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MuxCo’s Surrey Multiplex Launch

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The MuxCo team and the switch-on button.

The MuxCo team and the switch-on button.

This morning at Epsom Downs Racecourse we turned on our fifth DAB Digital Radio multiplex of the year, bringing local DAB to 800,000 people across the county.

Gallery:

Press Coverage:

Video:

An update on BBC1’s London lunchtime news:

An update from BBC1’s London Evening bulletin:

 

Here’s the release:

On Thursday 12 December at the iconic Epsom Downs Racecourse Sir Paul Beresford MP for Mole Valley will officially switch on three new DAB digital radio transmitters, giving nearly 800,000 listeners new local stations on DAB in the Surrey area. The switch-on means listeners will be ready to receive four local radio stations – BBC Surrey and 96.4 Eagle Radio, alongside new stations eagle3 and Redstone FM for the first time on DAB digital radio.

To receive the new services, listeners with digital radios may have to re-tune their sets. Find out more at getdigitalradio.com/retune.

The three new transmitters at Guildford, Reigate and Crystal Palace take local digital radio coverage for these stations from zero to almost 800,000 listeners in the area, and add over 660km of roads into DAB coverage for the first time.

Sir Paul Beresford MP said: “Surrey is way ahead on digital radio, with over half of us having a digital radio at home. I welcome these new DAB transmitters which mean that our excellent local radio stations can now be received on digital radio at home and in-car.”

Gregory Watson, Managing Director of MuxCo said: “Muxco Surrey is a joint venture with UKRD Group. We are extremely excited to be working with UKRD to launch this multiplex, which will deliver a mix of existing and new digital-only radio services, such as Redstone FM and Eagle 3, in digital quality to 800,000 listeners in Surrey. We are in discussion with a number of operators that will enable further new services to launch during 2014.”

William Rogers from UKRD and Ford Ennals from Digital Radio UK

William Rogers from UKRD and Ford Ennals from Digital Radio UK

William Rogers, Chief Executive of UKRD said: “It’s a further exciting step for our operation based in Guildford that they are launching digital only service eagle3 on the Surrey DAB multiplex and it represents a further step forward in broadening the offering we are providing for listeners and advertisers alike”.

Des Shepherd, Chief Executive of Redstone FM said: “It’s great that Redstone FM will be available to listeners on DAB for the first time, bringing local news and music to our listeners, with the digital benefits of easy tuning and scrolling information.”
Sara David, Editor of BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey said: “We are delighted that BBC Surrey will be available on DAB for the first time. It brings improved reception to many parts of the county and gives us the opportunity to offer our full range of programmes in digital quality. As well as our radio programmes, the latest news, sport weather and travel information will also scroll across listeners DAB radio sets.”

Jane Ostler, Director of Digital Radio UK, said: “This is great news for almost 800,000 people in Surrey as until now they have not been able to receive their favourite local stations on DAB. Boosting coverage for this area means listeners can tune into their favourite local stations as well as national BBC and commercial stations.”
In the last 18 months, local DAB coverage has been improved for over 8 million people in the UK, increasing local DAB population coverage from 66% to 72%. By the end of this year, local DAB will have been made available to an additional 6.5 million listeners across the UK.

In Surrey, 55% of homes have a DAB digital radio – ahead of the UK as a whole, and in Q3 2013, 35.6% of radio listening was digital. A cumulative total of 18 million digital radio sets has been sold to date in the UK, including DAB radios and internet radios. 41.6% of new cars now come fitted with digital radio as standard (CAP/SMMT Oct 2013).

 

WCL Problems

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We’re currently having some problems with the connectivity of our services on the Wrexham, Chester and Liverpool multiplex. This may mean you’re unable to hear the stations on DAB at the moment. We’re currently working through the problem to put a solution in place.

23:50 – All stations should be audible. Some are working on backups and we’re looking to put things back to normal tomorrow.

Herefordshire & Worcestershire Launch

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A busy morning for the MuxCo and Digital Radio UK teams as we officially launched the Herefordshire & Worcestershire multiplex. We had two events one at the Sixways Stadium and a second in Hereford town centre.

Pics, links and press release below!

Links

Video

A piece from BBC Midlands Today:

Press Release

Harriett Baldwin MP for West Worcestershire, and Worcester Warrior rugby player Craig Gillies officially switched on 3 new DAB digital radio transmitters today, bringing local DAB digital radio to over 530,000 people in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Three stations – BBC Hereford & Worcester, Free Radio and Sunshine Radio, are now available in the area on DAB digital radio for the first time.

To receive the new services, you may need to re-tune your sets. Click here to find out how.

The big switch-on took place at the Sixways Stadium, the home ground of the Worcester Warriors Rugby Club. The three new transmitters at Ridge Hill, Malvern and Bromsgrove will take digital radio coverage for these stations from zero to over 530,000 listeners in the area, and add over 750 km of roads into DAB coverage for the first time.

The last 10 months’ build-out of DAB digital radio (including Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Gloucester) has brought local DAB coverage to over 5 million people for the first time, taking local DAB population coverage from 66% to 72%. By the end of this year we will have brought local DAB to around 6.5 million people.

This switch-on comes as the Government is expected to make a decision on radio switchover at the Go Digital conference at the BBC Radio Theatre in December. In Hereford and Worcester, 51.4% of homes have a DAB digital radio and in Q3 2013, 32.2% of radio listening was digital. A cumulative total of 18 million digital radio sets have been sold to date in the UK, including DAB radios and internet radios. 40.6% of new cars now come fitted with digital radio as standard (CAP/SMMT, October 2013).

Harriett Baldwin, MP for West Worcestershire, commented: “This marks an important new era for local radio, offering listeners better quality both at home and in the car. Local radio plays an important role in our community and often it is the best way to keep in touch with breaking news in the region.”

Gregory Watson, Managing Director of MuxCo said: “We are committed to extending digital coverage through local transmitters across the UK and this switch-on, which gives more than 500,000 listeners access to our stations on DAB, is another important step for our industry.”

Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK, said: “This is great news for half a million people in Herefordshire and Worcestershire as until now they have not been able to receive their favourite local stations on DAB. Boosting coverage for this area means listeners can tune into their favourite local stations as well as national BBC and commercial ones.

Jeremy Pollock, managing editor of BBC Hereford & Worcester, said: “We are delighted that BBC Hereford & Worcester is now available on DAB and our listeners can receive our programmes, news and sport in digital quality. It’s an important step for this area and an exciting day for local radio.”

Phil Riley, Chief Executive of Free Radio, said: “We’re excited to be able to bring Free Radio to digital radio in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Research has shown how much people value their local radio stations, so we hope this will make a big difference to the digital radio listening experience in the area.”

Ginny Murfin from Sunshine Radio said: “It’s great that Sunshine Radio will be available to listeners on DAB in Herefordshire and Worcestershire for the first time, bringing local news and music to our listeners with the digital benefits of easy tuning and scrolling information.”

November Planning Meeting

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Planning Meeting

A blurry camera phone picture of Gregory from MuxCo (left) and David Peters from Arqiva (right) at today’s planning meeting.

We have these catch-ups every month to review current projects and to plan further multiplexes. In the picture, Gregory is looking at one of many potential options for the North West Wales multiplex.

This month the big topics were the progress on Gloucester’s next two transmitters, our Bromsgrove transmitter for Herefordshire & Worcestershire and installations for Surrey. Surrey is looking good at the moment and we’re in the process of rolling out contingencies in Gloucestershire and H&W as we continue to be let down by BT. All should hopefully be on this year, before Arqiva’s network freeze at Christmas.

Looking to future multiplexes we spent some time exploring the various options for North Wales and the cost-implications of decisions in Somerset.

Planned Work Updates

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We’ve tidied up the MuxCo website a little bit today and added a new feature – Planned Work updates Service Updates.

Across our networks we sometimes need to do technical work and maintenance. Additionally as we share masts with other people, sometimes they need to do some work that affects us. This work is usually flagged up to us in advance for us to confirm or ask to be changed (if say a station is doing something important at that time). This work can result in a transmitter power being turned down or even a transmitter being off-air for a while.

We share these notices with our service providers, but we felt it would make sense to do this for our listeners too.

We’ve therefore added a ‘Service Updates‘ section to the right hand side of the website and link to multiplex-specific Planned Work sections from each of the multiplex sections. On those pages you can also subscribe to email updates about the latest Planned Work or follow our relevant Twitter accounts where we’ll be tweeting links too.

If you have any feedback, please leave it below.

Gloucestershire Launch

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A busy morning for the MuxCo team as we officially launched the Gloucestershire multiplex this morning at the Pittville Pump Rooms in Cheltenham. Here’s some pictures from the launch (thanks Vinnie!)

Links:

The launch from the BBC’s Points West:

Launch Audio:

Here’s the official press release:

On Friday 18 October, Cheltenham MP Martin Horwood and Gloucester rugby star Nick Wood will officially switch on two new DAB digital radio transmitters, giving over 400,000 listeners new local stations on DAB in the Gloucestershire area. The switch-on means listeners will be able to receive 4 local radio stations – BBC Radio Gloucestershire, Gold, Heart and Sunshine Radio for the first time on DAB digital radio.

To receive the new services, listeners with digital radios may have to re-tune their sets. Find out more at getdigitalradio.com/retune.

The big switch-on takes place at the iconic Grade 1-listed Pittville Pump Rooms in Cheltenham. The two new transmitters at Churchdown Hill and Stockend Wood take local digital radio coverage for these stations from zero to over 400,000 listeners in the area, and add over 450km of roads into DAB coverage for the first time. A further two transmitters will be launched in Cirencester and Icombe Hill towards the end of the year, improving coverage even further.

In the last 10 months build-out of DAB digital radio has brought local DAB coverage to over 5 million people for the first time, taking local DAB population coverage from 66% to 72%. By the end of this year, local DAB will have been made available to an additional 6.5 million listeners across the UK.

This switch-on comes the same week that the BBC announced plans to add 162 new digital radio transmitters to improve national DAB coverage for its national network stations. This expansion to more than 97% of the population will include two new transmitters in Gloucestershire.

Government has said they will make a decision on radio switchover at the end of 2013. In Gloucestershire, 51% of homes have a DAB digital radio – ahead of the UK as a whole, and in Q2 2013, 37.9% of radio listening was digital. A cumulative total of 18 million digital radio sets has been sold to date in the UK, including DAB radios and internet radios. 41.5% of new cars now come fitted with digital radio as standard (CAP/SMMT Sept 2013).

Martin Horwood, MP for Cheltenham, said: “Gloucestershire is way ahead on digital radio, with over half of us having a digital radio at home. I’m really pleased that the new DAB transmitters mean that our excellent local radio stations can now be received on digital radio at home and in their car.”
Nick Wood, Gloucester Rugby star, ahead of the team’s game against Munster on Saturday, said: “It is brilliant that all the Gloucester Rugby matches will now be broadcast in crystal clear quality on DAB digital radio. As a sports fan, I love the fact that digital offers such a great choice of sports content on the radio.”
Nathan Sykes, from the band The Wanted, [pictured] said: “Growing up in Gloucestershire, music and radio was so important to me. I am really pleased that from today people can listen to their favourite shows on DAB digital radio.”

Jane Ostler, Director of Digital Radio UK, said: “This is great news for over 400,000 people in Gloucestershire as until now they have not been able to receive their favourite local stations on DAB. Boosting coverage for this area means listeners can tune into their favourite local stations as well as national BBC and commercial ones.”

Gregory Watson, Managing Director of MuxCo said: “We are committed to extending digital coverage through local transmitters across the UK and this switch-on, which gives 400,000 listeners access to our stations on DAB, is another important step for our industry.”

Mark Jones, Editor of BBC Radio Gloucestershire, said: “We are delighted that BBC Radio Gloucestershire will be available on DAB for the first time. It brings improved reception to many parts of the county and gives us the opportunity to offer our full range of programmes in digital quality. As well as our radio programmes, the latest news, sport weather and travel information will also scroll across listeners DAB radio sets. We are delighted to say that commentary from every Gloucester Rugby game – domestic and European, home & away -will be available on DAB.”

Marcus Langreiter of Global Radio said: “We’re excited to be able to bring both Heart and Gold to digital radio in Gloucestershire. We know our listeners love the great music we play, and now they can listen in digital quality.”

Ginny Murfin from Sunshine Radio said: “It’s great that Sunshine Radio will be available to listeners on DAB for the first time, bringing local news and music to our listeners, with the digital benefits of easy tuning and scrolling information.”

Gloucestershire/Hereford & Worcester Test Plans

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Today we’ve just started test transmissions for our Gloucestershire multiplex, in preparation for the official launch on the 18th October.

This is a week or so later than we have recently blogged about. We’re also not testing the Herefordshire and Worcestershire multiplex, which we had previously mentioned we were planning to have on air at the same time. I just wanted to provide an update about why this is the case.

In some previous updates we’ve talked about some issues with BT. The way the multiplexes work is that we hook up stations to our network by putting in special lines into their studios. These are often special versions of broadband that guarantee certain bandwidth levels that means we will always receive their signals. These all come into our transmission provider’s multiplex centre and are wrapped together into a multiplex feed, this is then sent by telecoms lines to each of the transmitters.

Quite often transmitter locations are in the middle of nowhere, so our options for getting lines (and our signals) into the areas are quite limited. BT, as the UK’s legacy network provider, are often the only people that have the right connectivity to deliver our services. If they have problems or delays there’s often very little that we can do but wait.

And that’s the issue. BT currently have significant network issues that are affecting connectivity for our multiplexes in Mid and West Wales, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

To get Mid and West Wales and Gloucestershire on-air we have had to think somewhat creatively to get around these BT issues. So, both of these multiplexes are currently being fed by satellite. We’ve installed equipment at the multiplex centre to take the multiplex signal send it up to a satellite and then installed dishes at the transmitter sites to downlink the signal to get it to the transmitters.

As we are hopeful that this is only a temporary solution we are using existing equipment from Arqiva to achieve this somewhat over-engineered solution. Our issue with Herefordshire and Worcestershire is that we have now used all their ‘spare’ equipment on the other two multiplexes so can’t deploy the same solution for Hertfordshire and Worcestershire.

We’re working with BT to try and fix the connectivity at one of the three sites so we can either feed Herefordshire and Worcestershire direct or use some satellite equipment released from getting direct feeds online to M&WW or Gloucestershire.

To say we’re frustrated about these delays is a massive understatement. We’re having discussions at the highest levels of Arqiva and BT to get back on track.

Also, please remember that the Gloucestershire tests are just that – tests. This means that there may well be downtime for the multiplex or individual services between now and launch.