You got me! Not sure how I’ll sleep tonight knowing this.
2 Likes
I can understand that as they won’t be able to make any money from it and it will too expensive to set up.
Just look at what happened in the UK in the 2000s when they set up DAB, the major and regional radio operators lost a lot of money.
Interesting article.
I find it ridiculous that the Federal Government wants the commercial networks to hand back spectrum so that they can auction if off to Telcos for more 5G services (when they have just bought big chunks of spectrum for 5G). Talk about a waste.
Fair enough. They should really all be on DAB, now that ARN has the financial resources and they can roll out The Edge, 80s, 90s, TikTok to a larger audience and increase advertising revenue.
Ditto SCA for Toowoomba, Central Coast, Newcastle and Bendigo.
Not sure if the Cameron’s will bother to launch DAB into Geelong though.
2 Likes
The radio relevant aspect is that DVB-T2 at least offers a prospect of a digital dividend though it’s spectrum efficiency vs DVB-T, so there’d be a way to offset the cost of a transition by reducing the overall need for television spectrum.
DAB on the other hand does not - any further expansion of the DAB band will see it using more spectrum than AM+FM combined, and move radio from relatively non-useful low band spectrum, to more attractive Band III spectrum.
There’s no chance of a move that would see spectrum that could be utilised to allow Television to further shift out of the 600MHz band and sold for 5G usage.
The UK had the leg up that there was a commercial incentive on the behalf of the multiplex operator of Digital One - as well as a regulator requiring them to do so.
It’s absolutely the structure we should have gone with - a potential operator would have gotten the benefit of being able to sell access to DAB in the metro capitals, at the expense of needing to also cover regional Australia - including the setup costs for a transmitter network, that local operators and ABC/SBS could then piggyback off.
I would expect that if you back in 2009 had operators trying to be competitive with FM stations, not just supplement them with niche formats, then you likely would have DAB in a far stronger position.
2 Likes
Yes, it would have been good to have a similar set up here as opposed to the operators doing it themselves and bearing all the financial risk.
I’m convinced it will be up to the Federal Government (whoever wins the next election) to subsidise the roll-out of DAB in smaller regional markets (possibly even the larger ones already mentioned), not just for the ABC but for commercial and community stations.
1 Like
It’s about extracting maximum value and improving use of the spectrum - telcos are willing to pay considerable money for spectrum licences whereas the broadcasting spectrum licences have been heavily discounted
2 Likes
Given the complaining they’ve been doing on the overspill from Melbourne DAB, I’d be surprised if they didn’t do anything.
2 Likes
Well, it would be good for Geelong listeners and those living in Western Melbourne if they did, but it comes down to economics. Will the Cameron’s be able to make a return on their investment if they launched DAB into Geelong?
1 Like
That’s the problem. The federal government is greedy. Do we really need more spectrum given for 5G, sacrificed from FTA TV, as the telcos already have plenty and the FTA networks only a small amount?
The FTA networks only have enough for a limited number of TV channels and they can’t even broadcast in 4K due to lack of spectrum.
Spectrum is a scarce commodity and it should be used in such a way that delivers maximum benefit to the community at large. If that means fast internet, then so be it. It’s already pathetic that broadcasters are paying significantly less in licencing costs than other licence classes.
Giving broadcasters additional spectrum is no guarantee that they will increase the number of channels or broadcast in a higher definition. Frankly both are poor reasons to give them additional spectrum, especially given their audience decline.
7 Likes
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Digital TV Technical Discussion
I just don’t agree that giving Telcos more spectrum for 5G when they have enough already, is the best use of spectrum for society at large, at the expense of Television.
The FTA networks have rolled out plenty of HD channels, with 10 Bold being the most recent.
When they move all their channels to MPEG4 they may even simulcast another HD channel each.
Australia only has about 20 digital FTA channels compared to the UK which has almost 100, so you could argue that the FTA networks should keep the spectrum that they have, for the potential of more HD channels, not give it back to the government to help it’s bottom line.
3 Likes
Agree, when 3G is switched off, and a successor to 5G comes along, they can reuse 3G and some 4G spectrum for that.
4 Likes
If television and radio operators returned that benefit in providing local service I’d agree.
The deal for spectrum access is the requirements of local content that don’t exist for online media. Digital Radio - to keep to the topic of this thread - has almost managed to create no new jobs at all. A handful of roles in scheduling music on the stations, a tiny number with voice tracking, and the rest are just music jukeboxes.
That’s not something that’s a public good that needs spectrum handed to it, and TV’s heading down the same path as they beg to have quotas reduced and licence fees removed.
Reliable mobile coverage is worth more to more people than broadcast TV.
9 Likes
I agree with some of what you say but comparing Digital Radio with Digital TV is like comparing apples and oranges.
Yes, most of the Digital Radio stations are jukeboxes, cheap to run with no announcers and yes the FTA Television operators are wanting quotas and license fees reduced, however the quality of FTA Digital TV is excellent, especially if you include the extra news coverage, live sport, movies and HD channels. Just look at the ratings for 9Gem, 7Mate, 10Bold and ABC TV plus/ ABC News. So I would argue it is in the public interest to let the FTA operators own and use the spectrum they have been given, not to give it back. Moving to MPEG4 will eventually mean more HD channels, which is a good thing. Possibly 4K down the track if it possible with the limited amount of spectrum they currently own.
The FTA operators also have to compete with Netflix, You Tube, Facebook, Amazon, so I can understand why they want license fees reduced. Advertising dollars are moving away from FTA TV to online and streaming services. Ditto for journalism hence the government forcing the tech giants to pay for journalism, which is also a good thing.
I think with Seven taking over Prime, it will lessen the digital divide as the Prime regional markets will now get the same services as Seven provide in the metro markets on FTA. Sven may reduce local news services though, however time will tell.
In regards to Digital Radio being rolled out in the regional areas, this can be done without impacting 5G services in the bush. Telstra, Optus and TPG have just bought a huge amount of 5G spectrum at auction, so this will give reliable mobile coverage to those in the bush.
2 Likes
5 posts were merged into an existing topic: Digital TV Technical Discussion
So seemingly different combos around the country, but in Melbourne, 3AW is running an absurd 128kbps at EEP-2A (so basically equivalent of running at 168kbps at the default), while Magic 1278 has dropped again to 48kbps, in EEP-2A, with 16CU free.
The “Radio 3AW” is a redirect to the same ID as “3AW 693”. I’m surprised those aren’t more of a problem, littering the multiplex with redirects.
So that means 3MP and Magic 1278 are both at EEP-2A 48kbps - which could instead be used to be 64kbps of standard error correction.
Magic sounds so much worse than 3MP does. A few reasons there, 3MP is running with HE-AAC v2, while Magic is HE-AAC v1, and uses 8kbps on slideshows vs 4kbps for 3MP.
In slightly less jargon, they are using a less efficient codec and using fewer bits for audio, with awful results, 48kbps is crap for music in the first place, but this sounds particularly bad - even compared to stations that are at 32/40.
Magic was on 96kbps recently and sounding great - this is such a huge step backwards, it sounds like listening to AM.
Tiny sample - Magic 1278_2022-01-15_004453.csv (61.2 KB) - change the extension to .mp4 and use VLC to play.
And on an unrelated matter, LightChristmas is gone for the year, so their allocation returns to what it was beforehand. Seems weird they don’t just run their ‘LightWorship’ feed that they stream.
So short summary:
Original change to 2A:
3AW - 72kbps/72CU - 2A
Magic 1278 - 72kbps/72CU - 2A
News Talk Sport - 48kbps/48CU - 2A
Recent change:
3AW - 80kbps/80CU - 2A
Magic 1278 - 64kbps/64CU - 2A
News Talk Sport - 48kbps/48CU - 2A
Current:
3AW - 128kbps/128CU - 2A
Magic 1278 - 48kbps/48CU - 2A
Unused - 16CU
6 Likes
That’s really interesting re News Talk Sport. Where did it go?
Normally when a channel ends, e.g. Elf radio, my radio says NO SERVICE until I prune the channels, but NTS has just gone without a trace. How did they do this?
I assume they reassigned NTS to something else, but what to? I can’t find it.
1 Like
Here in Perth 6GT has been replaced by Radio 6PR and I assume NTS has been replaced by another 6PR clone. So we have three 6PR “soft” station slots: 6PR 882, 882 and Radio 6PR. First time I see a DAB+ station running at 128 kbps … wasted on a talkback station!
No idea what Nine Entertainment are planning to do now …
5 Likes