According to Wohnort there are now 28 DAB+ transmissions in the UK, with several now using a fairly respectable 48kbit/s stereo.

When will the dinosaurs at the BBC and Ofcom wake up?

As far as I'm aware there are still no BBC DAB+ transmissions taking place or planned, even for pop-ups, and Ofcom still limit DAB+ to 30% of main muxes.

Meanwhile Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco, John Lewis etc are still cynically flogging obsolete DAB-only radios to unsuspecting punters, you're more likely to win the lottery than see any in-store publicity about the Digital Tick scheme, and no retailer claims that all their digital radios have DAB+.

Where's Ford Ennals when you need him !

when the rajar stats come in showing the difference between the Magic Chilled and Mellow. This will give an idea of how many people have DAB+, it has only been just over 3 months DAB+ arrived in the UK, so early days yet

I think 'wake up' is a little unfair.

You might halve your costs of broadcasting, but you're perhaps only reaching a quarter of the potential audience. So it's very much a business decision rather than a technical one.

DAB+ is in a great position to grow in the UK. Pretty much all new cars are DAB+ enabled (2.5m+ a year) and a large proportion of new radios are DAB+ as standard. The reason that such a large number are DAB+ is because of things like the introduction of the tick mark. This has encouraged many manufacturers to move to adoption. Some of which have moved and others are in the process of doing.

Tick mark graphics are on many (and a growing number) of point of sale, and they're in pretty much all of DRUK's ads - something that runs on the vast majority of stations in the UK.

There will be new DAB-related legislation in the next few years, of which I would assume they will make reference to DAB+. Also, no commercial multiplex has anywhere near the demand for 30% to be DAB+ today.

Whilst it might not seem progress for impatient posters, I think the roll out of DAB+ in the UK, a very mature DAB market, is actually being done pretty well and all elements are moving along in sync.

A quarter? Have you just plucked that figure out of the air? I don't own a non-DAB+ radio and I've not even tried to buy DAB+ compatible ones. They just are.

I imagine Matt hasn't plucked the figure out of thin air. He's in charge of Muxco.

Slightly off-topic, there is a very interesting book about music piracy called How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt. I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject as it tells the story of the mp3 revolution from the point-of-view of the people who were actually involved at the time - the record company boss, the CD plant employee and the Frauenhofer scientist.

The reason this is relevant is that one of the stories the author tells is the highly political struggle between the proponents of mp2 and the inventors of mp3 (and aac) and explains why mp2 was able to dominate the digital audio industry even though it was less efficient.

I think you have both shown what the issue is, no one really knows what percentage of radios are dab+, looking at the social media for the dab+ stations its looks healthy, but until the rajar results are through for the last quarter, we will not know and I doubt any of the large players will make changes until then. Also the government asked the commercial radio sector to take the lead with this as opposed to the bbc.

He can answer for himself. I don't know who he is.

He might not know anyway and it could easily have been a guess. If it's correct then I'm sure he'll tell me where he got the figure from.

Exactly! If the rest of us can just run "Windows Update" once a month and get the latest updates, why can't the BBC and Ofcom run "DAB Update" to upgrade themselves to DAB+?

I literally don't know why.

Because the vast majority of digital radios out there are not capable of receiving DAB+ thats why!

Well, I'll give you an 'Honourable Exception' because you've always been clued up, but you're very much the exception that proves the rule - most of rest of the broadcasters and the industry are still dozy.


But that doesn't apply to the BBC which could easily start promoting DAB+, e.g. via pop ups and simulcasting (stereo DAB splits into mono DAB and stereo DAB+), perhaps even with some jiggery pokery allowing Radio Cymru to cover all of Wales and R4 Extra to go stereo.


Absolutely NOT ! They're only fitting DAB+ because that's used across Europe. They don't want to have a special obsolete radio just for the UK that couldn't be used anywhere else, and it wouldn't save any money anyway.


I've seen it only hidden away on the odd box, never on a special POS display or shelf label. Car websites and dealerships never mention it, they haven't a clue and you can count yourself very lucky if you even see the word 'radio' in the Audio or Connectivity blurb or the so-called Specifications.


But that's preaching to the converted ! I'm talking about reaching ordinary punters in supermarkets, department stores, Curry's, car showrooms etc.


True, but why have any limit at all? IIRC it was originally intended to stop mobile TV (remember Lobster and all that?) forcing out DAB radio. The ruling should be flipped so that there's a minimum percentage of DAB+ on every mux.

Most commercial muxes have zillions of CUs needlessly going to waste. Why isn't there a 'barker' DAB+ channel on every mux with 32kbit/s or more that's currently spare? Empty units in shopping malls, unsold Underground poster spaces etc are usually filled with in-house promotions rather than being left looking miserably bare and empty. The radio industry should do the same.

An overhaul of the Broadcasting Act is long overdue. As you point out Matt, OFCOM still uphold a statutory limit of 30% of capacity which can be used for data services - which was put in place for data services (of which DAB+ is now one) and OFCOM's unrealised fear that 'the carriage of closed-user group data services may prove more lucrative for multiplex operators than audio services Well they got that wrong! They've done nothing since they increased this limit from 20% to 30% in 2006 - one year before DAB+ came out. Ten years ago.

The problem with the current marketplace for digital radio is not demand but supply. There is clearly an appetite for DAB+ and demand out there for that 30% DAB+ space. You only have to look at the trial multiplex experiment where the 30% threshold doesn't apply to see the raft of services that are willing to embrace DAB+ . Now you might say that's because of the lower price and you'd be right. In a free market economy where you had that level of demand the suppliers (legacy multiplex operators) would be responding by reducing their prices to compete and entice these new services onboard. So why aren't they?

Firstly, local multiplex operations are largely 'fiefdoms' where there is no competition. And secondly, they often operate, cartel-like, to exclude services that rival existing services on the multiplex. 'If I pay £5,500 per month for 128k I don't want you bringing on another Soul station....' Quite!

I hope the new legislation addresses these issues and is more accommodating of the rapid change in technology that is going to see hybrid broadcasting in the next few years, et al.

The DAB+ percentage is at Ofcom's discretion, it isn't included in the legislation. Ofcom say they will review it again "not later than 2018".

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin.../Statement.pdf

I'm not so sure about this statement, DAB+ has now been around quite a number of years and I doubt there are many model radios that have only been sold in the UK during this time so I think you will probably find most radios are compatible but may require some sort of software update / unlock code to activate the feature.

A good example is my Pure Siesta DAB clock radio that is now well over six years old and it has DAB+ on it all I needed to do is carry out a small update and enter a unique unlock code for this feature.

DAB+ is recent here and several radios currently on sale still don't have it, others require a software update/unlock. The idea that the average man in the street is going to do this via the web, especially if it isn't free, is cloud cuckoo land. The idea that major broadcasters are going to disenfranchise their listeners so a that few geeks can tick off a few niche stations, that they will never listen to, is also absolutely ridiculous.

Mainstream broadcasters, especially the BBC, will have to use DAB for the foreseeable future at least for their main services. Commercial services will not risk losing listeners by changing to DAB+ either, several are frightened of leaving AM let alone switching to DAB+ for no good reason.

There would be absolutely no change in audio quality, or a move from mono to stereo, if DAB+ was adopted as they would simply use the lowest acceptable, to the average listener, bit rates. Remember the idea of commercial broadcasting, radio or TV, is to make money, nothing else.

Ofcom itself refers to it as 'The statutory limit of 30% of capacity....'
http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/radio-...o-mux-changes/

DAB+ Stereo needs a tiny amount of extra capacity at low rates - IIRC the 32kbps Stereo DAB+ services are equivalent to 28kbps mono....

As for the comments about DAB+ - aside from the car stereo non of the sets I owned last December could get DAB+, they all pre-dated the standard and many others out in the real world will be likewise - in fact all my parents sets fall in the same boat too.

It was only the coming of SDL and a desire to connect a Chromecast to the radio in the bedroom that made me get a DAB+ set as a Christmas present.

And as for the 30% of a multiplex being DAB+ being a problem - if some of the commercial multiplexes had even one DAB+ service that argument may hold water, but there is plenty of spare capacity out there, that could be done with DAB+ if the broadcasters wanted it too. (Surprised TBH we haven't seen the likes of Gem 80s, or Gem Summer Hits/Christmas in DAB+...). If 25% of the multiplexes were filled with DAB+ services then perhaps it would be different...

Should the big broadcasters push dab+, wouldn't this lead to potentially more space and hence more competition? Of course this could be suppressed with variations of existing stations +1, +2 +3 etc, but would it be much easier to simply keep the available bandwidth down on nat muxes by limiting dab+ and therefore prevent too much competition

I wouldn't agree with that either, when D2 was launched the majority of people on here, was surprised to find that they had DAB+ .

What I expect tho is that the radio stations will start to broadcast dual versions both DAB and DAB+, possibly dropping DAB to 60kbs and then using the spare space for DAB+ version.

DS hardly represents the average listener does it.

but that's the point, even the people of these forums, who you would expect would know more, didn't know they had DAB+ radios

Of all the DAB radios i've ever bought, including the recent ones, only one has turned out to be DAB+...... Plus my car radio is DAB+.
But thats it.

I would hope dual-illumination would be something radio stations start to do as per Switzerland's move from DAB to DAB+. However, bitrates for DAB stations have got so low that such an option has now probably passed the UK on anything other than the BBC's national multiplex and local stations. Simulcast multiplexes would be an expensive option that'll be out of the question. The only likely option for DAB+ to replace DAB would be to either switch stations at once or to phase in a switch over a period of time, as a switch from DVB-T to DVB-T2 will need to happen on DTT due to auctioning of more spectrum.

We only have to wait until Thursday for a first indication of how the new DAB+ stations are doing.

Five out of seven of my DAB radios can get DAB+. Sadly, the two that can't are the ones I use the most (living room and personal).

FYI - I'm involved in running a multiplex network - MuxCo and I run a national DAB+ radio station - Fun Kids.

There is some complex modelling of DAB+ penetration that's been done. However, my view:

Around 20m DAB in-home radios. 3m to 4m are DAB+.
Around 6m DAB radios in cars - the majority are DAB+.

About 2m DAB in home sets are sold now each year - between half and 3/4s are DAB+
About 2.5m in-car DAB+ sets are now sold each year.

So we've got a nice transition to DAB+ happening. Pretty much no-one outside of DS is buying a radio to get DAB+. If we added new BBC and Commercial stations as DAB+ it would increase the DAB+ take-up marginally. DAB+ take-up is growing because of devices being DAB+ as default.

DAB+ success is going to come from the replacement cycle for in-home and the as-standard nature of DAB+ in cars.

Dual illumination is entirely pointless from a commercial point of view. Two versions of Station FM - one at 64kbit/s for 2m listeners and 48kbit/s for 500k merely means that 1.5m people get a reduced quality version of their favourite radio station. I'd also guess that a big chunk of the 500k will flick between the two versions not knowing which is which. Few people listening to the 64k version will go "ooh, i've been nudged to get a new radio". Regular people don't work like that. If that was the case, no one would be listening to AM radio any more.

People don't launch spin off stations at 32kbit/s stations on local multiplexes for the good of the platform. They launch then when they make economic sense.

At the local level, mux costs vary but let's say for ease - that 64kbit/s costs 3k a month and
32kbit/s DAB+ costs 1.5k a month. So it's an 18k saving a year, but let's say that halves your available audience. I'd say that the 18k saving is less than the money you'd make broadcasting to twice the audience. Therefore why would you would bother.

For FK, our savings nationally in DAB+ vs DAB is, er, significantly more. So in an environment where there's a capacity constraint and a significant saving, it's worth us broadcasting nationally in DAB+ (but still being in DAB in a key market - London). But it's still a gamble - that we'll see later in the year if it pays off.

If I could be on at 64 in DAB for the same price - I'd swap in an instant to reach more people.

Answering other questions -

Europe-wide DAB+ ness is part of the story, but then in France and Germany cars that ship in the UK with DAB+ don't even ship with digital radios!

There will be very few people - less than 10k who bother to upgrade a radio (even if it's free)

The 30% DAB+ rate rule will change way before it encumbers any multiplex operators.

It may not seem it, but the tick mark (and the accreditation that goes with it which is about to be rolled out EU wide) has been a key element of an accelerated DAB+ roll out in the UK.

There is still a very active question about 'in-use' digital radios and how many of them are DAB/DAB+, we'll get some data from the next RAJAR but it's the trend over coming quarters that will show the true story.

I know it's fun to hate all of us no-nothing arsehoes in the industry, but there's a surprising number of nice, bright, well-meaning people who work very hard on behalf of listeners to do the right thing whilst not bankrupting the companies that we work for (and pay for us to be able to try and get this stuff right).