Category Archives: mid and west wales

Call for Ramadan Services for DAB

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We are interested in hearing from anyone who would like to operate a Ramadan service on the following DAB multiplexes during June and July 2014:

Interested parties are invited to answer this questionnaire, after which we will discuss opportunities to contract for capacity for up to 28 days on each available multiplex.

Please fill in the questionnaire by 5pm on 31st March 2014

All contracts for capacity are subject to the availability of suitable capacity on each multiplex.  If there are multiple expressions of interest, and more demand for capacity than is available, we will select services on the basis of ability to enter a standard carriage contract rather than first come basis.

We intend to notify interest parties in April.

Any questionnaire submissions that are received after the date specified above, will still be considered for a licence, but subject to capacity availability.

The fee to broadcast on any of the multiplexes will be £2,000+VAT for the 28 days, subject to contract, and you will be required to get your signal to the multiplex centre (which we can describe in more detail after submission of the form).

All successful service providers are reminded that they will need to hold the necessary DSP licence from Ofcom and comply with the requirements of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, in particular if they wish to broadcast charity appeals and must take reasonable steps to satisfy itself that the charity appeal organisation concerned can produce satisfactory evidence of charitable status, or, in the case of an emergency appeal, that a responsible public fund has been set up to deal with it.   Further details can be found at: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/commercial-references-radio/.

If you have any questions about this opportunity please contact [email protected]

Student Radio and the Mid and West Wales Win

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Apologies for the slight delay on writing this post but yesterday I was at the Student Radio Association‘s Conference in Bath, talking about digital stuff on a panel with Nick Piggott from GCap, Will Jackson from Ofcom and Ben Perreau from sky.com. It was a really good session with some excellent questions from the students. Indeed, student radio is probably the first sector to truly engage about which platforms they need and should be on. Most of their listeners are now broadband enabled and their traditional distribution is limited to low powered AM or short-term RSLs.

Talking about DAB with them was quite fascinating and it was great to hear how Xpress Radio felt about simulcasting their FM RSL on DAB. It sounded like they had been overwhelmed with positive reaction from new local listeners across Cardiff and Newport and that it’s really made them think about the scope of the station. They also felt that being next to XFM on the dial also helped too!

Anyway, hopefully they’ll be more opportunitites for a variety of broadcasters as Ofcom awarded the Mid and West Wales DAB Digital Radio multiplex to MuxCo Wales Ltd yesterday, something which we were obviously pleased about. As I talked about when we submitted the application, this multiplex is still very much work in progress, but we’re looking forward to developing our offer over the coming months.

Mid and West Wales Submission

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Yesterday we submitted our application for the Mid and West Wales multiplex licence (a day early!) with partners in the area – Town and Country Broadcasting Ltd.

At first glance the multiplex does not seem as full as some of our recent applications with a transmission plan that does not cover the entire area. I just wanted to write a blog post that explained some of the reasons why this is the case and highlight the fact that what we have submitted is very much a starting point, with our objective to expand both the coverage and number of services over the licence term. Indeed, we will hopefully have some good news before the licence even goes on air.

Mid Wales, in particular, is not a an easy area to cover. Our estimates showed that to even begin making in-roads into this area, and starting to bring a service to the 150,000 people there, would require more than five transmitter sites. Due to a lack of interest from new services to cover this area, it meant that coverage would be uneconomical to commit to at this time. Indeed, we’re not sure that any traditional funding model would make it possible to bring any services to this area. We are however exploring a number of non-traditional options with our colleagues at the BBC to find a way to fund a roll-out to this area. As these plans have not been firmed up at this time, we put in a transmission plan that we knew we could deliver at launch.

Ideally we would also like to broadcast a number of additional stations in the area, both existing analogue and some new services too.  Whilst we’ve had some good discussions with potential operators, we’re not yet in a place where we can guarantee that we will be bringing them to the area. Though saying that, we hope that we’ll have some announcements about new additions in the next few months.

When we started MuxCo we always new that some areas would take a little longer to sort out than others. Wales has not been in the fast track for development of digital broadcasting and as such has a much lower penetration of receivers – indeed, why buy one if you can’t pick up much! It will therefore take a little longer for new stations to have enough listeners to hit their business plan targets and that affects what we can announce today. What this definitley isn’t, is a result of any recent announcements from other operators, it is more finding the right model for the local players in the market at the right time.

So, please look at our application – transmitters, services and timings – as something we know we can deliver on day one, rather than what we hope we can deliver when the multiplex goes live. As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.