Retuning expectations 

6 April 2011 tbs.pm/1256

Is anything wrong with

Of course based on the book that he’s also promoting, Grant Goddard firmly sits on the pessimist side of the fence in terms of any planned digital radio switchover, but unfortunately for the industry it seems that the pessimists

It also seems that if recent statistics are to be believed (even if flawed), that the sales of DAB radios have actually slowed down despite talk of a planned

Whoever drafted the 2015

What really needs to happen now is a radical rethink of the future of radio in the UK, but the radio industry needs to confront head on the reality of what’s happening with DAB radio (namely, not a lot) in order for something to be done.

I know it’s very tempting to stay with DAB for the sole reason that UK-based companies still have the monopoly when it comes to DAB radio production (even if almost all of it is outsourced to Asia), with companies like Pure, Roberts, Revo and Intempo having head offices in the UK.

(By comparison, some idealists wish that the UK had stuck with 405 lines as a television standard for at least ten more years, thinking that at least a bit more of the UK’s once-thriving television industry might still exist today if that had happened.)

The current administration may not be a champion of quality versus choice for the sake of it, but the very fact that it wishes to differentiate itself from the last Labour government might be just enough to provoke a rethink, if of course someone somewhere can persuade ministers that such action is really needed to prevent future embarrassment.

Leaving the market to decide, namely not bothering to (re)direct the radio industry into a specific course of action, may be an easy ideological choice that also lets ministers off the hook in terms of having to make difficult decisions in relation to the future of digital radio.

Failure to direct the market may end up causing

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Liverpool, Thursday 28 March 2024