Muxco Surrey
Robert Williams
Posts: 2,212 Forum Member
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Although this was not one of the muxes included in last year's Memorandum of Understanding which required the launch of five muxes in the following 18 months, Muxco have recently updated the wording on their website http://www.muxco.com/applications/northsussexandsurrey/ and although there is not much new there, they say they are hoping to announce launch plans 'shortly'.
The 'Sussex' part of the name has gone, as Muxco intend to cover the county of Surrey only, with north Sussex being covered by an extension of NOW Digital's Sussex Coast mux, which makes far more sense than the original plans. This requires either London 3 or Sussex Coast to move from 11B to 10B. The Ofcom documents in 2011 proposed moving London 3 to 10B, but I can't see how that can be possible seeing as Oxford has now launched on 10B; maybe Sussex will move instead.
The Surrey line-up at present only has BBC Surrey, Eagle and County Sound (i.e. Eagle Extra), though the community station Redstone FM based in Redhill reckon they'll be on there. I would have thought that Heart Sussex & Surrey (ex-Mercury FM) might be there as well.
Surrey apparently has the highest DAB ownership in the country, and although most of the county has always had access to the London muxes, it will be nice to get something more local on there.
The 'Sussex' part of the name has gone, as Muxco intend to cover the county of Surrey only, with north Sussex being covered by an extension of NOW Digital's Sussex Coast mux, which makes far more sense than the original plans. This requires either London 3 or Sussex Coast to move from 11B to 10B. The Ofcom documents in 2011 proposed moving London 3 to 10B, but I can't see how that can be possible seeing as Oxford has now launched on 10B; maybe Sussex will move instead.
The Surrey line-up at present only has BBC Surrey, Eagle and County Sound (i.e. Eagle Extra), though the community station Redstone FM based in Redhill reckon they'll be on there. I would have thought that Heart Sussex & Surrey (ex-Mercury FM) might be there as well.
Surrey apparently has the highest DAB ownership in the country, and although most of the county has always had access to the London muxes, it will be nice to get something more local on there.
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Latest I heard was that London 3 might move to 5A.
Further, East Grinstead is a big DAB blackspot in general, could do with both improved national and local DAB coverage there.
London III move should help with Sussex, their current coverage is woeful, even between Eastbourne and Brighton, in the primary service area! Sussex really ought to be covering the whole county, not just part of it.
It's a shame that actually, most of the local stations probably won't be - either due to cost or anti-DAB.
Eagle owners UKRD on the fence, but will probably end up on the Surrey MUX.
Jackie - don't believe they want to be.
The Breeze (formally Kestrel, formally Delta) - no idea, possibly out of the TSA
Susy - probably down to cost?
Hopefully the MUX won't be almost completely empty or full of the usual London stuff given it's almost complete overlap
UKRD will put their large stations on DAB, as is the case with Pirate in Cornwall.
Jackie are as anti-DAB as you can get while under the ownership of Mr Collis.
The Breeze - Celador's policy has been to remove the Breeze from DAB to concentrate on local delivery on FM. DAB wouldn't allow them to transmit the Winchester, Southampton and Portsmouth links on the South Hampshire mux for example.
Community radio has managed to launch on DAB. Black Cat Radio for example in Cambs and Desi Radio in London. Whether Susy would want to stretch their resources to cover a mux which would be heard in Guildford is a matter for them. Personally, CR on DAB unless you're covering a niche market, such as Desi is a no, no.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/radiolicensing/dab-maps/Surrey.pdf
the rollout plans for Sussex includes a transmitter for East Grinstead
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/radiolicensing/dab-maps/Sussex.pdf
Midhurst may have both muxes?
If they don't get a FM licence on round 2 (unlikely as Ofcom say none are free) then perhaps Radio Brooklands
http://www.brooklandsradio.co.uk
might go DAB (along with Redstone) if they can raise the funds, but will then be in competition with Jackie and the London stations spillover which will be hard going?
Matt
MuxCo
http://radiotoday.co.uk/2013/06/ukrd-pays-more-dividends-in-difficult-times/
But from the last UKRD release about DAB in January
http://www.ukrd.com/news/latest-ukrd-news/882891/switch-over-off-after-latest-dab-data-published/ Seems to want to still be involved in DAB and Surrey has a high DAB listening figure, so the UKRD results must be good for the Surrey mux, hopefully to launch this year.
http://www.muxco.com/blog/2013/07/18/muxco-surrey-update-18th-july-2013/
Bet it's not live until February 2014
Yes - Judging by the constant delays over many years with the Gloucestershire and other Muxes, you'd be crazy to place any money on the Surrey Mux being there on the date predicted by Muxco.
I hope the transmitter coverage is better for Surrey too, as a key part of Gloucestershire will not be served by Muxco.
http://www.muxco.com/blog/2013/09/12/surrey-launch-update-12th-september-2013/
Presumably it'll be highly directional to the south west with heavy restrictions in most other directions?
Power levels?
I guess it's to cover the north and far eastern parts where Reigate does not reach. Except Oxted which is a black hole for any over the air TV, FM and DAB! Shame Caterham or Warlingham isn't in the plan for launch. Yet again Oxted, a fairly big town in the county misses out.
As for Roger, good to see he'll be part of Redstone.
I wonder if SUSY consider joining MuxCo or even seeing what happens with the Ofcom super local DAB idea.
I've said it before Matt, over many years now - launch them, or hand them back.
I said this in another thread as the Gloucestershire one is still not launched and the Somerset we don't even have any idea.
I got the excuse that Ofcom told them to delay and that Ofcom delayed them for several years. I'm not sure they should have bid if they didn't think it was viable and were committed to launching within months of the licence being awarded.
We've lost 5 years of better local radio, when another bidder could have launched. It also seems that often promises made at application, like a wide variety of content for different audiences isn't materialising either.
I'd hardly call a population of 12,500 "fairly big". Especially when nearby Caterham has a population of 20,000. There's other towns in Surrey such as Farnham with a population 38,000 and of course there's Woking with a population of 62,000. I could go on and on.
I think MuxCo have the balance right for their launch coverage.
Sorry, I meant to say in East Surrey!
Caterham won't fair much better in the valley anyway.
But fair point.
I think Ofcom needs to review its awarding process now and decide if a service has failed to launch within, say, six months of being awarded its licence is revoked.
Plenty of people have made comments to me that no-one else would have these multiplexes, and MuxCo still have time etc etc., the fact is had MuxCo handed these licences back when I originally called for it probably around 3-4 years ago they could have been readvertised and transmitting by now.
MuxCo is simply a shambles in my view and one of the worst things to happen to local DAB. Their favourite game at one point seemed to be blame everyone but themselves, I don't know how they stand currently as their position seems to be ignore all criticism.
Also during a recession funds were tight so the delay may have helped funding, and although may have slowed the growth of DAB usage did not stop DAB. Looks like they are getting on with it and although do not have to set a launch date for Surrey until after the legal signing of the MOU and DSO plan, but are going for a December launch
Hopefully the legal signing of the MOU and DSO plan will also sort out the funding and planning problems with several of the existing muxes like London 3 and Sussex for a frequency change and improved coverage.
Ofcom were holding up the process due to their planning review, Now Digital didn't launch any of their new muxes for five years either. They were sitting on four of them in the Home Counties and Derbyshire.
MuxCo only have a minority share in the Somerset mux, a company called Triple Media Limited owns 67% of it. They have given a launch date as "before Q2 2014" - it's the last post in this thread:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1878590&highlight=somerset+dab
Ofcom have apparently given the licence holders until 2014 to launch all of their new muxes. From what I have read Lincolnshire & North Yorkshire will launch in Summer 2014, when MXR Yorkshire closes.
Ofcom will then need to address Cumbria & Suffolk, for which there are no licence holders.
It's interesting to note that 52% of listening in Somerset is via digital platforms even though BBC Somerset isn't on DAB.
Has there actually been a decision yet on which of those two muxes is going to be the one to change, and to what frequency? It seems to be anybody's guess as to when this will happen, and the additional transmitters go on air to allow the northern parts of Sussex to at last be able to hear their local stations on DAB.
But since then the size of the Sussex area grew and the MXR frequencies became available.
If a positive dso date is proposed by the Government the extra sites will be added, if not positive they will not be added.
Looks like things are progressing rather better in Surrey than they have been in the other areas, and they're still on track for a December launch, with the additional transmitters launching in April 2014.
Sorry, to go off topic, but as somebody who is keenly anticipating the Lincolnshire launch, could you state whereabouts you read this?