128 kbps is wasted on 3AW!
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Agreed having the bitrates the other way round would much much more sense
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You have just nailed why doing technical work for broadcasters is so painful - bet a management type mandated those bitrates rather than anyone technical. 3AW would be more important to the big wig.
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I’d guess it’s more to do with the lease agreement between Nine Radio and Ace Radio.
Nine are probably only providing 64 CU for Ace to use. Therefore 3AW is using the rest of the bits that were probably being used by NTS as well.
Here in Melbourne, Gold 104’s and KIIS FM’s bitrate is now at 64Kbit/s.
Meanwhile, FOX and MMM’s bitrate has gone down to 40 Kbit/s.
Nova 100 and Smooth are on 48 Kbit/s.
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What was it before? 48 kbps?
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It’s been 64kbps for quite a while. They take 16kbps off each of them to pop up Elf Radio when it happens.
The downside is it means that all their extra stations are always 32kbps, whereas previously some of them were 40 or 48.
ARN have 48CU of unused capacity on 9A in Melbourne that would go a long way to helping improve things. With 2x 32kbps stations at 3A - they could move CW Remix and TikTok Trending on there, and then they could make their 80s/90s stations and The Edge at least 48kbps.
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Yes it used to be 48 Kbit/s. I forgot about Elf.
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According to the ACMA FYSO 2021-26: 6 Month Month Progress Report released today:
Consult on the digital radio channel plan (DRCP) for the licence areas where the incumbent broadcasters have committed to rollout digital radio in 2021 or 2022
FYSO timeframe: Timing will be driven by demand from broadcasters
Progress/update: No requests received.
It appears that regional commercial radio stations (outside of Gold Coast & Mandurah) are not in a rush to rollout DAB+, if they ever will.
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Begs asking the question why Mandurah and Gold Coast were so keen. Could it be they are within 70 km of their respective capital cities (reception edge / overlap)?
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You’d think other similar markets like Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, Geelong and Wollongong would have been keen in that case as well.
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I know there’s some others in here who adamantly disagree with me, but this is not a surprise as I’ve been saying this for ages.
Other than DAB+ content supply & holding the DAB+ licences, the metro networks & CRA are no longer really involved with DAB+, that’s why they no longer promote it heavily, or push forward with progressing it, they don’t need more listeners, to generate more revenue, to cover costs they no longer have, & I’ve probably said more than I’m supposed to here, but if I post something here or hint at something here, it’s because I know more than I let on, or am able to say. 
You have every right to disagree with me on things & put your opinion, but generally I’m not just saying what I “think”, it’s more a case of what I “know”.
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Well that is because DAB+ doesn’t offer anything to allow broadcasters to grow their audience share (or collectively to get more people to listen to broadcast radio over on demand streaming options). When it was AM before FM there quite clear technical advantages of FM over AM that connected with the majority music playing stations at least on order of magnitude. The same does not apply to DAB+, certainly not when the majority use such low bitrates and receivers for DAB+ are so limited (be they portable battery radios where batteries die more quickly or car radios where you need to go for the extra $$$ pack to get it). Oh yes and with streaming radio (iHeartRadio and LISTNr), bluetooth boomboxes and android auto, is there any digital point of differentiation with DAB?
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Could it be that DAB is no longer being pushed due to the popularity of streaming or should I be lining up for a non-existent DRM radio at a retailer that doesn’t even stock DAB radios let alone any possible future format?
No, most non radio enthusiasts (remember we are a very small minority) would probably rather take up Amazon’s latest offer for a $35 Echo Show 5 speaker with every Amazon Prime subscription and will listen to not only radio but other music streaming platforms, podcasts etc. And no this isn’t a plug for Amazon just merely highlighting the fact that the price point for alternative options with far greater functionality is rapidly decreasing.
Is it the groupthink or a form of social cognitive theory within the terrestrial broadcast transmission industry that analogue or digital transmission is the only way broadcast radio can be received?
I’m not making an argument for or against DAB but are tiring of the whole DRM is around the corner argument (if that’s where you are going) when the general populous is rapidly adopting other ways besides terrestrial broadcast to receive radio which offer far greater choice. This very same argument also applies to broadcast television.
EDIT: changed promoted to pushed
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I think in Mandurah’s case it was mainly proximity to Perth. In terms of the Gold Coast it’s probably proximity, but also a significant population which was estimated at around 700,000 in 2021.
It surprises me that Sunshine Coast, Wollongong, Central Coast and Geelong aren’t keen.
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I agree it is limited in its ability to grow the audience, but I think they fail to recognize it’s probably a valuable way to keep their audience. People want a variety of formats, and FM choices on offer in most capital cities are completely inadequate. If people can’t find what they’re looking for on terrestrial FM they will go elsewhere. DAB formats are one way for these broadcasters to keep their audience. Yes they can push their streaming apps, but if people are streaming they will look at other services like Spotify.
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I’m not angling at anything to do with DRM, just saying DAB is pushing towards a slow death.
I agree there’s plenty of other ways to get content both radio & TV, but free streaming isn’t really free, someone has to pay for it, if it’s not directly the consumer, then the content provider has to pay, yes there are thousands or millions of people have streaming services of audio or vision, but there’s millions more can’t afford to pay for content & don’t have any streaming services, they rely on FTA & the content provider paying (via ads, etc) to supply the content via terrestrial means or online.
A few years ago in the USA there was a big increase to FTA TV because people didn’t want to pay for cable TV any more, too costly to justify the content. Foxtel are currently losing a lot of subscribers for similar reasons, some will pay for 1 or 2 streaming services that target specifically their needs/wants, but others just can’t afford to pay for “pay for view/listen” services any more (or never could afford it).
Until we have an NBN (Internet) network in Australia that’s FTTP & everyone with faster than 100M connections for next to no money, TV & radio can’t possibly go full online, they’ll lose huge chunks of their potential audience & ability for revenue from advertising or subscription, because large sections of the community can’t afford to justify paying big or any dollars for entertainment when they can’t afford to feed the family, or the Internet just isn’t up to it, to deliver a service that doesn’t stop, pixelate, dropout,etc, because of low bandwidth or other problems.
We in here aren’t even close to assimilating with the wider community, some of the stuff in here we talk about would like to see happen or have access to is, pure fantasy land for lots of “general community” people, FTA terrestrial is free, generally easy to access & reliable to receive for the bulk of the community, & they don’t have to think about what to do or how to get it, you just turn your TV or radio on & it’s there.
You’d be surprised at the number & ferocity of some of the complaints we get, when people can’t watch their FTA TV or Radio if there’s a fault, (which 99% of the time is with the viewer/listeners receive system, not the transmitters), they get it for free & expect it to be there 24/7 when they want it.
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I prefer to call it palliative care.
True and I thank the content providers for the free content. There are many free ad supported options Spotify has a free tier, Tubi, the FTA TV apps, iHeartRadio etc. The only cost to the consumer is the internet access which itself is declining.
I can only speak for myself and that of most of the people I know (and I’m well connected) and while the overwhelming majority of us are on sub 100Mbps NBN connections yet we are IP based households for TV and audio streaming.
According to the most recently available ABS stats (2016-17) 86% of total households have internet access (source), 97.1% in households with children under 15 (source). While granted not all of these would be NBN based connections that’s still a overwhelming majority of Australian households having internet access. These stats are dated too so I’d expect a significant increase in the most recent census.
I don’t mean to be offensive but based on your comments I think you are truly out of touch with what’s going on in the general community. I’m not saying there’s no place for FTA transmission but the tides are shifting and again your purveying your industry’s groupthink mindset that there isn’t alternative methods of broadcast reception that are affordable and accessible for the majority of people and the community is adopting at a rapid pace. The stats don’t lie, a modicum of research will prove this to you.
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I would agree and disagree with what you are saying regarding DAB.
The big networks are still taking it seriously by launching new DAB formats (i.e. MMM 80s, R&B Fridays, MTV Sounds, TikTok, Nova 10s, Smooth Relax etc) and they are making money from it as there is advertising on all DAB stations (even Nova 10s and Smooth Relax have recently been airing adverts which wasn’t the case 6-12 months ago).
But yes I would agree the big networks are not desperate for new listeners but it is still competitive nonetheless and they are still taking it seriously.
It will be interesting if ARN decide to roll out DAB to some larger regional markets over the next couple of years, to give advertisers more reach and roll out more iHeartRadio stations on DAB. Obviously it would help them if some of the other regional players and the ABC/SBS would also want to roll it out to larger regional markets like Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Wollongong, Ballarat.
Newcastle, Geelong, Bendigo, Toowoomba and Central Coast are also potential new regional markets for DAB expansion, if the big networks see an opportunity to make money from it.
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I genuinely think there’s a niche for DRM, as it is actually fairly well established for use on shortwave to get above the just terrible sound that you get in standard AM shortwave.
Using DRM to replace AM or the former shortwave services in remote and far regional Australia, while the population centres primarily get FM would restore a balance that the AM to FM conversion program is hurting - whereby a lot of the wide parts of the country that get AM coverage long beyond their primary coverage area would get a blank FM band.
If DRM30 was adopted for this purpose, limited use of DRM+ for supplemental service would be a natural extension, as most radios can do both.
I think it’s still a narrow use case, but to me terrestrial coverage is more valuable where there’s not a reliable mobile network to allow for streaming, which is the main threat to DAB rollouts.
Anyway, if Geelong doesn’t want DAB - remove the damn notch on Melbourne coverage! Stop protecting a market if they choose not to broadcast DAB.
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