All posts by Trevor Harris
Below are all of Trevor Harris's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
About time to they could have done this when Five rejected the Freeview slot. The BBC has realy been draging its feet for the last few years. Still no HD in the regions. I assume this will mean that red button HD will be dropped. I would have prefered BBC Four.
No sign of these on satellite yet.
| link to this comment |
@Brianist
I don't think I am everyman I have just been quoting from Ofcoms own research. FM should only be swiched off when a small number of people are using it. There is no sign that will happen in the near future. One reason FM is still so popular is that DAB is not a suitable replacement. As the Rajar report says after 18 years only 23.9% of listening is on DAB. Even now more FM radios are being sold than DAB.
| link to this comment |
59.9% of new cars don't have DAB fitted as standard is a better way of looking at it. Millions of cars don't have DAB.
Looking through the forums at people who have got a DAB car radio I have found that a large proportion object to having to listen in mono . There are objections to the sound quality and coverage but I was suprised how importent stereo was to most listeners. I don't remember any research into the acceptability of mono. After all we have had stereo since the 70's and so we tend to take it for granted. I have always found stereo in the car is very effective for both speach and music.
@Dave E
Unfortunatly there is no cheap way of including a DAB downgrade in cars. It involves a new head unit and aerial. This is more difficult with cars which don't have DIN or IOS standard car radios. Steering wheel controls also add to the complications. This is one of the reasons the so called FM switch off will not happen in the near future.
| link to this comment |
Actually I believe only Radio 3 transmits stereo some of the time. Every other station uses a fake stereo effect called joint stereo or mono.
| link to this comment |
Just checked the info on my radio Planet Rock is 80kb/s, MP2, Mono. From what I can make out stereo was dropped in April. Listening to it sounds mono, and very what I would call muddy. Just listened to "Type O Negative - Cinnamon Girl" on my PC to compare with DAB. The difference was increadable. Mind you I have some B&W MM1's speakers attached to my pc. The internet stream is only 48kb/s AAC-HE but sounds much better than DAB. It may be in joint stereo.
What is your radio model. Your radio might have some processing in it to simulate stereo or you might be just hearing it because you are familiar with what it should sound like.
| link to this comment |
" younger viewers are most likely to have the best eyesight!"
Not after watching television all day!
| link to this comment |
I am sure they will go on satellite aswell. In fact they could have gone on satellite years ago. The BBC are biased in promoting freeview and so would not start the satellite service.
| link to this comment |
Oh dear DAB listening has dropped from 23.9 to 23% over the last 3 months. Again the fastest growing platform is the Internet. Next quarters results should be interesting. Many DAB radios are given away as unwanted Christmas presents.
| link to this comment |
The BBC's new director of radio has called for mobile phones to come installed with digital radio receivers because the experience of streaming radio on smartphones is so poor.
BBC News - Call for digital radios in phones
Helen Boadan said:
So far, built-in DAB receivers have been restricted to a few phone models.
Well Helen actually there are no phones with built in DAB. The power consumption would be excessive. FM radios in smart phones use the earphone lead as an aerial. This may not work for DAB as it uses higher frequences. The main reason there are no DAB phones is that there is no demand.
Helen also seems to be out of touch with what is happening at the BBC. The BBC has launched a radio iplayer app because of demand for listening to radio on smartphones. According to the BBC 40% of Iplayer television requests come from mobile devices.
Smartphones can use wifi, 3G or 4G for radio listening. There are some poor reception areas for 3G but that is also true of DAB.
| link to this comment |
Tuesday 15 October 2013 11:13AM
"Two years of on air reminders" what a thought enough for most people to just switch off.
The latest annual report on digital radio from Ofcom shows people are still buying more FM radio sets than DAB, and 60% of new cars still dont have DAB as standard.
Forty-six per cent of people claimed ownership of a DAB digital radio, but out of those who do not have access to a set at home, only 14% claim that they are likely/very likely/certain to buy a set in the next 12 months.
The point is they wouldn't switch to DAB. They have a choice of Freeview, satellite, cable, or internet. Internet is the fastest growing medium for radio.
For the home internet radio is very attractive because most already have wifi setups. There is no horrible fragile wip aerial to break and good coverage around the home. The choice is fantastic and the quality is generally good.
I have 4 mobile phones, 1 clock radio, 1 av reciever, a television, and 2 car radios with FM tuners. To replace these with the DAB equivalent would cost several thousand pounds. No mobile phones are available with DAB in any case.
So I would retune my FM only equipment to one of the stations not being cut like Classic FM. The is no issue with internet capable equipment. For the car I can connect the mobile phones for internet reception.
In short DAB is redundant.
Onething is for sure the BBC will loose overnight a large proportion of it's radio audience. Of cource the BBC doesn't realy care as long as the licence tax continues to come in. If the BBC ran on a commercial basis switching off would be a disaster.
However there is a caviat to this. The BBC has realised that it's public image has wained and that it needs regain public support if it is to carry on. Turning off national FM stations would be a public relations disaster.