Broadcast technophiles celebrate all things digital at IBC

Michael Hedges September 20, 2004

The IBC opened and closed last week in Amsterdam. Most than 40 thousand visitors and exhibitors stoked the flames of the digital media revolution, 12% more than 2003 according to the IBC. As usual, it’s a visual – as in TV - event.

Radio has its place, hard earned, within the digital choir. DRM and DAB have found their voice. But DAB has joined the video section with a new variation called Digital Multimedia Broadcasting. DMR, the in-band AM system, has moved to first radio chair.

National regulators have enabled digital broadcasting in all its forms. One step remains: analogue switch-off. For TV, the change over is viral. HDTV is a visually attractive option that works with cable and satellite distribution, the norm in the major media markets.

Radio – perhaps its very nature – is free-to-air. While radio listening via set-top cable boxes and the internet is increasing, portable – and inexpensive – receivers are everywhere. Figures from France and the UK show 5 or 6 radio receivers in each household and, obviously, one in each automobile.

But regulators have shown reluctance to mandate analogue shut-off for radio. At a UK industry meeting (15 September), OFCOM chief executive Stephen Carter suggested that forcing digital radio on the public could backfire.

“I do not think that OFCOM, or the radio industry talking broadly about “switchover”, even if only as understandable shorthand, is entirely accurate. What we believe we should be thinking about and talking about is how do we get digital radio for and to everyone. Or put another way, how do we get the audience to want the analogue signal to be switched off?”

Digital radio development accelerates, according to Carter, by providing reliable coverage through increasing platform capacity, enabling broadcasters to convert from analogue to digital in a affordable way and creating consumer demand for receivers sufficient to produce downward price pressure.

Carter put the receiver price issue into perspective: “The difference today between a digital radio set and a basic analogue radio set is as much as 500 per cent. That is a big differential to overcome.”

Paul Brown, Chief Executive of the UK Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA), feels that analogue-only stations in the UK sense the need to go digital “at some stage, probably not very far away.”

Brown added: “My personal view is that Stephen Carter seemed to me to be effectively saying "let's talk about it again in three years". A way of moving that forward might be to say that we will decide the conditions that need to be met before setting a date and meet in three years to see how these have progressed and whether they give us the confidence to select a date at that point. An announcement of this kind of process ought to give further confidence to manufacturers, broadcasters and consumers.”