Jim O'Sullivan spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited Technology site and thought you should see it. ------- Note from Jim O'Sullivan: I thought this is an important enough issue for many of us to pass on. ------- To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited Technology site, go to http://technology.guardian.co.uk The future of UK radio is now in your hands The industry regulator Ofcom is throwing the debate on British radio formats over to the public Jack Schofield Thursday November 23 2006 The Guardian If you are concerned about the future of radio in the UK, it's time to get involved. Ofcom has just published a discussion document, The Future of Radio, and is looking for comments by December 14. There are some dramatic changes up for consideration, such as replacing AM radio with Digital Radio Mondiale and replacing FM with DAB. These could render hundreds of millions of radio sets obsolete, and either make radio sound much better or - as with DAB - worse. Ofcom stresses that nothing has been decided. The purpose of the discussion document is merely to establish the area for debate. It will be followed next year by a full consultation document, which will look at "policy solutions". Ofcom said: "The discussion document looks at what we believe should be considered going forward. Are there additional areas that we should look at?" Anyone who has been following the DAB (digital audio broadcasting) saga will have no doubt that there are. In particular, Ofcom is simply ignoring the whole issue of sound quality. This is a disaster in view of the BBC's apparently diminishing interest in the topic and the commercial stations' continuing lack of interest. Only Ofcom, the industry's regulator, can set minimum standards to ensure that listeners can receive high-quality sound. The problem is that people choose their radio stations for content rather than sound quality. Those who joined Jimmy Saville's Under The Bedclothes club on Radio Luxembourg or tuned in to pirate stations such as Radio Caroline listened in spite of the sound quality because they wanted to hear programmes the BBC did not provide. This doesn't mean they would not have preferred better sound. When they have a choice, such as when ripping their own CDs for PC or iPod playback, users clearly do care. The current argument is about the World DAB Forum's adoption of the AAC+ codec to replace the old MP2 used by DAB in the UK. Ofcom says it has no plans to move to AAC+ - it plans to roll out another DAB multiplex based on obsolete technology. Steve Green, a Hi-Fi World columnist who runs the digitalradiotech.co.uk website, says this is "a ridiculous idea, because it makes the switchover [to AAC+] harder to achieve, and it will prolong the date before we can switch off the old services". For comparison, Australia adopted AAC+ before the new standard was announced, and Bakom, the Swiss regulator, has already changed tack. After inviting bids for three MP2 radio stations on its new DAB multiplex, Bakom has decided to offer eight stations in the more efficient AAC+ format instead. Ironically, Ofcom's discussion document suggests that Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) is one option to replace AM radio, as a complement to DAB. DRM already uses AAC, so dual DRM/DAB radios could soon become a convenient replacement for AM/FM radios. T-Mobile is already selling a Morphy Richards DAB/DRM radio in Germany, while Sangean has a triple-format FM-RDS/DAB/DRM model based on a new chipset from Radioscape in Cambridge. There are several options for the spectrum now occupied by FM radio stations. At present there are five blocks for BBC Radios 1 to 4 and Classic FM, plus five blocks for local radio. Ofcom suggests there could instead be 11 blocks for DAB or DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting, ie including TV), or five blocks of DVB-H (radio or TV for handhelds) "or something not yet thought of". There's nothing fundamentally wrong with using FM space for DAB; it's more efficient. The problem today comes from adding more stations and reducing the broadcast quality of existing stations - even transmitting stereo music stations in mono - to fit them all in. Adding TV, which requires far more bandwidth, could make radio sound even worse. Green says: "It is totally unacceptable to even consider switching off FM unless there is regulation in place to ensure that listeners get at the very least the same audio quality level on digital radio as they receive on FM, and preferably it should be significantly higher. This is the 21st century, after all. If they can't beat 1960s FM there is something very wrong." The way Ofcom is going, Green says he'd put a large bet on the UK getting digital radio with the worst audio quality in Europe. We already have the worst average DAB quality in the world. www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/radio_future · If you'd like to comment on any aspect of Technology Guardian, send your emails to tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq