I prefer Hot Tomato organising their own digital content as they’ve done so well with Hot Tomato Ripe from the ground up and the adaptation of the regional classic hits log, playing all the tracks regional analogue stations drop due to commercials/news/talk breaks.
I’m sure Simon and Whippy can pump out a couple more logs by decade 
That would be good to see too, locally programmed 80s and 90s DAB stations for the GC but it might be too tempting for ARN to expand the current iHeartRadio 80s and 90s offerings into the GC market. I think they would be successful either way.
NTS is back with its own separate station.
Here in Melbourne, 3AW is down to 96 Kbit/s while NTS is 48 Kbit/s.
Hopefully they know what they want to do with it.
I still think it should just be “Nine News Radio” - simulcast Nine’s TV bulletins, and loop the radio ones in the off time. With perhaps breakaways on weekends to do things like run the Continuous Call Team into Melbourne, or AFL into Sydney.
Also means Magic is down to 48kbps 
Would much rather they flip it back to 3A encoding and get the 64kbps for it and 3MP, at the risk of the tiny coverage difference.
Similar in Brisbane with 4BC 96, 4BH and NTS 48 each.
In Brisbane, NTS returned to digital radio last weekend or the weekdays leading up to it.
EEP 2A equates to 192kbps for Nine’s allocation in east coast markets.
Split AW/GB/BC and EE/UE/BH at 80kbps each. NTS then at 32kbps.
If it was EEP-1A, NTS at 24kbps with most efficient codec, talk at 48kbps and leased music at 56kbps.
4BH was 72kbps prior to NTS returning.
Yeah in Sydney 2UE is back down to 48k yet 2GB is 96k (same as Brisbane) shouldn’t they swap? Doesn’t make sense.
Didn’t sound to bad before, but now it is going to start to get that metallic sound like the SCA stations had untill it got worse when they went to 32kbps
I don’t listen enough but tempted to write an email to 2ue asking about the change to the audio quality on dab.
2UE still sounding good at 48 kbps on DAB, not much difference than when it was at 72 kbps.
@TV.Cynic , would it be possible to list current error protection of each digital station on the coast? Also have any bit rates changed from 32kbps?
EEP 1-A - Hot Tomato, Hot Tomato Gold
EEP 2-A CADA, Hot Tomato Ripe, Kix Country
EEP 3-, MMM 80s, Easy 80s Hits, MMM 90s, MMM 92.5, MMM Classic Rock, Old Sckool90s Hits, RnB Fridays, Sea Fm 90.9
All are 32 bit/s
Amazing @TV.Cynic , thank you.
I can go to sleep happy to see 1A error protection being used.
Suspected as much due to results in low signal areas see those two stations resolve a consistent signal compared to 3A.
This will be very helpful south of Burleigh and in buildings amongst the concrete canyons.
The things that keep people up at night.
When will the ABC/SBS be launching DAB+ services there, and the community stations?
Goodness only knows. Probably a fair way off, if it ever happens.
I’d like to see DAB in regional areas, a lot of cars have it now, spectrum could be the limiting factor in how much coverage they can get. DRM would be starting from scratch pretty much, it will be harder to get DRM uptake happening in cars etc,
Whilst this is another option, for me, streaming is just not the same, it lacks the immediacy of terrestrial radio.
Hopefully it will be this year. It would be crazy for them to ignore the country’s sixth biggest market and even moreso considering they are broadcasting into Hobart and Darwin.
Sunshine Coast would be behind the 5 mainland state capitals, Gold Coast, Canberra and Newcastle in terms of outright market size at least, maybe even behind others such as NSW Central Coast, Hobart, Wollongong and Townsville as well?
No, I was referring to the Gold Coast, ABC/SBS joining the existing DAB+ services there.
Sunshine Coast is a completely different animal. It will have to be ARN to take the lead (again) and launch it up there with GSL, and at some point down the track, the ABC/SBS and Community radio.
It would be great for radio in SEQ having all 3 coastal markets on DAB. I’m sure it will happen eventually on the Sunny Coast.
