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BBC Radio WM sighted on Freeview
richjj1978
Posts: 141 Forum Member
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As mentioned in the Local TV test transmission today thread BBC Radio WM appears to now be available on some Freeview receivers in he West Midlands as Service 6149. As it is missing a logical channel number, it is currently appearing on channel 800 on my Sagem PVR, but not on any other receivers.
I'm receiving this via the BBC SD mux from the Brierley Hill relay on UHF channel 60, but A516 digital is reporting this as a 96kbs audio signal from Sutton Coldfield http://www.a516digital.com/2014/03/bbc-local-radio-spotted-testing-on.html?spref=tw
This would be a first for BBC Local Radio in England
I'm receiving this via the BBC SD mux from the Brierley Hill relay on UHF channel 60, but A516 digital is reporting this as a 96kbs audio signal from Sutton Coldfield http://www.a516digital.com/2014/03/bbc-local-radio-spotted-testing-on.html?spref=tw
This would be a first for BBC Local Radio in England
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Whether the BBC sense that commercial local radio could appear on local muliplexes is another question.
But until the BBC implemented a portal to deliver local radio to the radio transmitters it was difficult to get them on to other portal led distributions
Now with ViLoR focusing play out on two data-centres it does become a lot easier.
But as BBC midlands from Sutton Coldfield has six BBC LR in its region .... It may be some time before they all appear. Other TV Tsa have fewer !
I'm surprised the BBC have capacity for this considering they will have to be giving thought as to where BBC One+1 is going to go.
They can reduce the audio of three TV channels from 256 to 192 to gain enough space for two 96kbps radio channels.
Although, given that the Nations have two radio channels that England don't, I don't see why that would be necessary.
But wasn't that space only temporary and rented purely for the Olympics anyway? And as I recall it wasn't even on one of the PSB muxes.
Could a TV region be split further, so that, for example Ridge Hill (BBC West Midlands) could have BBC H&W and Gloucs inserted while The Wrekin/Lark Stoke and Bromsgrove SFN (also BBC West Midlands) could have BBC H&W and Shrops? Fenton gets BBC Stoke and Shrops, Sutton Coldfield + relays could then carry BBC WM and BBC Coventry & Warwickshire.
i.e. through a mechanism to insert 2x96kbps streams in the rest of the BBC-A/PSB 1 multiplex at specific transmitter sites?
Of course, the whole matter of local radio on Freeview will increase the number of complaints from viewers regarding not being able to get their local station. BBC Radio Derby for instance has a coverage area that sees viewers get their TV from either Sutton Coldfield, Waltham, Winter Hill or Emley Moor or relays thereof...
Perhaps a red button portal linked to BBC local radio would be easier?
With null packets running in excess of 700kbps and, as you say, the possibility of reducing the bitrate of the TV audio streams, there's some flexibility there to add a few local radio streams. Although some of the 700kpbs will, no doubt, be reserve capacity for audio description.
It's worth remembering that it is Radio Derby, not Radio Derbyshire. The north of the county has traditionally been served by Radio Sheffield, which largely mirrors the area served by Emley Moor. There are plans to correct this, as far as DAB is concerned with dual coverage of the South Yorkshire and Derby local multiplexes. I doubt that they would be able to be so generous with Freeview coverage.
Listeners to BBC Radio Derby will know that the station has traditionally marketed itself "for Derbyshire and East Staffordshire".
Emley Moor's coverage comes as far south as Alfreton. Stanton Moor and Buxton broadcast to the northern half of Derbyshire, but as you say Chesterfield is in BBC Sheffield territory, despite it appearing to disown "the North Midlands" in its branding in recent years.
Given recent increases of coverage of stories around Chesterfield on East Midlands Today, the inclusion of Chesterfield stories on bbc.co.uk/derby and the common usage of fibre connections to transmitter sites rather than off-air relays, which might have made this suggestion difficult in the past, I'd argue switching Chesterfield's BBC TV provision to EMT. ITV would want the area to stay Yorkshire, though, providing a choice for viewers.
A regular BBC slot making way for an adult chat channel would probably be controversial. Also, if they want to preserve the regional variations, they can't really use a COM multiplex.
There's conveniently a few spare slots just after them as well, if they add more than two local stations to a transmitter.
I don't see why not although IIRC there were plans afoot to reduce the number of SIPSI regions, not increase them...
Alfreton is perhaps on the fringe of Emley Moor coverage, as well as being covered by Waltham and Sutton Coldfield to some extent. Buxton & Stanton Moor are beyond the outer fringe of Emley Moor and Buxton is well within "Granadaland". Perhaps the Buxton relay could carry Radio Derby along with BBC North West but I would have thought that would be unlikely.
Emley Moor relays do cover the Hope Valley area but again, an area traditionally within Radio Sheffield's editorial region.
Chesterfield news should be included in EMT coverage as it is likely to be of interest to the region as a whole. I'm not too sure I would agree about switching Chesterfield's provision. There's a danger of creating small editorial islands with the adjacent region (Look North in this case) dropping editorial coverage. Leaving the area surrounding, but not covered by the relay, without any local news.
Although I wouldn't expect Emley Moor to carry Radio Derby, the North Derbyshire relays could possibly carry Radio Derby and Radio Sheffield. North West Derbyshire relays could carry Radio Derbyshire and Radio Manchester. This would be a major reorganisation of the transmitter network which I can't really see happening just for local radio.
Assuming the policy of carrying EPG data for adjacent regions continues, adding local radio is going to mean bloated EIT data, possibly increasing the time the EPG takes to load. Even worse if the relays carry different combinations of channels.
When I first saw the postings, I assumed it was on the local Brum mux (which actually
considering that Comux's HQ is in Birmingham, sort of would make such a feat easy).
Interesting, and might be seen to be undermining DAB delivery by some.
Of course, it might be that WM is just being used as a handy audio source, for something internal the Beeb are doing, (don't forget the Beeb's mirror CCM site is in the Midlands somewhere (allegedly ;-) )
In the Digital Switchover - Central thread and other threads of the time, forum members noted that the "North Midlands" had been dropped from Look North (Leeds) coverage - unless there was a big event; Mansfield even disappeared off the regional weather map. BBC Sheffield used to mention it was for "South Yorkshire and the North Midlands". BBC One for that region was called "Yorkshire and North Midlands" following the 2002 split that saw E Yorks/Lincs go its own way, then it became plain "Yorkshire". The current TV regions map at http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/tv/ shows the East Midlands going a bit further north than it used to, but still excluding High Peak.
You mention northern Derbyshire. As highlighted at http://www.aerialsandtv.com/atvmaps.html#transmittermap , the area between Stanton Moor and Buxton is a zone where you are just a few miles away from relays of Emley, Winter Hill, SC and Waltham - if you're walking there, you can play "spot how many relays you can see and name their parent transmitters" (Sad, I know). The area is the most disjointed area with regards BBC regional and local radio provision.
With these marked discrepancies between BBC Local Radio coverage areas, BBC News Online's local news allocation and Freeview regions, it seems that BBC Distribution could use the potential introduction of local radio on Freeview to reduce the number of instances where locations are assigned to one BBC region on TV, another on radio and potentially a different one online. If a transmitter mast, for example carries BBC Derby on FM or DAB within the Derbyshire editorial area, then it should also carry the related BBC East Midlands TV region, and carry BBC Derby on Freeview.
I know of no other local radio station's coverage area that is split over four main transmitter sites (perhaps other forum members have some suggestions?). I do know that Brighton was realigned so that BBC Local Radio and BBC regional TV were from the same region, although some viewers did not like the change.
Back to the West Mids issue - BBC Gloucestershire belongs to BBC West region, so a simpler way of changing things in the West Midlands is splitting the region in two from a SIPSI point of view. Ridge Hill is already a bit different because of the existence of 2 D3&4 multiplexes. Add The Wrekin/Bromsgrove/Lark Stoke SFN to Ridge Hill and put BBC Gloucs, H&W and Shrops on that, and Sutton Coldfield plus relays get BBC WM, C&W and Stoke. By doing so, throughout England there shouldn't be the need to add more than 3 local radio stations in any one area.
Re: SIPSIs - won't the introduction of local TV perhaps facilitate the need to split parts of the country into smaller chunks, where possible?
Possibly west and mid Dorset, that's a mess of no proper or full local radio provision,
and the county split over three BBC TV regions. The Olympic Torch procession highlighted the problem, as it zig zagged through the county, all three BBC regions ended up covering towns that were not in their Tx areas
Yes, and no. BBC Radio Sussex covers both East and West Sussex, West Sussex for TV is served either by Rowridge, or Midhurst. Brighton is in East Sussex.
I don't think so, just that the SI data on Muxes 1-8 have to refer to any L-Mux transmissions within the SIPSI's service area. Whether the local service(s) is receivable is irrelevant. It's the same as only being able to receive the T1 muxes, or just the three PSBs.
It will certainly cause problems with creating regional SFNs if 700Mhz is cleared, as all transmitters have to carry the same data to work as an SFN.
Regarding your other points. Editorially, as far as regions are concerned, the location where the region operates from generally gets better news coverage than the more remote areas. Radio Sheffield could be perceived as not providing sufficient news coverage for Chesterfield but the same also applies to Doncaster. If Look North transferred editorial coverage of Chesterfield to EMT, the areas around Chesterfield, still served by Emley Moor and Belmont would be even less likely to see news relevant to their area.
I would agree that the BBC could take a closer look at relays in Derbyshire and switch some of them to the East Midlands region, where appropriate.
This is all becoming too speculative. At the moment, the BBC WM service from Sutton Coldfield hasn't even been assigned an LCN. It's an interesting development, and one to watch.
Further to that, it would actually make sense for the BBC to use more LCNs than they need, in order to get radio stations assigned the same LCN no matter what transmitter they are on.
But what about, for example, the Malvern and Kidderminster relays? They're both SC relays, but leaving them out of H&W would mean two huge holes in the county getting the wrong services.
Unless, of course, this is being transmitted on the local MUX, when they could use the Hereford/Gloucester/Malvern local MUX in the unlikely event of it ever launching. But then you wouldn't get the significant number of users who do use SC and its relays! or the Lark Stoke/Bromsgrove SFN.
Tricky, isn't it?
It is only an assumption that they are looking to bring a local radio stream to BBCA - as far as I'm aware we have no public statements about what this hidden stream is there for.
But let's assume they are- if they put it on BBCA then everyone who can get Freeview will receive it in the regions where they add it - as a normal channel that people are used to.
If they put it on the connected red button then you're down to a tiny percentage - certain recent models of Freeview HD devices only, and not all of those will actually have been connected into a network and have users who know how to use the connected red button- that's a lot of things getting in the way to give a very limited potential audience. So then it depends on what is driving the decision. Do they want as big an audience as possible? Or is it a carrot designed to drive the uptake of the connected red button? I can't see it as much of a carrot- whereas multiple red button video streams clearly are.