Google Trends show relative search volumes; that is, the relative change in volumes of the specified search terms against all search terms presented to Google in the specified regions and date periods.

Yes, “DAB Radio” has declined, as a proportion of the total search volumes in Google. But that’s more than likely because Google is handling a much larger volume of searches as more people come on-line, and DAB is forming a small proportion of those searches. My point is that whilst DAB is declining slowly in the UK as a search time, if you look worldwide at the term Internet Radio, that’s also declining in relative volume, and quite quickly too. Even in the UK, the term “Internet Radio” has declined over the same period as “DAB Radio” has declined.

From that, I draw the conclusion that DAB is in as good a shape in terms of public interest, now as it was 3-5 years ago, and certainly not in the terminal state that some media reports suggest. You draw a different conclusion, and without a lot more detailed data, which we can’t get, it’s hard to definitively answer.

I used Google Trends to re-graph DAB Radio v Internet Radio in the UK over a more favourable time period for internet radio – the last 12 months. This coincides with the tidal wave of bad news about DAB, and an obvious surge of media coverage about Internet Radio. ( http://www.google.com/trends?q=dab+radio%2C+internet+radio&ctab=0&geo=gb&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0 ) . Despite that, Internet Radio indexes 1.06 against DAB’s 1.00. Not what I would call conclusive. And both Indexes start and end the 12 month period at exactly the same point, suggesting that trends in both, over that period, were flat.

“In the countries that have promoted DAB, it seems to be in rude health”

Not unless you’ve got another graph you forgot to include which doesn’t show a continuous decline over more than four years.

“Interest in Internet Radio is declining faster than interest in DAB Radio.”

Not unless you also have a graph to contradict your own fifth one here, which shows unequivocally that the red line overtook the blue one fifteen months ago and hasn’t dipped since, while the blue one continued its four-year slide.

I’m more tickled than irritated at your insistence on bringing in the first couple of years of data here for no reason other than to artificially bolster the aggregate totals for ‘dab radio’ at the expense of what has obviously been the truth for some time according to your own evidence presented here.

C-, must retake statistics class.