All posts by Mark
Below are all of Mark's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
@ Michael
FM will not be switched off while DAB coverage is lower than present FM coverage.
BBC Radio Devon and Heart currently serve 83% of the North Devon population and seven DAB transmitters will be needed to replicate this coverage.
The BBC, commercial radio and the Government are meeting this week to sign an agreement for an equal split of the costs for the £30 million required for local DAB rollout to equal FM coverage.
The BBC has a plan in place to build out its national multiplex to 97.2% by 2017 (98.1% of England). The BBC national mux coverage will be over 93% by the end of this year.
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J.M. Hunter: Sunderland Hendon is on the list of BBC national DAB transmitters to be opened before the end of 2011.
BBC Radio Newcastle coverage in Seaham will be subject to a funding agreement for the Tyne & Wear multiplex.
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I don't know why people are getting in a state about DAB v DAB+.
The multiplexes that Ofcom & Arqiva are proposing will all be able to transmit DAB+ (or a combination of DAB and DAB+), and Pure's new radios on sale in the UK are all DAB+ capable.
We can stick with DAB for now because of the legacy issue, and when the time is right in several years we can make the switch to DAB+ at no extra cost. It shouldn't prevent the rollout of further transmitters by the BBC or anyone else.
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Steve: I think the idea is that community radio will use FM only after DSO, without bothering with DAB, because the multiplexes are too large for them to target particular communities.
Having said that there are some community stations on DAB, such as Voice in South Wales and Affinity in Cambridge.
The BBC and large commercial broadcasters are anxious to discontinue FM to avoid the extra costs caused by broadcasting on both DAB & FM. In addition to this, some of the BBC network FM aerials will need replacing sometime after 2020.
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@ Trevor Harris
Your figures for DAB costs are way out of date because Arqiva was forced to slash its prices as part of the deal for the merger with NGW.
By its own admission the BBC will need 404 transmitters in total to serve 97.2% of the population (230 are needed to serve 93.8%).
The BBC doesn't agree with the 99.1% figure quoted by Ofcom for "good FM coverage" of Radio 2 - their own figure for non-hissy reception on a portable is somewhere around 98.3%.
Some more transmitters will be needed to fill the last 1.1% (from 97.2 up to 98.3) but clearly they will not be building 600 further transmitters for this, particularly with the self-interference issue.
The coverage of BBC local radio on FM is only around 90% (in some areas it's hovering around 80%) and the estimated cost to achieve this coverage on DAB is £30 million. There is agreement in principle for the Government, commercial radio and the BBC to each pay £10 million towards this.
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I think 430 transmitters for the BBC national network is realistic for around 98% coverage - that's 26 more than 97.2% coverage with the BBC doing some more planning work with existing sites.
The switchover will happen when 50% of all radio listening is digital, that much is clear. Even at the current rate of growth the trend line shows that this threshold will be breached in 2018, which gives us a 2020 switchover date (there is a two year notice period).
However there is one further factor - hardly anyone has DAB fitted in the car up to now, but Ford will fit DAB as standard in all of its new models by the end of 2012 (other manufacturers will follow suit). Therefore a large number of cars on the road in 2020 will have DAB fitted as standard.
A 2020 DSO for radio is a very realistic prospect, especially with 98% coverage of the BBC national mux and 90% coverage of the local multiplexes (to include all major roads).
In general people are not opposed to DAB, they are opposed to the gurgling sound caused by poor quality reception. If that's remedied as outlined in Ofcom's document the opposition to a radio DSO will fade away.
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@ Trevor Harris
"The latest document from the BBC is called BBC National DAB Network Coverage
& Indicative Expansion Plans. Worth googling as it gives some coverage maps and reveals enormous areas of the UK without any DAB coverage."
It actually shows nothing of the sort. The white areas are generally sparsely populated areas in Wales & Scotland and the document reveals that 93.8% of the population will have indoor coverage by the end of 2011.
Since when has 6.2% of the population constituted "enormous areas without coverage"?
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@ michael
The Government has guaranteed that FM will not be switched off unless local DAB reaches 90% of the population (on average across the UK) and as a bare minimum it matches FM coverage in every single multiplex area.
In North Devon the FM coverage of BBC Radio Devon & Heart is around 83%, the "case 4" DSO map gives coverage just short of 93%.
If the public funding cannot be agreed for 83% coverage as a minimum (and preferably 93%) then Radio Devon & Heart's FM services will remain on-air. There is no question of FM being switched off when the coverage is at 70%, this is just the level of coverage that Now Digital shareholders are prepared to pay for out of their own pockets.
If only some websites (such as the one trying to give North Devon a "voice") had been more honest with their readers rather than deliberately misleading them into thinking that FM would be switched off in 2015 with only 70% coverage there wouldn't have been such an angry backlash.
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@ Steve P
The answer is that the BBC cannot afford to run their networks on both FM & DAB indefinitely and sometime around 2020 they would have to replace most of the FM aerials if they were to continue the transmissions on FM.
It's much cheaper for them to concentrate on DAB only. Of course other digital platforms will also be available for listening.
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Sunday 26 June 2011 4:37PM
BBC Radio Devon & Heart reach about 83% of the population of North Devon on FM.
Seven DAB sites would be needed to replicate this coverage:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/dab-coverage-planning/858230/DSO_10C_North_Devon_DAB_V2_1.pdf