this thread suggests ) we get in-fill like no tomorrow, adding more and more transmitters like a sledgehammer cracking a nut until we get the mirage of continuous coverage.
The current DAB transmission planning seems be a mix between high power FM planning and low power mobile planning with a maximum of 10kw in an SFN, hopefully will give decent coverage when rolled out, but ideally if DAB/DAB+ is the future, the roll out should have been years ago?
You don't want a free market? Well, if we're going to interfere, let's interfere to get national coverage and (if at all possible) quality stations. Let's not limit the interference in the free market to handing tens of millions of pounds of cash subsidies to the incumbents.
As said earlier the figures and sums used by Grant Goddard in his blog were completely wrong based on wrong estimates. Although Ofcom may have reduced the national analogue licence fee charged based on station percentage revenue income too quick to perhaps match in what other countries charge and the rate of digital listening?.
For a while Global held back with DAB promotion risking a potential backlash against the Classic FM licence being readvertised to get more income to Ofcom, but now seems to be keeping to be committed towards a DSO inreturn for the reduction in the licence fee. Whether an auction would have raised a £6 million per year licence fee now is debatable, also the fact Classic FM has delivered a good music service. I found an interesting old post from 2009 showing thge first auction, and doubt if anyone will now generate a high bid if a new auction for Classic FMs frequncies went ahead.
Yes you could, I found in a GWR submission to Ofcom the original bids:
"It is instructive to recall the process which led to Classic FM going on air in 1992. Following the 1990 Broadcasting Act, the Radio Authority advertised the national FM licence in a sealed-bid auction. There were three bidders, proposing three different programme styles and offering very different sums for the licence - in a ratio of 4:2:1.
The highest bidder proposed a service of music from stage shows and musicals, and offered £l.2 million per annum for the licence. Classic FM was the second bidder at £600,000, and a service offering melodic, easy listening music was third at £300,000. The highest bidder could not confirm its finance and the licence was offered to Classic FM."
That was the case well before any investment. The industry and experts alike agreed on one thing with the DCMS - no DAB+ for the foreseeable future, if ever. Whilst the DCMS is dedicated to making DAB+ a standard requirement in future sets, the radio industry advised by its experts also have the right to refuse to use it, and they're prepared to exercise that right forever. I'd expect any future Digital 2 launch to be exclusively DAB only.
I don't think you can talk about 'the radio industry' in the particular case of DAB+ as the various groups that make up 'the radio industry' have different goals, interests and triggers.
Current commercial groups
I wouldn't expect any of the current major commercial groups to be in any hurry to implement DAB+. It offers no benefits to them and only downsides. They are currently struggling to reduce their cost by lowering bitrates or going mono and their listeners don't care. Listenership is increasing for some commercial stations even after reducing bitrates. Moving to DAB+ would increase quality (which most of their listeners don't care about) but greatly reduce reach as all radio sets older than about four years would not be able to receive it.
BBC
Similarly I wouldn't know why the BBC would have anything against DAB+. They could very well be in for experimenting with simulcasting Radio 3 or Radio 6 Music in DAB+ to see how that would be received. The BBC is in a position where they can, and will, experiment as long as it doesn't cost too much.
Existing local or regional
An existing local or regional station (LBC? Gaydio?) could opt to stay in DAB in their existing region and can extend nationally at very low cost with DAB+. Again, no existing listener will lose out and they can only gain listeners. The only question will be whether those additional listeners are worth the investment.
New entrants
Finally any completely new entrant to the market who has no existing listener base could opt for DAB+ to reduce cost. No existing listener is losing out, it would just be a bit harder because you'd start from a low reach. You'd need to have balls (Richard Branson?) or deep pockets (Lagardère?) but it can be done.
Personally I believe we will see the first DAB+ broadcasts within a few years. Either on DigitalTwo or BBC National, perhaps even on DigitalOne. I do expect it to take at least a decade before the last remaining DAB channel switches to DAB+ though.
The bit rate on Classic FM DAB was recently reduced from 160k to 128k to allow Teamrock and Capital xtra to launch, for those who care about audio quality may have have been too much, maybe it can be returned to 160k or even go DAB+ if stations leave D1 perhaps to local or
D2.
So we have Classic FM at the now reduced bit rate of 128kbps but Gold from the local SE Wales mux running at 160Kbps. At the moment I don't find much that makes me laugh but this is hilarious.
I know this will never happen but what is a required is a third national SFN network devoted to 5 192kbps channels for the likes of R3, Classic FM and perhaps R2 Absolute and another suitable station from the BBC or commercial sector. The other stations on the BBC national and D1 mux's could then increase their bit rate accordingly. This will at least give us a reasonable quality DAB network to replace the analogue radio network. As I said this is just a dream of mine and will be killed off by the bean counters.
So I am now resigned to the UK having a poor second rate digital radio broadcasting network and one that will make us the laughing stock of Europe or even the world.
Comments
A national FM transmission cost for 99% population (not land) coverage is about £3.6m PA according to the BBC annual report, Classic FM is about 95% coverage so will be less, say about £3m PA?
A national stereo Digital (DAB, DTT plus internet) transmission cost is about £1.5m PA (for about 93% DAB coverage) according to the BBC annual report so Classic FM will pay about the same.
Before a DSO Digitalone has to improve coverage to 95% to match FM coverage, but the extra running costs will probably be much less than the earlier estimates (as existing masts and sites will be used) so may increase to say not much more than £1.8m PA for all platform digital transmission per station (rather than £6m PA)?
So there is not any subsidy?
However the Ofcom licence fee for Classic FM, Absolute and Talksport has been greatly reduced in order to promote digital radio (reducing income to the Government, which is a loss to the Government finances), it could be argued that the national analogue radio licence fees were too high compared to other countries and as the article below says ad revenue on FM and AM licences will drop as listeners go digital?
edit
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1050560/classic-fm-talksport-licence-fees-cut-nominal-amount
If the Digital One licence is handed back Classic FM could broadcast on local DAB muxes and still qualify for the FM licence rollover. Ofcom's definition of "national DAB transmission" is 80% coverage of the UK (by whatever means).
Classic FM's transmissions on FM only cover 90.9% of the UK population, and that will shortly be matched by Digital One (they have a few new sites planned). Classic has never been a fully national station like the BBC networks are.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/radio-research/drr-13/Digital_radio_report_2013.pdf
They are.
In fact what I meant to say is 'Broadcasting infrastructure is too important to be left to the free market'
ITV and Channel 5 are purely commercial concerns, but we still make sure of universal provision via Freeview Lite.
I would suggest Classic FM is at least as valuable a national asset as Channel 5 TV.
Commercially funded broadcasters can still make excellent programming, but without the right infrastructure a lot of people will miss out on those programmes.
Again, I can't see anything wrong with using a small amount of public money to ensure universal provision of D1.
We need a second commercial multiplex anyway, so D2 could be a purely commercial concern with just coverage from the main transmitters.
It was strongly rumoured that ITV seriously considered dropping their PSB duties a few years ago, in order to
save the expense of having to be present at all 1154 transmitter sites post DSO. Also rumoured was they explored the option of retreating from analogue early, again to save money.
What would have put them off, was losing position 3 on the various digital EPGs, an allocation others would kill for.
The five main PSB TV services have to be allocated the first five positions on a UK EPG.
I'm surprised it's never appeared on Freeview.
Classic say it's too expensive, (which is a case in point really !)
Classics's old and has great FM and DAB coverage, so the uplift is unlikely to justify the very very expensive cost.
Except it doesn't, not even as good as FM
Which is precisely why it should be a must carry.
http://radiotoday.co.uk/2013/10/ashley-tabor-explains-cc-tribunal-fight/ I think he is talking about local and D1 DAB funding?, If D1 does extend to match Classic FM's FM 90.9% coverage at least it it is on Freesat and Sky (rather than Freeview Lite) or internet for the very remote areas.
Nothing in the list that will help DAB coverage round here.
If commercial groups get behind launching D2 proving more bandwidth, then many of the mono stations on D1 may go back to stereo using current DAB on better bitrates, rather than go DAB+, but new stations may go DAB+.
http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/quainton-hill.php
I think it would depend on the radiation patter of the aerials. The two local FM stations which are currenlty on this mast ( Mix 96 ( 96.2) and BBC 3CR ( 94.7 ) ) are direcitonal towards Aylesbury and do not reach Buckingham very well. IIRC, the best signals in Buckingham are from Oxford and Bow Brickhill.
We were reminded in a recent edition of “Radio User” ( August or September – can't quite recall ) that since 2009, every decent-quality DAB radio ( i.e. Roberts, Pure, etc and not budget ones from ALDI or Tesco ) can have their EPROMS flashed ( or similar ) to be able to decode DAB+. Indeed my Roberts Solar DAB II has such a USB socket for that purpose. So what you're saying is that despite every sensible radio since 2009 being able to go to DAB+, this will never happen, and they're all white elephants ?
And the pre-2009 ones were inefficient, so really we shouldn't shed too many tears about properly recycling those decade-old bricks when DAB is replaced.
So music fans ( the sort who enjoy Classic FM ) are likely to lose FM and have to listen to their music on muffled DAB, not only losing the highest frequencies but also the positional information so important in opera and choral singing. Yes, drivers in their tin boxes, getting stressed up and poluting the atmosphere on the way to work, won't notice the difference to Miley Cyrus or Five Live whether it's on AM, FM, DAB or mobile phone. But the rest of us might, and deserve better...
Then there's the DAB transmission system, a blundering mistake from the start, beginning with transmitters on regional TV towers and masts, failing to get to the people living in the valleys and urban centres between regional transmitters. Now ( as the subject of this thread suggests ) we get in-fill like no tomorrow, adding more and more transmitters like a sledgehammer cracking a nut until we get the mirage of continuous coverage.
And as some of you have mentioned, the telephone-numbers sums involved just in financing national radio channels is out of this world, and we need new better ways of employing the technology to reduce costs.
The only hope of replacing the mess that is national digital broadcasting in the UK is to change it to come from properly planned local centres ( more kudos to MUXCO ) along with the micro DAB transmissions that we've been talking about recently, covering individual communities and their immediate hinterland. As I've always said, a cellular structure for DAB transmissions is what we should have. One town, one motorway roundabout, one large event, one MUXCO area...
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/radiolicensing/dab-maps/Herts%20Beds%20and%20Bucks.pdf
Fine. You want a free market? Let's stop the subsidies and leave them to it. Keep the BBC and auction everything else to the highest bidder. Anything anyone doesn't want to pay for gets shut down.
You don't want a free market? Well, if we're going to interfere, let's interfere to get national coverage and (if at all possible) quality stations. Let's not limit the interference in the free market to handing tens of millions of pounds of cash subsidies to the incumbents.
I wouldn't put my neck on the line to argue for or against market interference overall - but if you're going to interfere, do it properly.
Cheers,
David.
I don't think you can talk about 'the radio industry' in the particular case of DAB+ as the various groups that make up 'the radio industry' have different goals, interests and triggers.
Current commercial groups
I wouldn't expect any of the current major commercial groups to be in any hurry to implement DAB+. It offers no benefits to them and only downsides. They are currently struggling to reduce their cost by lowering bitrates or going mono and their listeners don't care. Listenership is increasing for some commercial stations even after reducing bitrates. Moving to DAB+ would increase quality (which most of their listeners don't care about) but greatly reduce reach as all radio sets older than about four years would not be able to receive it.
Ofcom
Ofcom on the other hand has nothing against DAB+. They have even used DAB+ for their local digital broadcasting test in Brighton earlier this year. (Ofcom reports on DAB with low cost transmission for small stations).
BBC
Similarly I wouldn't know why the BBC would have anything against DAB+. They could very well be in for experimenting with simulcasting Radio 3 or Radio 6 Music in DAB+ to see how that would be received. The BBC is in a position where they can, and will, experiment as long as it doesn't cost too much.
Existing local or regional
An existing local or regional station (LBC? Gaydio?) could opt to stay in DAB in their existing region and can extend nationally at very low cost with DAB+. Again, no existing listener will lose out and they can only gain listeners. The only question will be whether those additional listeners are worth the investment.
New entrants
Finally any completely new entrant to the market who has no existing listener base could opt for DAB+ to reduce cost. No existing listener is losing out, it would just be a bit harder because you'd start from a low reach. You'd need to have balls (Richard Branson?) or deep pockets (Lagardère?) but it can be done.
Personally I believe we will see the first DAB+ broadcasts within a few years. Either on DigitalTwo or BBC National, perhaps even on DigitalOne. I do expect it to take at least a decade before the last remaining DAB channel switches to DAB+ though.
So we have Classic FM at the now reduced bit rate of 128kbps but Gold from the local SE Wales mux running at 160Kbps. At the moment I don't find much that makes me laugh but this is hilarious.
I know this will never happen but what is a required is a third national SFN network devoted to 5 192kbps channels for the likes of R3, Classic FM and perhaps R2 Absolute and another suitable station from the BBC or commercial sector. The other stations on the BBC national and D1 mux's could then increase their bit rate accordingly. This will at least give us a reasonable quality DAB network to replace the analogue radio network. As I said this is just a dream of mine and will be killed off by the bean counters.
So I am now resigned to the UK having a poor second rate digital radio broadcasting network and one that will make us the laughing stock of Europe or even the world.
Thanks. I wonder whether the national stations will have the same radiation pattern.