Blogging Nick Piggott

I wrote this e-mail on Saturday 24th January, to the editor of the Which? website. Which? is the UK’s consumer champion.

Dear Sir / Madam,

I would like to raise an issue with the article on your website entitled “In Store Sales of DAB Radio Could Be Misleading“.

I fear that you have been the victim of a scare campaign, orchestrated by one or two people.

It is true that some stores have had boosters installed to provide a good quality signal to DAB radios on display, but that should be framed within a context that virtually all electrical goods stores provide specific “repeated” signals for Televisions (and in Car Audio shops, for FM Radios too). In particular, you will find that all Digital TVs and Set Top Boxes are connected to cables and boosters from an external antenna. Therefore it seems unreasonable to say that sales of DAB could be misleading; the same is equally true of Digital TV, and I’m sure you will remember that there were issues with this a few years ago.

Electrical retailers tend to be based in metal-skinned buildings, creating what’s known as a Faraday Cage effect – which cuts off all radio and tv signals. It is therefore a necessity to bring signals in through repeaters for any radio or TV device to work at all.

The Radio Industry provides a very reliable “postcode checker” for coverage, at www.getdigitalradio.com – which you have failed to mention, presumably because the person or people who “tipped you off” about this story didn’t see fit to tell you the whole story. In addition, I am not aware of any retailer or manufacturer who has refused to take a return (of a properly boxed device) if the consumer subsequently finds they have inadequate reception.

I am disappointed that you don’t seem to have checked these facts with anyone from the industry representative bodies, and may I suggest that you contact (-) at the DRDB on (-) to get a more balanced view. I look forward to seeing an amendment to the article imminently.

Regards

Nick Piggott

I’ll leave you to find the offending blog article for yourselves, as they aren’t worthy of linking to.

Update – 26th January

The Which? website has been updated today to include a response from the DRDB, which does now include reference to the postcode checker, and explains why it is that some retailers need to have repeaters to get signals into the building. Well done Which? for updating so promptly.

Photo: Query (CC) Amortize @ flickr

I’ve been partly inspired by a post by Marc Ramsey entitled “Maybe the last time I’ll ever write about HD Radio“, and partly by a post by James Cridland entitled “CES 2009 – HD Radio’s Additional Channels“.

In different ways, they both make the point that HD Radio (in this example) is a technology capable of good things, of things that could rejuvenate interest in radio, but is being let down by some implementation errors. At face value, Marc seems unimpressed by the technology of HD Radio, but reading deeper, in his post he makes the point that the radio industry isn’t using HD to deliver any content that wows people. Similarly, James describes how multi-channelling, the technical capability that would allow HD Radio to deliver new content, is so appallingly badly implemented that it’s pretty much useless for consumers.

For HD Radio, read DAB Digital Radio.

Admittedly, multi-channeling in DAB isn’t a pre-requisite for delivering extra content, which is a tremendous relief, because the implementation of secondary services on most radios UIs is dismal. I don’t recommend trying to tune into BBC Radio 4 (LW) for the Morning Service on a two line LCD display with a rotary knob. It’s only because most DAB radios use a small handful of silicon providers that consistency has happened by mistake, rather than planning.

But in both cases, the failure to “wow” people isn’t a technological one. It’s a failure by incumbents to do radical things with a new platform, largely out of fear of disrupting the old one. Incumbent companies are big, and have lots of people who know how to “win”. If you’re a salesperson who knows they can pay the mortgage by hitting revenue targets, it’s potentially more sensible to stick on the side of visible decline, than leap headlong into the unknown world of change.

It’s no secret that I believe the ways we should be “wow”ing our listeners are:

• Commercially sustainable choice of radio stations that are clearly different from streamed music and jukeboxes.
• Visualised radio is an evolution of radio that listeners “get” the moment they see it (no pun intended). Sometimes listeners, who seem to have fewer preconceptions, get it more than people working in the radio industry.
• Interactive radio which recognises that listeners can’t actually interact most of the time they’re listening to radio.
• Mashable radio that makes it much easier to let listeners dip in and out of radio and consume it on their own terms.

Making this kind of change happen isn’t easy. There are challenging business, technology and content problems to overcome, and it’s not an easy win. It looks and feels easier to “win” on the Internet, as the Internet and connected devices are somewhat less frictionless in terms of technology and business models. But I think that the harder wins are more valuable, and whilst both HD and DAB are doubtless harder wins, they have unique value in preserving the role of mass-market radio in the world’s media mix.

Photo: (CC) Alpine HD Radio Car Display by fatcontroller @ flickr. My trip to CES was sadly not to be.

I was given a PURE Highway some time ago, to do some road-testing with. It’s been in the car since then, but I’ve only just got round to mounting it properly and pulling the cabling through. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the firmware to the latest version (1.3).

In all honesty, the firmware upgrade was not fun. The device driver installation took absolutely ages, which I suspect was a combination of Windows not quite believing what was connected, and the device driver being hard for Windows to find. Lots of disk searching. The upgrade application was quite happy to backup the existing firmware, but kept freezing when blowing the new firmware to the device. A bad thing. After some fiddling, I ended up falling back to connecting the device to a USB 1.0 port which meant it ran slower but did finish properly. So, new firmware installed, we’re on the road.

Great Britain – Bristol to Dover

The reception of DigitalOne and the BBC muxes was really pretty good, and consistent along the M4/M25/M26/M20. The usual problem areas (D1 is punched out by adjacent channel interference from NOW Digital Swindon on the approach to Membury Services, nothing is very happy around Folkstone and Dover).

The local muxes were much more hit and miss. Bristol benefits from having a hefty site at Dundry, which really helps. Swindon/Wiltshire is a pain, because it’s split across two frequencies which means rescanning at 10 minute intervals. Berkshire is not great along the motorway. There’s a dead chunk of local coverage between Reading and Slough. London I was OK around the M25, London III not good. Really not good. In fact, pretty much only got good London III on the sector from the M23 to the M26, and that’s largely because of Bluebell Hill and Reigate. Kent is pretty good until you get near Folkstone.

The lack of DAB-DAB service linking (on the mux and on the device) is a pain. If I wanted to stay with XFM, I kept having to rescan. I shouldn’t need to do that, but the service linking is not properly signalled.

France – Calais to Strasbourg

Total blackspot. Not a thing. I kept scanning the Highway, and it kept having a good old go at decoding the many Band III television signals. Honestly, when was Band III cleared for DAB? 10 years ago? If I was being harsh, based on what I heard on FM, I probably wouldn’t want to listen to the same stuff on DAB either. What on earth do they do with their audio processing? I’ve never heard anything as aggressive even in the United States, and that’s saying something.

Switzerland – Basel to St. Gallen

Yay for the Swiss. The moment we went over the non-border (The Swiss joined the Schengen Agreement recently, which means the border is a principle rather than a 5km queue. If the Swiss can do it, still can’t understand what our problem is), the Highway picked up 12 services. It seemed to (correctly) ignore the DAB+ services without a hiccup. Drove all the way through Switzerland listening to Swiss Pop (CH-POP), because I’m a bit of a sucker for bubblegum pop when I’ve been driving for 13 hours. Coverage was superb, and the audio quality was great too, demonstrating that with the right codecs even 112kbit/s can sound very very good. Lucky them for being able to upgrade to the latest Coding Technologies codecs.

One area that isn’t covered yet is the tunnels. FM coverage is repeated through them, but DAB isn’t yet. I suspect if I had a hybrid DAB-FM radio it probably would have swapped between the two correctly, but I don’t, so can’t say. Boo to Ford for putting integral radio units into their cars and not leaving anything resembling a DIN slot for something else. (At least Ford have announced that DAB will be a line-fit item from 2009. I’ll probably buy another Ford, as this one is good, and DAB line-fit swings it for me).

Austria – Hohenems to Tirol

Austria has a somewhat token involvement with DAB. There are two DAB sites on-air. One in Vienna, and the other on Patscherkofel, which is the primary site for Tirol. The Patscherkofel site covers most of the A12 motorway which links Germany and Italy. If one was being curmudgeonly and uncharitable, one might say that it’s there so that people driving from Bayern (DAB) to Alto-Aldige (DAB) don’t find reason to surmise that Austria is stuck in the past – 1976, for example. No. It’s a remarkable mux, as it’s only carrying 5 stations, creatively encoded to make sure that they almost completely fill the mux. If you’re an audiophile, I’d recommend going and sitting yourself down in Tirol to enjoy the 192 and 224kbit/s of Ö1, Ö3, FM4 or Radio Tirol. (But just overlook the fact that I suspect the site is satellite fed at 256kbit/s, OK?).

The coverage is patchy, and really only kicks in once you get within sight of Innsbruck (if you’re coming from Voralaberg). There’s also no DLS – not even a default message – which is a bit of a surprise.

It would be unfair to criticise the DAB coverage in Austria. It’s not a launched service (only a trial), and coverage on FM is a real challenge in Tirol. In a former job, the station I worked at had 16 sites, on 16 different frequencies from 89MHz to 107MHz to cover 500,000 people (badly). RDS AF was invented for Austria. At my ultimate destination, there is virtually no FM coverage whatsoever – all radio is received via satellite to TVs.

Total distance – over 1,500kms. Percentage covered by DAB : ~50%.

(To be fair, if I’d gone the other way – Calais – Aachen – Stuttgart – Ulm – it would have been closed to 85%, but I have more to do in life than sit in queues of Germans over the Fernpass. Although it would have been £120 cheaper in tolls).

And the same on IP?

Well, what would have happened if I’d done the same trip listening to the radio on IP? We’re clearly spoilt for 3G coverage in the UK, because it was very very patchy through France, in-between in Switzerland, and pretty horrid in (an admittedly less populated part of) Austria.

Coverage issues aside, I was in the car listening to the radio for 15 hours, of which 12 hours was outside the UK. Assuming a bit-rate of 48kbit/s, that’s a total data consumption of 253 Mbytes outside the UK. (I have a 3GB bundle inside the UK). Despite Mme. Redings rantings, my roaming data still costs me £3 per MB, so that would have been a bargain £759 for a day’s radio. aAnd £759 for the journey back.

However, I “benefit” from having a local pay-as-you-go SIM in Austria, which charges at “just” €2,50 per MB. So based on using a local SIM, that would have been €633,-.

The ability to drive across Europe listening to the radio is not something we should ignore lightly. It is often overlooked, because radio companies in Europe are all singularly nationally focused, and rarely look beyond the borders (and to be fair, when they do, it’s usually not a success). Maybe as an island-nation we don’t put much thought to it? But I’m a listener, a Britain and a European, and I do travel across the continent. I can’t imagine doing a 15 hour drive without radio.

There’s been lots more coverage recently of “WiFi” Radios; radios which stream via the Internet rather than picking up a broadcast signal (FM/AM/DAB). Consumers seem to be enthusiastic about them, and media coverage reflects that enthusiasm.

As it seems impossible for anyone in media to avoid making comparisons, often there’s a line somewhere in the article about DAB being “in trouble”, and that “experts are predicting that internet streaming will over take DAB”.

That would be a disaster for the radio industry, and one that’s avoidable. But more on that in a second.

It’s understandable that consumers are enthusiastic about IP-connected radios. It would appear that consumers are highly motivated to seek out choice in their radio listening, which suggests that they’re not getting that choice now. It’s also pretty clear that regardless of whatever leaps forward in technology occur, people like listening to radio on devices, not on computers. They want something radio-like, and aren’t yet ready to converge on a single-handheld media device.

DAB has delivered that choice in the past, but for a variety of complex reasons, stations have come off the platform, leaving it offering little differentiation against analogue. So if consumers are disappointed by choice on analogue, they’re unlikely to be thrilled by turning on their new DAB radio. That’s something the radio industry could fix, but the barriers at the moment are largely commercial and contractual, as well as a bit of ideology as well.

So if IP-connected devices offer the choice that consumers apparently want, isn’t it the future we should promote?

Firstly, let’s check in on that assumption of choice. We know, even in the analogue domain, that much of it is perception. Media platforms are often promoted and compared on a straight “number of channels” basis; only recently has the relatively saturated market of multi-channel TV opened up a new front on “quality” with the promotion of HD. (I find it ironic that DAB went the other way around – maybe we’ll come full circle with high-quality audio once again becoming something to attract mass-market consumers rather than just connoisseurs?). But even with this amazing choice, consumers tend to gravitate towards a small number of stations. RAJAR tells us that the average listener listens to about 3.2 stations a week, roughly 25% of what’s available to them in the typical British city. The growth in number of commercial radio stations in the last decade (many of which now seem to be unsustainable) hasn’t grown commercial market share, time spent listening, nor particularly the total stations listened to figure. So it would appear that so far choice hasn’t grown listening, and therefore hasn’t grown the total revenue coming to the radio industry.

But how much choice do consumers need, and how must does it cost?

Here’s where it gets dangerous for existing radio companies. Offer too little choice (on FM/AM/DAB) and consumers will seek out the IP-connected alternative. Once they have a IP-connected radio, we have to be on it. Allow that platform to grow too much, and we’ve got a cost and competition headache that will make whatever issues with DAB look trivial. As a defence (and referring to the eponymous “long tail model”) it should be able to produce reasonable choice at low-cost on DAB, which might be sufficient to keep the demand for IP services in check.

If IP is the future, why have no existing broadcasters committed to it as their sole digital platform?

The difference between the “experts” quoted in the media and the established broadcasters is knowledge. Broadcasters have the current and forecast data on their audience sizes, the infrastructure costs for supporting that listening on IP, and the existing relationships with the IP networks. When you start modelling costs, they are breathtaking. The radio industry might end up spending ten times more on transmission than it does now. For a small start-up like Last.fm or Pandora (and yes, they are small), having 50-60% of their costs as distribution is probably OK. But for the mainstream, it would be suicide. You also have to consider the effects of introducing to the picture a whole new array of gatekeepers sitting between broadcasters and listeners, looking to make some money. Net Neutrality is going to be a real battle ground in the future.

(At this point, the “experts” usually start going on about multicast solutions and so on. As far as I’m aware, multicast has been technically possible for 10 years. But the reality is that it is so fiendishly difficult to implement multi-cast AND Quality of Service as a pair, across diverse networks, knowing that every single intermediate router needs to properly support both, nobody is seriously considering it on the public Internet).

If the detailed numbers on current streaming volumes were published, people would be staggered. “Experts” would look rather silly. RAJAR gives us a hint now, saying that only 2% of listening is streamed – that’s about 20m hours a week. And most of that is to the BBC. Despite 60% availability of broadband in homes and offices, internet streaming is still tiny. But the widespread perception, even in the radio industry, is that IP streaming is bigger than DAB.

The radio industry needs to avoid IP streaming becoming the sole standard for accessing radio.

The costs of IP would make the mass-market radio model economically impossibly; doubly so in the mobile space. The growth in IP-connected devices would help new entrants like last.fm and Pandora reach the mass-market at speed, and further erode time spent listening. Consumers would end up paying to listen to radio, either directly or indirectly. Maybe that is the future, maybe that’s what people want. But should we accelerate it by forcing consumers into the IP domain to get choice?

IP is an ideal technology partner for broadcast radio.

“Experts” seem to love pitching technologies against each other. IP is better than DAB. WiMax will trump everything. DVB-H will create world peace and bring fresh-water to the thirsty. Etc. They seem to think that one technology will eventually do everything, making all others irrelevant. But I don’t see them advising the use of a 2kg hammer to put a screw into timber.

IP is a great technology for radio if it’s used for what it’s best at. Let’s use IP for delivering personalised advertising, capturing interest in things people hear on the radio, lightweight mobile interaction, on-demand, super-niche and personalised audio services. Broadcast (DAB) is excellent for the heavy lifting, delivering masses of streams reliably and in a timely manner, across wide areas at low costs (both for broadcasters and consumers). The two are complimentary, like screwdrivers and hammers. You need both in your toolkit. We need converged radios, not IP-only radios.

The radio industry should avoid getting trapped in a world where consumers expect radio solely via IP. It’s in our power to incentivise people to buy radios that support an intelligent convergence of broadcast and IP, and not IP alone. The economic incentive for existing radio broadcasters is survival. It doesn’t get clearer than that.

All opinions are my own personal ones, which may differ from those of my employer. Photo is (CC) Geranium at flickr. Oh, and Merry Christmas too.

There has been a tidal wave of reporting, comment and speculation today about Channel 4’s decision not to become a radio broadcaster. The implications of their decision came through in two parts. Initially, it became clear that Channel 4 were pulling out of 4 Digital Group, which effectively dealt a death blow to the national multiplex licence that the group (which also included Bauer and UBC) had won in summer last year. Then, later, there was confirmation that Channel 4 would be scrapping its radio division entirely, ending the possibility that one or more of Channel 4’s stations might end up on the DigitalOne multiplex. There has been substantial amounts of speculation and comment regarding the discussions between DigitalOne, Channel 4 and OFCOM, and the issues are so complex, it’s hard to see how any of it could be entirely accurate.

The news that Channel 4 won’t be participating in DAB Digital Radio is, of course, not great. But Andy Duncan was careful to point to Channel 4’s own financial difficulties as being a key determiner in their decision, not DAB Digital Radio as a platform. I wonder how much the C4 Board were working out how to justify cuts to their core, established, business (and a certain amount of pleading for government assistance) as the same time they were launching a radio division. I believe Andy when he says that Channel 4 went into this with all good intention, and are just being clobbered by the economic situation. So maybe it’s not “never”, just “not now”. It’s a shame, because they had some good ideas (particularly for data services) – but they don’t have the monopoly on those.

Some of the current doom-mongering is happening because so much expectation was heaped upon Channel 4. If it became perceived wisdom that Channel 4 would invigorate the Digital Radio business, then clearly a “no show” tends to suggest the opposite. But I would disagree; indeed, some projects in DAB have been held back waiting for the outcome of the Channel 4 / Second National Multiplex story. There are now fewer unknowns to deal with, which hopefully makes decision making on re-inventing DAB somewhat clearer.

In my opinion, not building a second national digital network is a very good thing for the radio industry. The last thing the industry needed now is to be facing another long-term and expensive commitment to transmission infrastructure; infrastructure that would provide capacity that currently isn’t needed. Remember that the second national multiplex licence sprang into life (well, “was slowly conceived”) when DigitalOne was full and getting fuller. But we have capacity now – both on DigitalOne, and on local and regional multiplexes.

There are other benefits too. DAB in the UK needs a shake up, and one that (hopefully) the right combination of DRWG, OFCOM and the broadcasters will give it. To make really effective (and necessary) changes requires as clean a sheet a possible, and it would have been awkward to have a D2 multiplex just a few years into its existence whilst all the other multiplex licences reach potentially useful breakpoints (both in their licence terms and their infrastructure contracts). If DRWG recommends replanning, there’s no easier time to do it. Similarly, at some point we will need to look at the opportunities that DAB+ might bring to us.

Radio is suffering at the moment. Small stations are struggling to stay above water, and everyone is feeling the impact of a turbulent economy. Channel 4’s arrival might have stimulated some renewed interest in radio advertising, but in the short term they probably would have been grabbing revenue off other broadcasters, and doing that in lean times is hard on everyone.

When reading the doom-and-gloom headlines, and some of the melo-dramatic reporting (and “commentary”), it’s easy to lose track of the fact that DAB is a pretty good consumer story. In the four years since 2004 we’ve moved household penetration from 3% to 27%, and receiver costs have dropped to sub £20. (Admittedly, the 5 years before that were pretty dud). DAB accounts for 11% of radio listening, which means it’s underpinning about £60m of revenue for commercial radio.

The threats to DAB are understood and fixable. There are no problems that are insurmountable, and no threats outside the control of the UK radio industry. No other technology has suddenly appeared that makes DAB look irrelevant. Most people believe that the decision (if there is one) is whether radio stays analogue or goes digital using DAB – I don’t hear anyone seriously postulating using an alternate digital technology.

I’m reconciled to the fact that there’s going to be lots of negative commentary about DAB over the coming weeks, and a lot of it won’t be very accurate. Channel 4 not committing to DAB at this stage won’t kill it, but when the dust has settled, it might just make it stronger.

Photo: Channel 4 Television Headquarters (CC) .Martin. @ flickr