Digital Caution, Concepts And Abstractions

Michael Hedges August 19, 2010 Follow on Twitter

The media world has just about closed the digital gap. Debates about take-up, take-off, switch-off and switch-on have run their course, every argument explored. The tough part is getting beyond the abstract.

Digital radio has nearly been talked to death. Until the close of the last century it was a complete abstraction. Even the huge amounts spent on planning and development were ethereal; it was other people’s money.

Radio would “go digital,” just like television, said one and all. Policy markers debated enabling rules while broadcasters fantasized competitive advantage. The one certainty, in the 1990’s, was the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) technical standard. Everything else followed the plot of Field of Dreams: “If we build it, they will come.”

“Never before are negotiators as close as today in their efforts to introduce digital radio in Germany,” said support group Digital Radio Plattform General Director Michael Richter, quoted in the MeinungsBarometer newsletter (August 16) of support group Digital Radio Mitteldeutschland. Digital radio stalled in Germany with regulators and broadcasters unable to find much in common. The digital door was slammed closed when the agency responsible for allocating funds to German public broadcasters (Kommission zur Ermittlung des Finanzbedarfs der Rundfunkanstalten - KEF) cut off money for further trials and experiments after private sector broadcasters effectively withdrew from all efforts.

The KEF was persuaded to reopen the digital door just a crack and allow spending on digital radio up to €42 million if public and private sector broadcasters came to significant agreement on infrastructure with transmission supplier Media Broadcast. Those negotiations, according to Richter, are moving forward. Digital radio stakeholders are scheduled to unveil their progress and plans at the end of the consumer electronics fair IFA in Berlin September 9th. Shortly thereafter, the KEF will make its decision on freeing up license fee money.

“If the contracts with Media Broadcast are quickly reached,” said KEF member Ulrich Reimers, also quoted in the MeinungsBarometer newsletter, “the project funds are available immediately.” If not, the money will go elsewhere. The proposed national digital multiplex will use the newer DAB+ technical standard. This re-launch has the attention of digital radio stakeholders in and beyond Germany because of the country’s size, economic strength and, lest we forget, its powerful automobile industry.

“Let us not forget the KEF has granted more than €200 million for digital radio,” Reimers noted. “For many years we have enabled this particularly difficult project. The KEF members were clear that digital radio introduction would take some time. But with every delay we have become more cautious.”

Caution would seem to mix well with austerity, the current watch-word of governments and broadcasters. Digital radio has found itself on the bleeding edge of cost cutting, broadcasters watching bottom lines, revenue streams – public and commercial – hard to predict. Still digital radio – like radio in general – perseveres.

When BBC General Director Mark Thompson announced in the spring the eventual axing of DAB-only alternative music channel 6Music, it’s fans took their case to Facebook, the BBC Trust and politicians. The BBC and, to a certain extent, commercial broadcasters have been active in digital radio for the best part of two decades. More than 10 million DAB receivers have been sold in the UK, though take-up seems to be slowing.  For all the time and money invested few DAB channels in the UK have had a noticeable heartbeat. The rally around 6Music led, it seems, to its measured audience doubling. Minds at the BBC have been changed on 6Music.

Nothing trumps content in developing digital radio though the technology people would prefer simply shutting down the FM band. Regulators, advised by politicians, are hesitant to go down that road. Developing a tipping point of digital-only radio content sufficient to push the platform from “alternative” to mainstream is a far more troublesome undertaking – not merely expensive – for most broadcasters.

Denmark’s public broadcaster DR was a digital radio early adopter. Part of DR’s radio strategy was experimenting with lots of channels and a wide variety of content, mostly all-music. At one point DR had 20 DAB channels, several digital-only. Receiver take-up in Denmark is, per-capita, the highest in the world.

Hit by a government imposed austerity plan and the loss of one of its national analogue channels DR has changed strategy. Gone next year will be the “jukebox” channels, replaced with fewer, more full service channels. That means DJs. “We are looking back at some old virtues,” said DR’s Ole Mølgaard to Politiken (August 6). “A host creates presence and gives music soul.” It’s a concept.

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