I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The way in which the FM band has been organised in the UK is fine if you only want to listen to a limited number of radio stations.
It would appear that some people and organisations wish to support limited choice and stop the move of national and regional stations to DAB that will leave the FM band free for local commercial and community radio stations.
Currently, listening choice is limited because the FM national networks use over 10 MHz out of the 20 MHz of the FM/VHF band (88 – 108 MHz) in order to reach over 95% of the UK population.
The Consumer Expert Report asks: what is in the DAB switchover for consumers? Well along the East Riding coast of Yorkshire I can only receive 13 stations on AM/FM including BBC Humberside, Classic FM, Radio 5Live, Viking FM and Yorkshire Coast Radio. However on my mini portable DAB/FM set and my DAB/FM/AM car radio I can receive 44 stations on DAB including 11 from the BBC and stations such as Absolute80s, LBC, Premier Christian Radio, Smooth Radio, and the Leeds-based Yorkshire Radio. The answer seems, from my standpoint, that DAB has started to allow specialist stations including JazzFM, Panjab Radio, Premier Christian Radio and UCB to find space to broadcast across wide swathes of the country.
Back in the 60s I listened to Radio 270, the Scarborough off-shore station, and then to Radio 1 on 247 metres on my LW/MW portable radio and my car radio. Then in the 70s I had to replace them with FM radios in order to listen to four of the BBC’s five radio networks as well as commercial pop music stations that were starting to spring up across Yorkshire.
During the House of Lords committee stage debate on the Digital Economy Bill, on Wednesday 3 February 2010, Bishop Nigel McCulloch, Lord Bishop of Manchester, spoke for the retention of FM for local radio when he said, “The limitations of DAB for local and community stations are well acknowledged by Ofcom. Indeed, it is already planning for small-scale commercial and community stations to stay on FM in the medium term as the most appropriate technology for those stations in terms of both coverage and cost. The vacation of FM band space by the removal of national and large local stations would free up more capacity for smaller stations. Ofcom sees this as a natural staging post in radio's digital evolution.” He then went onto say, “The future of local radio - which is so crucial to forging community cohesion and identity, and promoting local social action and democracy - should not be left to chance. That must mean embracing a multi-platform ecology which creates a pathway towards digital broadcasting for local radio, retaining space for them on FM until such time as a digital platform offers them the right environment to continue what they do best.”
Free-to-air radio is certainly going to be multi-platform with national and larger stations on DAB and smaller local stations staying on FM. The number of listeners to AM radio is already dropping with two large stations, Gold and Absolute Radio’s national service, already having over 50% of their listeners tuning in via digital radio.
In Europe today, a multi-standard or "multi-region" DAB radio is necessary if you want to be able to use a radio in Paris or Peterborough, Basel or Basingstoke as many countries have adopted different variations of the Eureka 147 standard for digital radio. France has adopted DMB, while Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and the UK use DAB. Other countries such as Australia, Germany and Malta have gone for DAB+.
Radio manufacturers are now producing new versions of their DAB/FM radios that pick-up the transmissions from DAB/DAB+/DMB as well as FM. These are now available from both shops and on-line stores. However it should be noted that some older models are still on sale with only DAB/FM which is fine if you are only going to use it in this country or in Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland.
I bought a DAB/DAB+/FM/AM car radio to replace the existing AM/FM radio that came in my new car. I had to do the same thing in the 70s as I wanted an FM/LW/MW radio and not the standard LW/MW radio that came with the car.
My reception of DAB broadcast stations has been fine in many parts of the country as I have travelled from the Black Country to Wiltshire and from Hertfordshire to Yorkshire. It should be remembered that the first FM networks started in 1955 and it took many years, over 25 years, for the service to reach the whole country.
What we need is for Ofcom and government to get Digital Radio UK and the radio industry to get the roll-out of robust DAB transmission across all of the country quicker than it took to roll-out the national FM networks!! Then we will be able to have a wide choice local and community stations on FM while the national networks and regional stations, including many specialist stations, will be on DAB.
Free-to-air radio will then operate as a multi-platform ecology.
