Linconlshire Win

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We’ve just heard from the good people of Ofcom that we’ve been awarded the licence for the Lincolnshire multiplex. Which is good because as we’re the only bidder and it would have been a bit embarrassing if they had chosen not to give it to us!

With one million DAB Digital Radios sold in the last quarter of 2007 alone it’s important that all these new DAB convertees can hear their favourite local stations. So we’re pleased that we’ll be brining the people of Lincolnshire Lincs FM, Compass FM, BBC Radio Lincolnshire and some new local stations on DAB soon.

Lincolnshire DAB Licence Submitted

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I don’t know, two posts in two days, this is almost like a real blog!

Today we submitted our application for the Lincolnshire multiplex alongisde our partner shareholder, Lincs FM Group. Michael Betton and the Lincs FM team have been a really great bunch of people to work with and collectively we’re very pleased with what we’ve submitted and the coverage across the County that we’re able to achieve.

I think it’s also good to see Lincs FM creating a new service for the multiplex – Lincs Country. Country music scored well in our research and it’s defintely a format that will grow listener choice in the area.

Picking up on a theme from my last post, Lincs Country is another example of the commitment that the smaller radio groups are putting into DAB. Lincolnshire’s an area that the Lincs FM team know inside out and its these deep connections that will allow this new station to be succeful in both audience and revenue terms.

Ofcom Goes MuxCo for Gloucester

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Even though Gregory tried to send me out of the room as I am apparently ‘cursed’ when i’m in the office on award days, MuxCo Gloucestershire Ltd has been awarded the DAB Digital Radio multiplex licence for Gloucestershire!

We are very pleased, especially for the common service providers who are on both Hereford & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire as it gives them great coverage for their stations over the entire area.

I think it’s sometimes easy to get distracted by the announcements from the big boys about DAB investment. However this and the other recent awards to MuxCo shows that a great deal of the smaller operators in the radio industry are very committed to the platform. Up to now DAB has been out of reach of many of these small operators, but now as owner-operators, they can invest in the platform and reap the benefits of growing their audience and coverage.

I’m off to the pub.

Facebook Fans

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You could describe some of the staff here at MuxCo towers as ‘radio anoraks’, we try and conceal it,  but sometimes you just have to have a quick round of ‘Name That TSA’, don’t you? We’ve never been shy to have geeky chats with other enthusiasts, so we thought it was right that we set up a Facebook Fan page for MuxCo. If you’re a Facebook member you can join us here and perhaps name the stations that serve Grimsby, Wigan and Peterhead…..

Ofcom Advertises Surrey and Sussex

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Ofcom, this morning, have advertised the new licence for Surrey and Sussex. We’ve been working on this one with our partners UKRD for a little while already, but now we know we’ve got to be finished by the 26th March! As with all of our applications if you would like to provide a radio station, podcast service, or something else entirely, please get in touch the normal way.

Nicky Tate to Manage MuxCo Multiplexes

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We were also pleased to announce last week that Nicky Tate is to join MuxCo parent company, Folder Media, as Operations Manager.

Folder Media manages the MuxCo multiplexes on behalf of the different shareholders and Nicky will, as such, take on the mantle as Multiplex Manager for the network.

Nicky’s an incredibly experienced Multiplex Manager having run GCap’s NOWdigital network since its inception and we’re very exicted about her joining the team. We’ll have to get her to blog soon!

Oxford Licence

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It’s disappointment all round here at MuxCo towers, as the news was revealled that NOWdigital had won the digital licence for Oxfordshire. We believed (and still do) that our application had the widest choice of services for listeners, so we’re a bit down that Ofcom awarded it to the other bidder.

Obviously, we’re pressing on and continuing to bid for licences in other areas and we’ll continue to ensure that our plans are robust, deliverable and attractive for the communities that we are keen to serve.

Gloucestershire

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We agreed at lunch that Gloucestershire was application number seven for MuxCo. It’s been an interesting one to do, partly because of its proximity to Hereford and Worcester which Ofcom awarded to MuxCo last month. In fact, we think it provides a great opportunity for the stations that broadcast on both multiplexes as it grows the coverage that we’ve already planned. For example if you look at Gloucestershire on its own then we’ve said we’ll provide 78.5% coverage, but when you add in the overlap coverage from the Hereford and Worcester multiplex, the coverage within Gloucestershire increases to 92.2%.

We think this is great news for common services (like Easy Radio, Shuffle, Smithy Rock, Local Live, UCB and Traffic Radio) as it creates an enlarged region for them to broadcast to with less interuptions as listeners driver around. Our plans aren’t bad news for the local stations either. Our proposals mean that the DAB reception will exceed what’s currently provided for Severn Sound, Star and BBC Radio Gloucestershire on FM.

We’ve got a little bit of a gap now before submitting Lincolnshire (in January) but already the work’s started and right now Deanna’s asking some very specific research questions, when all we want to do is go down the pub…