MuxCo welcomes the findings of the Digital Radio Working Group

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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

Cloud 9

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So, our final application has been awarded – North Wales! This completes the first round of MuxCo applications and overall we’re very happy. Whilst HBB, Northants and especially Oxford would have fitted in beautifully to the MuxCo family, you can’t have everything can you?

We’re now getting on and building these things so we can get the services on air.

Somerset Awarded to MuxCo

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Ofcom has just called Gregory to say that we’ve been successful with our application for the Somerset DAB Digital Radio multiplex. This is good news for MuxCo and its local partners who can now more easily make the transition to DAB. It also means that new stations and services will be able to start broadcasting on digital radio in a cost-effective manner.

We’ve also submitted today our application for North Wales, the details of which i’ll try and put up online for tomorrow.

Surrey & Sussex Won and Somerset Submitted

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Sorry for the late update about our win yesterday for Surrey and Sussex, but we’ve been buys finishing off our application for Somerset, which i’ve just submitted. Thankfully Will at Ofcom‘s told me that they’ve received it (you’re never quite sure if it might disappear into the black whole of the internet when you hit send on the email) which means I can finish writing up the pages for the website.

Somerset’s been an interesting one to do, it’s a relatively small multiplex and a quite a few of the stations have small but specific coverage areas. It’s something that’s meant we have to work really hard with from a cost basis to ensure that it’s economic enough to get the stations on board.

In these financially tight times it’s MuxCo structure (with TLRC and UKRD as partners) that allows us to roll out DAB digital radio to this area.

Listening Tests

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We recently attended some listening tests hosted by NGW to demonstrate a new codec for producing MPEG-2 audio for DAB, We also had the chance to listen to some DAB+ audio.

It was a very enjoyable experience although I admit I have never been very good at listening tests. I can’t always distinguish subtle difference in audio as easily as the eagle eared engineers, in part due to the fact that my hearing isn’t very sharp. In any case we have to be very careful when discussing subjective opinions about audio.

Listening to the audio from the different codecs, however, I could tell the difference – just. One was more lean and rangy – more treble, basically.

Now here is why subjective listening tests are to be viewed with caution. If you’re turning out jangly guitar rock you might quite like the sound quite lean and rangy. If however you’re running a talk service or playing a lot of acoustic numbers then that lean and rangy treble might be less welcome.

In addition, whatever we provide in terms of baseline parameters can be totally masked by a station’s processing – or lack of, and the quality of the same. There is excellent and disastrous unprocessed audio and the same goes for various types of processing. How a radio station presents its audio is very much up to them. So for us as multiplex operators, just picking one codec over another alone does not guarantee a subjective improvement for you the listener.

Luckily there is hard data we can refer to – data that demonstrates the actual frequency range that each codec achieves. A greater range gives services a broader platform to stand on. So subjective listening is valuable but is only part of the decision making process.

The Eagle has Landed

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Sorry to all those film buffs who thought I might do a review of the excellent 1976 film.  However, I really wanted to talk about the 96.4 variety and landed a slot on local DAB.  Today MuxCo, working with UKRD Group, has submitted an application for the Surrey & North Sussex multiplex.  Whilst we won’t be featuring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland or Donald Pleasence, the multiplex will feature the heritage stations of County Sound, Mercury FM and BBC Southern Counties Radio, as well as 96.4 Eagle Radio.

This is MuxCo’s tenth application – and what a busy year it has been.  However, we remain true to our beliefs of enabling DAB expansion in an efficient and viable manner.  We continue to ensure a wide variety of new choice is carried.  NME Radio will provide a new perspective on the rock scene, whilst Easy Radio’s easy listening mix will now be available to a significantly larger audience across the Home Counties.  Shuffle is a new service for the area comprising music and listener-generated content for teenagers and young adults, whilst Traffic Radio will provide an up to date traffic and travel service.  If successful with our bid, we would hope to make some further announcements of additional services before our proposed launch.

Onwards and upwards, and now down the M4 and M5 to Somerset.

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.

Launching DAB Multiplexes

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I am excited to have joined the team at Muxco and have spent some time over the last couple of weeks getting up to speed with the forthcoming launches, which I will be overseeing. Matt has suggested I post on here periodically to keep those who are interested up to speed with the process.

As a priority I shall be getting to know the service providers on our planned multiplexes and ensuring they are informed and happy about the process to launch. There are some regulatory loose ends being tied up too, to ensure we are making the best use of the available spectrum.

I have overseen lots of DAB multiplex launches but the regulatory and industry landscape changes every year (or every month at the moment), and no two multiplexes are exactly the same. Having said that, if these launches are anything like the ones that have gone before, I am fully expecting the following – speaking generally:

  • The first wave of work will be a flurry of requests for maps, contact details and contracts.
  • There will be an agonising wait to build a key transmitter, as local councillors argue whether its marginally more pointy tip significantly bespoils the local landscape.
  • There will be some sort of wait on International Clearance on a transmitter which mildly oversteps the boundaries of the Reserved Assignment List as our European chums decide to sit on our request in return for the fact they didn’t get as many complimentary pens as the British at RRC06.
  • Just as the radio stations are all hooked up there will be a last minute change of address for one of our services meaning a wheelbarrowful of equipment will need to be run around the corner and reinstalled at midnight.
  • There will be anxious posts on forums wondering why test transmissions haven’t started. The minute they do, the fact that the services are not in alphabetical order on the ensemble will be noted.
  • There will be a typo on the configuration documents which will be spotted before it goes live, saving a Country Music service from having a contracted 8 character name which breaks the broadcasting code and offends my mother.

You are welcome to email me with any queries and I will do my best to respond as we go along.

Building the MuxCo Network

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With five multiplexes in the bag we thought we’d ask our transmitter company, National Grid, to do us a map of all the prospective multiplexes. They say a picture paints a thousand words and it certainly does in this case. Gregory was showing the map off in the office like a proud father.

 

Obviously we’ve still got transmitters to confirm and such, so don’t take these ones as the final final transmission plans.

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.