I went along to an event at BT Tower this week to ‘switch on’ an upgrade to London’s DAB infrastructure.

Each area in the country has specific issues based on topography or land use and London’s no exception. Central London suffers from a vast array of buildings of different types which cause DAB signals to be less than robust than those further out fed by the same transmitters. Digital Radio UK have co-ordinated an additional transmitter on BT Tower, alongside some additional power upgrades around the network to provide further resilience.

It’s seen all the multiplex operators work together – London 1, 2 and 3 alongside D1 and the BBC to make this happen.

Whilst this may not affect where you live, it’s an important demonstration of the industry’s desire to ensure that digital radio’s availability continues to improve.

There’s more information on Digital Radio UK’s website.

We can understand that from the perspective of local listeners, the launch dates of both our and other multiplex operator’s licences have come and gone frustratingly with not much information available about the reasons for these delays.

We would like to offer another (possibly equally frustrating) update to assure you that the radio silence is a result of continued workings behind the scenes and not a result of us wandering off to do something else.

As we have detailed before, since the licence awards there have been a number of changes to the regulatory environment which meant we had to begin a process of reviewing all of our plans. As Ofcom talk about in their latest consultation on DAB Planning, there is significant discussion about the coverage of each multiplex and the potential frequencies they will broadcast on. The aim behind this is to enable multiplexes to better match FM coverage and how to increase power levels that ensure the most robust reception for listeners. Additionally, there is a desire from Government to increase the overall coverage from existing and new multiplexes. All multiplex operators have entered into discussions about how this can be achieved (and paid for). The net benefit of all these discussions will be even better digital radio for listeners.

Getting through these discussions is tough. Multiplex operators, the BBC, the Government and Arqiva are all working together on a plan that will require big changes to their own business plans and transmission arrangements. At the same time, all changes have a knock-on effect to everyone. It’s a large puzzle that lots of people are working on and there are many iterations of the plan each week.

The progress is however good and we’re confident that we can get a result that’s even better for listeners and provides a network and infrastructure that’s attractive and affordable for service providers.

We’ve had a number of, understandably, angry emails suggesting that if we are not going to launch the multiplexes, we should hand the licences back. It is our absolute intention to launch the multiplexes, and the reality is that any new multiplex operator would be in exactly the same position, navigating the discussions with the industry to get the new local plan sorted out. Indeed, Now Digital, who also won some multiplexes in the last round, are in the same position as MuxCo.

From a business perspective, both MuxCo and our partners remain supportive of DAB and are keen to launch. We are comfortable with the financial structure of the multiplexes and that the multiplex will provide affordable and robust coverage for service providers. We also have a number of plans for new services that we are frustrated we cannot currently develop and would like to talk more about!

What we do know, however, is that the discussions taking place are going to put local digital radio in an even better position for listeners and service providers and when we’re in a position to launch, we will.

We’ve just updated the pages for our North Wales & West Cheshire multiplexes, our Gloucestershire and Herefordshire & Worcestershire multiplexes and our Surrey & Sussex multiplex.

We have requested to merge what was North East Wales & West Cheshire with what was North Wales to create a single multiplex. We have also requested to simulcast the same set of services on both the Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire multiplexes.

I just wanted to write a few lines outlining our thinking about this. With North Wales we were seeing that many of our service providers would be appearing on both multiplexes and that the westerly multiplex would always be hard to make economically viable on its own. There was also a disappointment that the westerly side would take a little longer time in getting around to. By merging these multiplexes we hope to fix some of these issues and give more of Wales DAB quicker than had been envisaged.

The simulcast of Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire was a harder decision to take especially as listeners in this area tend to look to different areas. We think that there will eventually be demand from service providers to fill both sides separately. However, at the moment (and with all the recent changes to stations in that area) it makes the multiplexes more viable to initially address these multiplexes as a single area. When demand increases, we will then be able to split the multiplexes into their two constituent parts.

We’ve also taken a look at the Surrey & Sussex multiplex and feel it would make more sense for Arqiva to increase their Sussex Coast multiplex to cover more of Sussex and for the MuxCo multiplex to better concentrate on Surrey. As this involves another party, there’s still some more work to be done before we can talk about the plans for these areas. That’s also reflected in its current line-up.

We’ve made these requests to Ofcom as part of their recent work on the future size and make-up of local digital radio multiplexes.

Making Changes

When the multiplexes were awarded, the radio environment was very different to what it is today. As a multiplex operator MuxCo works with different shareholder companies in each area, as well as maintaining a dialogue with the BBC and the local broadcasters about their thoughts and plans. We’ve always been big believers in digital radio, but it’s absolutely vital to have the agreement from shareholders and service providers before we can launch in each area. Were we to launch without this support, and with no tenants, the business would not last very long – it’s also unlikely that a new operator that would be able to succeed without this support as well. We’re genuinely trying to create something that’s sustainable in each area.

Where we are now is that our partners and service providers feel much more confident about the industry and their own future and many are keen that the multiplexes launch so they can grow and develop their businesses. We’ve therefore updated our line-up pages with our current thoughts about service providers for these first areas. An important caveat – these are not the confirmed and final line-ups – there will be some additions (and always the chance of removals as well) – but in the interests of being open – this is what we’re currently building our plans around. It’s also dependent, of course, on regulatory approval. If there’s a station that you think should be on one of the multiplexes, the best thing to do is ‘politely’ request to that station that it should be made available on DAB in that area.

Next stages

There’s currently parallel activity going on. Whilst we’re waiting for approval from Ofcom for our changes we’re in the final operational planning stages with our transmission contractor so we can set a launch date for our first two multiplexes. We hope to announce some dates in the coming weeks.

We’re aware that all of this has been a long time coming and I have to say that we are as frustrated as you that it has taken so long. I can only apologise for the delays and hope that you will find this news and some of the forthcoming updates as being more positive.

Hello.

We’ve been reading and replying to lots of the comments you’ve been writing and I thought it was probably time for a blog update.

To prove that there are some developments, honest, I snapped the picture above at a meeting we had recently. From the left David Peters and Paul Eaton (from Arqiva) and Nicky Tate and Gregory Wastson (from Folder Media/MuxCo). We met up to discuss the current situation and progress on the multiplexes. But what does that really mean?

First we compared notes on what we think is happening to local multiplexes across the UK, whether we felt that any were likely to merge or change shape, and whether this would affect frequency allocation or availability of frequencies. We then talked about our own areas and the pros and cons of combining any areas and especially what this would mean for frequencies – ie would we want to use one frequency for any enlarged areas or would we want to maintain the existing allocations and muxticast a combined multiplex across two frequencies. We were also weighing up the affect this could have over coverage (positive and negative) and how it would impact or benefit potential service providers. We’re now going to be investigating some our thoughts with Ofcom’s technical teams.

One question we’re asked, is why change anything? Well, for me the key thing is looking at whether any of the industry changes will mean we can have better coverage for less money. I’m also keen to maximise the flexibility on the multiplexes going forward and to allow us to provide innovative (read cheap) solutions for service providers. In DAB’s current development, is it better to cover larger local areas with some services that might traditionally appear on neighbouring multiplexes in the short term, and then split the multiplexes again when demand increases later on? Or does it really not make that much difference and should we proceed as planned? They’re the kind of decisions we’re making.

We also had some good discussions with Arqiva about how the contribution part (ie stations getting their signals to the multiplex) as well as the distribution (getting the multiplex feed) to the transmitters. Contribution is usually a fixed cost, whereas the cost of capacity depends on bitrates, therfore for smaller services it will be good to try and drive that cost down and hopefully encourage services to join the multiplex and to allow short-term services to take part as well.

All these discussions mean that Arqiva can now give us some firm quotations for the transmission costs of some of the earlier multiplexes planned. We can then move to final negotiations with them and then set prices for the service providers – allowing us to formally contract with them for carriage.  Then we can give Arqiva the OK to build the network, and away we’ll go!

Matt.

The UK Government published its Digital Britain White Paper on 16 June. The key points of the report in relation to radio are:

Digital migration

• Confirmation of a digital radio “upgrade” by the end of 2015 (and which will be confirmed at least two years in advance).
• All national and local services currently on DAB to migrate from analogue.
• Small ultra-local stations and community radio to upgrade from MW to FM, or remain on FM.
• Target for criteria (i.e. 50% of listening to be digital; national DAB coverage comparable to FM; and local DAB to reach 90% of population) to be met by 2013.
• Five point plan for DAB in vehicles, supported by major car manufacturers including Ford and Vauxhall.

DAB coverage

• BBC to achieve comparable coverage to FM for its national multiplex by the end of 2014.
• BBC to bear significant proportion of the costs of local DAB coverage roll-out.
• Some cost savings delivered by Digital Britain to be re-invested to support transmitter investment.
• Government will support a re-plan of local and regional DAB (merging multiplexes where agreed, and creating a second national multiplex).

The White Paper is very positive and is supported cross party.

In overall terms, we at Folder Media / MuxCo support the proposals in the White Paper, which we believe will help underpin DAB.
In summary:

• We support a set date for switch over, rather than a rolling set of criteria. This gives a clear flag to achieve, and we feel confident that the radio industry will be able to achieve the criteria by 2013.

• We have always advocated that DAB is one of several digital radio platforms, and is likely to continue to be the primary terrestrial platform in the short to medium term, and hopefully longer.

• We support the proposal for clear labelling of the DAB technology.

• We have been involved in the initial industry discussions about converting the regional DAB layer into the basis of a second national layer and in principle support the proposal.

• We have been involved in the initial industry discussions about ‘merging’ multiplex areas. We support the view that where such mergers make economic and efficiency sense for both multiplex operators and service providers, then the multiplex operator should have the right to approach Ofcom to merge, but that merging should not be artificially forced upon multiplexes. In addition, any re-plan needs to take account of potential long term interest rather than a short term view.

• We have always stated that functionality and interactivity will be the bedrock of DAB, hence our intention to hold capacity for the provision of data rather than audio services. We currently maintain a watching brief on this aspect of the opportunity, as whilst we can create services, we need devices on which they can operate. To that end, we have good relationships with a number of manufacturers.

Through the MuxCo application process we interviewed thousands of people who are current DAB listeners as well as those who had not yet taken the plunge. Current listeners are nearly all huge advocates for the technology and how it has improved their radio listening. We’re keen to work hard to make digital radio an even better proposition – coverage, content and features – and we’ll work strongly with all radio operators and the Government to provide a service that betters listeners’ analogue radio experience and keeps radio a vibrant medium.