I agree with the £40k Astra 2 cost, but satellite signals from Astra 2 can’t be received in cars or indoors, which rules that out from being a solution to replace FM, because they need to replicate FM’s 99% indoor coverage.

I don’t think that 50% of people would stay on FM, but I do think that the BBC and Global will lose a big chunk (difficult to say how big) of their listening when the FM off switch is flicked, and it’ll be the worst thing the commercial radio industry’s ever done financially.

Your suggestion that \it’s an order of magnitude cheaper to send the signal to homes from space\ is wrong, I’m afraid. Satellite digital radio systems like Sirius XM in the States

What? It costs about forty grand a year to put FM-quality sound down anywhere in the British Isles on Astra2, and the same geographic reach on DAB is a) one or two orders of magnitude more expensive, depending on who you ask and whether there’s an R in the month, and b) the total possible audience is about the same. If DAB had that much coverage across the UK and Ireland, which it doesn’t.

Let’s say Steve’s right about nearly half the radio audience staying on FM after switch-off. So the BBC and the CRCA want to move to DAB and hand that audience over to noncommercial and community stations?

I say: Let ‘em. If it happens it’ll be great for diversity in broadcasting and plurality of listener choice. Heart sure as hell doesn’t deserve 15 frequencies with an 800kHz band of wide-area clearance around each one if it’s only putting out one station, and neither does Radio 1. I doubt that bonanza will be nearly as big as Steve thinks, but I’m all in favour of finding out.

The Government said on Thursday that it wasn’t going to set a digital radio switchover date. So I’m afraid you’re out of luck.

And re not simulcasting on FM once 50% of listening is digital, I’m sorry, but the radio industry can’t afford to massively piss off 50% of its listeners by switching off their FM stations before the public is ready – think about how many people would simply refuse to ever listen to that station again. 50% of radio stations are loss making, so what you’re advocating would IMO send the majority of commercial radio stations to the wall.

Back in the 70s BBC national networks stopped simulcasting on both AM and FM as four of the BBC’s five radio networks went FM only and the fifth was only on AM (that is if you exclude Radio 4′s LW transmissions). It also happened that ‘heritage’ commercial pop music stations stopped simulcasting and so the ‘gold’ station appeared on local AM and the ‘Top 40′ station continued on FM.

I remember at that time that my car only had a LW/MW radio (which had been fine for listening to Radio 270, Radio Caroline and the other off-shore stations) but in order to listen to Viking, Tees or Aire I had to go and buy a car radio with FM on it.

There was then an official date when the BBC switch happened and there was plenty of advanced publicity about the change. Some of the newpapers ran stories that people with only LW/MW radios would not be able to listen to their favourite station. Somethings don’t change!! However the change increased listener choice.

Yes I agree we need an official DAB switch date. That will clarify for listeners which stations are going DAB only and which local stations are FM only.

It’s good that most radios being released now are DAB+ capable. It’s not entirely dis-similar to the upgrade path that’s happening with Freeview and Freeview HD.

Personally, the business planning we’ve done has shown that the affect of even halving carriage costs (though everyone likes to save ££s) does not really increase the number of stations by many that would choose to broadcast digitally (as the other costs to run a radio station are still the same).

Your suggestion that \it’s an order of magnitude cheaper to send the signal to homes from space\ is wrong, I’m afraid. Satellite digital radio systems like Sirius XM in the States don’t provide indoor coverage unless a terrestrial transmitter network is built as well – satellite digital radio is good for providing very large area outdoor coverage, which is why Sirius uses it because they target car users.

As satellite digital radio systems would also need a terrestrial transmitter network to be built to provide the 99% indoor coverage required to replace FM, the satellite itself would actually be superfluous, and therefore a waste of money.

The best you can do when replacing FM is to use as efficient a mobile terrestrial system as possible, and the best bet for that is DVB-T2 or the forthcoming DVB-NGH system. Efficiency translates directly into lower transmission costs per station, so as DVB-T2 is 10.5 times as efficient as DAB it’s 10.5 times cheaper to transmit as well.

Could you explain why it’s acceptable to make 130 million FM radios obsolete but it’s not acceptable to make 10 million DAB radios obsolete?

But anyway, you can run DAB and DAB+ stations on the same multiplex, so you actually wouldn’t need to make any DAB radio obsolete, or at least not for a number of years. For example, you could launch DAB+ versions of BBC stereo stations and reduce the same station to mono, which would provide higher audio quality on the DAB+ version and provide a backward compatible DAB version for DAB-only receivers. I don’t see how anybody could complain about that.

Anyway, switchover to DAB+ is bound to happen on the day that FM stations are switched off, because it’s the obvious time to fully make the switch. By the time switchover is possible in around 2020, DAB+ receivers will account for 95%+ of all the digital receivers in the UK, so there’ll be no reason not to switch off DAB.

Also, you say that you need to provide extra stations to attract listeners to DAB, but the 4 DAB multiplexes that a typical listener can receive can only carry about 40 stations. DAB+ is the obvious technology to use to deliver more choice.

There’s also 100 smaller analogue commercial stations can’t transmit on DAB, either because they can’t afford the ultra-expensive transmission costs on DAB (using DAB+ is a fraction of the cost) or because there’s no capacity on their local DAB multiplex. The owners of those stations have said they want to use DAB+, and they shouldn’t be stopped from using DAB+.

The other thing we need with DAB is extra features and more stations, people wont swap from FM to DAB if its just the same, there is no incentive, however with more stations (like the BBC, Absolute) and certainly stations like Fun Kids and Planet Rock are the reasons people will swap, the other thing we can do is embrace other technology, i am a big supporter of RadioDNS/RadioVIS bolting on additional features on to DAB (and FM) that you otherwise couldnt get, I see it bridging the gap between DAB and DAB+ and we need more stations to get involved (and more importantly more manufacturers to get on board with that).

Lastly and (finally its starting to be done) people need to be made more and more aware that its not a FM switch off but a migration of the BIGGER players on to digital, to free up FM for local community and commercial stations (If the markets can support them), again this is a great opportunity for the listening public and it will provide more and more stations (and I know people say listeners are happy with the choice they have, but I was happy with BBC 1 and 2, ITV, Channel 4 and a dodgy 5 signal until I got cable and freeview) plus there are hundreds of community radio groups up and down the country who still dont have a license and feel that they have community demand to support them.

Only time will tell, digital will happen, but we need to all work together to make it work well..