Most people know what DAB radio is, but what is DAB+ and why don't we have it in the UK? David Crookes takes a look
It may feel that Digital Audio Broadcasting is a relatively recent innovation, but the first country to roll it out was Norway, a smidgen over 20 years ago, Britain was not that far behind; the BBC debuted digital radio in September 1995. Yet, the fact that we're still talking about adoption rates of DAB shows just how slow it has been to take off. In 2008, things were so bad that emergency talks took place in Manchester to save digital radio, and it was being heralded as a very British failure in some quarters of the media.
Since then, a concerted effort has been made to encourage people to switch, and while the much heralded turn-off date for FM has been pushed back (it was due to be switched off this year), Ofcom says that today close to half of all UK adults (48.5%) own a DAB digital radio set and that 36.3% of all radio listening is on a digital radio. That has been good news for the rising number of digital radio stations including the BBC's 1Xtra and 6 Music and for those who hate listening to channels that are otherwise confined to the medium wave such as Absolute Radio and BBC 5 Live.
Yet, just as people have started to become familiar with DAB, there has been recent talk of a desire for a renewed push towards DAB+. This system, which was announced in 2007 by the World DMB organisation, goes one better than standard DAB by allowing for good quality audio to be squeezed into less space. Instead of broadcasting at 128Kb/s, the same quality or better audio is available at 48Kb/s or 64Kb/s. With the capacity requirements reduced, proponents of DAB+ say it should lead to lower broadcasting costs and, as a consequence, allow even more radio stations to take to the air, which will increase choice for listeners.
The bad news is that DAB+ doesn't appear to figure in the plans of the UK government and neither is it being adopted across the world. People in Germany, Switzerland and Australia have taken to it in their millions but some such as Sweden have ruled out a switchover to DAB+ altogether much to annoyance of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which has labelled the move "short sighted and retrograde". But the Swedish Green Party culture and democracy minister, Alice Bah Kuhnke fears making 10 million radio receivers obsolete and the government believes a combination of FM broadcasts and internet radio is more than sufficient.
That is not the opinion of the EBU, though. It says there are more than 400 DAB+ services currently available to listeners in Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Vatican, which could serve an estimated 160 million European listeners — and that it believes the format to be the future of radio.
"By extending the coverage of DAB+, we are meeting the needs of our listeners with all of the additional benefits of digital terrestrial radio," says EBU director of media, Jean Philip De Tender. "The advantages of DAB+ over analogue listening include clearer sound, more choice of stations and additional services like text, pictures, internet links and geo-referenced data."
However, while the EBU also points to the existence of DAB+ services in the UK, it would seem that this country is not moving at all quickly towards its adoption. In February this year, the Minister for Culture Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey made no mention of it when he announced 182 new digital transmitters would be in place by next year (this development would doubling the existing the network and take coverage of digital up from 72- to 91 % of the population). And much of this could be due to the fear of a national outcry at the sudden realisation that new sets may well be needed.
In order to receive DAB+ broadcasts, it is important that listeners have a compatible radio. Yet of the 20 million digital radios sold so far, just three million are understood to equipped for the DAB+ standard. Getting the remaining 17 million listeners to upgrade could prove a politically sensitive issue given that they will, by and large, be happy with what they have. As has been the case in Sweden, forcing the issue is unlikely to be the answer to this reticence.
At the same time, though, there is some tentative experimentation going on. A company called Folder Media began a four-month DAB+ test last September. It broadcast its digital radio station, Fun Kids, on the platform in 64Kbit/s, making use of its multiplex in Wrexham, Chester and Liverpool. It wanted to measure listener response, look at the implications of running DAB and DAB+ services alongside each other and observe the reception differences. Key to this is the advanced audio codec used in DAB+ that, along with enhanced error correction, opens up a greater number of stereo services while reducing the distracting background noises that plague some DAB listening experiences.
"The UK is an interesting challenge," Folder Media's creative director Matt Deegan told us. "There has been a long process of encouraging people to buy digital radio and there is a tick system operating here, which shows people buying a radio that the set is future-ready and will be able to receive not just DAB and FM but DAB+." Manufacturers are able to apply for the mark to prove they meet the minimum requirements and the idea is that those who buy radios today will not be caught in the trap of having to upgrade in the next few years.
"The industry in the UK is making sure DAB+ radios will become the dominant standard and it will give us the ability to change and move across," Mr Deegan continues. "Quite a lot of radios now carry this tick and most of the cars being sold over the last two or three years have DAB+ as standard. That percentage will increase."
Indeed, the car industry is helping to drive up the install base of DAB+ and yet Digital Radio UK clearly states "there are currently no plans for the UK to start using DAB+", calling the benefits "relatively marginal" and again citing the worry that existing DAB-only sets are not compatible. "Other countries are adopting DAB+ simply because they are launching now and it is the most up to date version available to them," the organisation states on getdigitalradio.com.
Yet Ofcom is still very much open to DAB+. It awarded a second national digital radio multiplex to the Sound Digital consortium, doubling the number of national commercial stations on DAB - one channel of which is being set aside for a DAB+ service, albeit it as a proposed mono 32Kbit/s stream. Still, if Ofcom was more committed to DAB+, it may well have gone for the losing bid by Listen2Digital which was going to have three DAB+ channels. So, is a barrier to progress being erected?
"The BBC and commercial radio are not against DAB+ and they believe it will happen at some point," Mr Deegan continues. "With the option of DAB+, stations can make a choice for themselves based on economics and audience. For Fun Kids, if we wanted to broadcast in Manchester, for example, we could broadcast in regular DAB or DAB+. For the regular DAB it may cost about £80,000 a year and that would reach 100% of people with a digital radio in Manchester but broadcasting in DAB+ may be £40,000 with a reach of 20%. However, if there is not much room left on a multiplex and it was coming down to not broadcasting or using DAB+ for a smaller reach, then it could become viable and open up a service to another group of people. It's about providing audiences with choice and opportunity to listen."
As more DAB+ sets are bought, the potential reach for the advanced service will increase. Even as it stands, DAB+ can benefit niche markets with lower costs for new stations seeking out a specific audience, which may be persuaded to adopt DAB+ just to listen. "If a radio station wanted to target drivers, then DAB+ becomes a good option because of the number of DAB+ radios being installed in new cars," says Mr Deegan. And, in a way, that is what Folder Media's Fun Kids experiment did.
The station was put on DAB+ without any advertising - "we wanted to see if people stumbled across it," Mr Deegan explains - but when people did land on it, they were in for a treat. "The scrolling text said, 'congratulations, you have found a secret radio station' and it directed people to a a website to claim a prize," he continues. "People filled in a five or six-question questionnaire and got some stickers and an entry into a prize draw for a digital radio."
Folder Media's experiment threw up an unexpected result: "We had a big funnel; we needed people with a DAB+ radio, who would come across Fun Kids, tune in, see the scrolling text, go on the website and fill in the form. We were surprised that 100 people got in touch, which was more than expected," he said. "We found out the vast majority were listing in the car - excluding what I would term the 'enthusiasts' who did seek us out. The listeners also matched the Fun Kids demographic, which is mothers with children. So we had real consumers who saw a new station piping up in their car and liked it. That, to us, was important. We just want people to turn the radio on and get stations they love. I think over the next two or three years we will see more DAB+ searches on radios."
One of the big steps forward for regular DAB is that it is now possible to run a profitable digital radio station. That will, as take-up of digital audio continues, make it viable for DAB+ too. "It's been an amazing 12 months for in-car DAB - 70% of new cars have it," says Mr Deegan. Next year, projections suggest that more DAB radios will be sold for use in cars than in homes, but getting people already invested in DAB to buy specifically into DAB+ will not be easy and it will rely on people upgrading their existing sets through boredom or the desire to get a radio with more features.
"It's hard for broadcasters to switch to DAB+ since they will disenfranchise people and the majority of listeners are very happy with the sound quality and service of regular DAB. I don't think we will see simulcasting because that is not a good use of bandwidth so it is going to rely on new services adopting it," Mr Deegan explains.
Even so, it would seem that an upgrade to DAB+ is worth pursuing in the long run. The experiment showed that in-car DAB+ services continued to play when DAB signals degraded and there is certainly no issue in terms of the quality of DAB+: in fact, many listeners are counting down the days before it finally gets an official roll out. There has to be a balance between quality and the considerations of listeners when so many people are involved, however.
For now, we're are going to be stuck with a FM/DAB hybrid but, as digital radio penetration increases in cars, the criteria for a digital switchover could be met by 2017. At that point, there will be many more DAB+ radio sets in people's homes, which could in turn herald a fresh look at the future direction for British digital radio. That's a prospect that would be music to many people's ears.
"We want to get to a point where people don't care whether a station is DAB or DAB+," says Mr Deegan. "At some stage, all they will see is the same channel list with nice logos and all that stuff and it will just work for them."
What About Internet Radio?
As well DAB, DAB+ and FM, there is growing competition in the radio sector from internet radio. By streaming audio to computers, tablets, mobiles and compatible radio sets, listeners can enjoy the widest choice of all. Instead of being restricted by location, internet radio lets people enjoy stations from across the world (licensing and advertising issues allowing). It means they can better find an offering that suits their listening needs. Best of all, users are not even restricted to commercial stations - there are amateur channels around too, serving particular niches.
Most broadcasters including the BBC and commercial stations are now seeing radio as a multi-platform offering. Where there is an audience, they will aim to serve. There are some considerations, though. "Consumers worry about their data when listening to internet radio on mobile phones so people tend to listen to online stations via wi-fi in their homes and offices and not on the move," says Folder Media's creative director Matt Deegan. "But internet radio is great and I'm surprised it doesn't do better than it does especially since it has been around as long as digital radio and given there is more broadband penetration than DAB penetration."
Internet radio offers more stations and potentially better quality. "But consumers seem to like radio coming from wooden boxes in the kitchens, bathrooms and at work. There are also plenty of radio stations to satisfy the majority of people: in London there are 60 and that's really good. It's true that some will love an Hawaiian station or an indie station from America and that's brilliant. But from the broadcast end, we are not in the business of looking after them."
Future Proofing
If you are looking to buy a digital radio, it is worth making double-sure that it's compatible with DAB+, which so many are these days.
"All Pure's current range are DAB+ out of the box and have been so for a couple of years now," Vicky Hewlett, associate marketing communications director, tells us. "We also have a large number out in the market that are DAB+ upgradeable."
Look out for the digital radio tick mark which you can read more about at tinyurl.com/p7qwycq. Radios need to have DAB, DAB+ and FM as well as a minimum level of receiver sensitivity in order to be granted a tick mark. "Pure was the first to receive the tick mark for its complete range," Ms Hewlett adds.