Category Archives: news

MuxCo welcomes the findings of the Digital Radio Working Group

Leave a Reply

The Digital Radio Working Group (‘DRWG’) has today (19 Dec 2008) published its final report on the status and strategy for digital radio.

In the UK, 31.4% of all adults every week currently listen to radio via a digital radio platform, and this results in the digital platforms having a total share of all radio listening of 18.7% (Rajar Q3 2008).  DAB is and is set to remain the principal digital radio platform – 8m sets sold to date, and DAB accounts for over 11% of total listening.

MuxCo agrees with the DRWG that a radio-specific broadcast platform is an essential part of radio’s future and that “DAB, unlike both DTT and the internet, is the most effective and financially viable way of delivering digital radio, particularly large local radio services, for the foreseeable future”.

We welcome the DRWG’s suggestions for a migration path which would be triggered by at least 50% of total radio listening is to digital platforms, and that the DRWG believe this could be achieved between 2015 and 2020.

Gregory Watson, MD at MuxCo, says “It is great news that the Digital Radio Working Group, and its members which include the BBC, Radiocentre and DRDB, has reaffirmed its commitment to the development of a sustainable and successful digital future for radio.    Today’s announcement gives us even more comfort with the development of DAB.  We look forward to the publication of the Government’s Digital Britain Report in early 2009, and urge Government and Ofcom to consider the recommendations set out in the DRWG report”.

The full DRWG report can be downloaded http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/5700.aspx

Boo.

Leave a Reply

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.

MuxCo is Live

2 Replies

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].