Author Archives: Matt

Northamptonshire

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Northampton is the latest stop on our multiplex journey with a fine line-up and a mystery additional service provider. Ooooooohhhhhh.

When putting together an application you run up against some interesting problems. The main issue is the closing date. It often causes problems with potential partners as if they take part in your bid publicly it might harm a different part of their strategy. We always try and put as much as possible into the public Part A of the document, however when these things pop up we often have to have a confidential Part B with a little more detailed information that only Ofcom sees. In the Part B for Northants we have the identity of the mystery Adult Contemporary provider.

In this application we also have an either/or opportunity too. We’ve made room in our application for XFM. We’ve done this because we’re aware that GCap are rolling out this brand into lots of different areas, we think it’s a great station and would love to have it on our application. If we win, however, we’re unsure whether GCap would want to provide it to us. They might decide that they can only provide extra services like XFM if they win the multiplex themselves. As we’re uncertain what they’re likely to do, we’ve made space available for XFM, but we’ve also got a different ‘youth’ station back-up in place – something we’ve also detailed in our confidential Part B.

As always, we’re very pleased with the line-up and the fact we have a local shareholder in the form of Connect FM owner, Forward Media on board. Through all of our applications we’ve always tried to have local analogue operators on board, as it means they get some of the profit from the multiplex, which reduces the amount of money they have to pay out for the cost of the digital carriage. Often these stations are quite small businesses so it’s important that we can come up with affordable ways for them to broadcast on digital, otherwise they won’t be able to be there, which won’t make DAB as attractive to local listeners.

As always leave your comments below or email [email protected].

Boo.

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Big sighs at MuxCo HQ as we’ve just found out that we’ve sadly not been awarded the licence for Herts, Beds and Bucks. It’s  instead been awarded to GCap subsidiary NOWdigital. Congratulations to Matt and Nicky at NOWdigital for putting together a winning application.

Succesful or not however, we believe strongly in our model for local multiplexes and that for digital radio to grow and develop that there needs to be a solid opportunity for all broadcasters large and small to take part. We’re very happy with our recent applications for Northeast Wales and West Cheshire and Herefordshire and Worcestershire and we’re working hard to put together great bids for more areas that are being advertised.

Right, time for a beer.

At the Digital Radio Show

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Today I am at the third Digital Radio Show in London.  The show, which is on for two days, has focused on making a business from digital radio this morning, with a European perspective this afternoon. Day 2 looks at developments such as DAB+ and Mobile TV.

Highlights, apart from a very good shepherds pie (but with salad not peas), were a review of the national multiplex bids by C4’s Nathalie Schwarz and Tony Moretta of NGW, updates from GCap on making a return on investment and the success to date of theJazz as well as how RTL aggregates content and distributes through different networks.

More later (and tomorrow) although will not be here all day tomorrow as we find out the result for Herts Beds Bucks at 5pm!

Hereford & Worcester

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Its the 6th June and the sun is shining, so hopefully this now marks the start of summer. For us it mark’s the closing date for applications for the Herefordshire and Worcestershire multiplex, something MuxCo Hereford & Worcester Ltd has submitted its application for.

Behind the bid, alongside us, are Town & Country and local radio man (and the theme tune writer for Gladiators no-less), Muff Murfin. It was an interesting licence area to plan, covering a number of urban areas and also a lot of green space, so it was a little more complex getting the transmitter network right.

We have included an interesting selection of new radio formats to complement the existing local services of Wyvern FM, Sunshine and the BBC, ranging from an interactive youth service, Shuffle, to a classic rock station called Smithy Rock, and a new local speech station too – Local Live. I won’t bore you here with all the detail but you will find a copy of the application online here. In the meantime, its off to the pub for a well earned drink and to think about the next project. As always, please send us your views and comments to [email protected].

Northeast Wales and West Cheshire is in!

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We’ve given ourselves the afternoon off here at MuxCo HQ as we’ve just submitted our application for the Northeast Wales and West Cheshire DAB Digital Radio licence. It’s an interesting area as we’re able to cover a decent stretch of Liverpool as well as Northeast Wales and West Cheshire. This is good news for the new digital only services as it means they can cover a larger area and have a better chance of supporting themselves financially. At the same time, people a little further afield will be able to tune in to their favourite analogue services. We think this is especially useful for people who work further away from home as they can keep listening to their local home station.

We’re also pleased that we’ve got a stellar bunch of shareholders. Town and Country, Dee 106.3 and UTV ensure that the local radio stations will collectively benefit from being involved with digital radio, reducing their costs and ensuring that their stations appear on DAB.

As always, we’re interested in your views, so if you want to get in touch, i’m [email protected].

No MuxCo Derby?

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Yesterday was the closing date for the Derby local multiplex and as you might have noticed there was no bid by MuxCo.

When bidding for a licence the key thought you have to have is “will we win”. If you don’t think you can win you’ll be wasting yours (and your shareholder’s) money.

The East Midlands is an interesting area as there’s no regional multiplex broadcasting locally. This means that there’s likely to be demand for carriage from the regional ILRs as well as the local ones.  In our planning we knew that NOWdigital East Midlands (a consortium of GCap, Chrysalis and Sabras) already operated the Leicester and Nottingham multiplex were likely to bid for Derby too.  Having the operators of the main analogue stations (who are also providing additional services) involved in a consortium would make it very difficult for a plucky young upstart to win this one, so we’ve decided to concentrates on areas where we have a better chance.

Onwards to Wrexham and Chester….

MuxCo is Live

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It’s been a busy few months but we’ve finally gone public with MuxCo. Our application for the Herts, Beds and Bucks multiplex will be the first of many bringing, we hope, a new way of doing local digital radio.

As you can see from our Herts, Beds and Bucks page we’ve got a different kind of line-up of services and a different kind of shareholder structure. Our aim is to make each multiplex as local as possible. We do this by having some of our local service providers as shareholders. This reduces the cost of their digital transmission (as they receive dividends from the compnay) and encourages them to broadcast on DAB,  usually earlier then they might have chosen, which we think is great news for consumers.

Why is this different? Well, think of a multiplex as a house. Normally one person gets a mortage on a house and they rent out some of the rooms to other people and they keep a few for themselves. They always hope that the money that comes from the rent will actually cover the cost of the entire mortgage, which means they get to live rent free or at least at a reduced rate.

Multiplexes are usually very similar, one operator broadcasts some of their own stations and hopes the rent from all of the others will off-set some (or all) of their costs.

With MuxCo it’s a bit like you’ve got together with your friends to buy a house, there’s still a little bit of money coming in from a few lodgers but generally you all benefit from owning the house together. This keeps the costs down and means you can spend more money or doing up your room – or for radio stations, spending more money on content.

Before that analogy gets a little too tortuous I think I better stop there. You can always leaves comments here on the blog, or email me [email protected].