Wait for the regionals to have a cry about demanding money in the form of licence rebates or perhaps even more bald faced, giveaway cash from the Commonwealth Govt to start up regional digital radio. Sure to be the next stumbling block.
We await with interest the outcomes of the digital radio planning committee mentioned in the Radioinfo article to see if they arrive at similar planning decisions as the wonderful work done here by members (could the relevant posts from the old forum be reproduced here?) of the Mediaspy forum.
The interesting news is that the moratorium is over and will not be returning. So if you were a budding radio station proprietor who had deep enough pockets, you could apply to start your own digital radio station. No one has even made an application which is a shame, doesn’t seem to be much appetite to invest in the most future proofed form of existing media - radio.
I hope they don’t get a cent. Digital television got it because they needed to force them off their existing spectrum to get the digital dividend - it was a net positive to taxpayers to fund digital TV rollouts.
Digital Radio manages to move radio into a more valuable spectrum band - they haven’t been able to sell off the VHF Band I spectrum, why would VHF Band II be any different?
I’d note that in Brisbane there is unauctioned space on their mutliplex.
Elsewhere, I really think there would be a strong ACCC case that the commercial networks buying multiplex space and then not using it is anti-competitive. It should be subject to a use it or lose it clause - it’s been over 5 years since the auction.
It sounds very unlikely that we will get the one thing that would make regional DAB viable to being close to the metro counterparts - an SFN of the ABC/SBS multiplex.
The legislation as it currently stands calls for giving the ABC and SBS 128kbps each on the multiplex type that allows National and Commercial radio to share spectrum. That is only viable if the 128kbps of ABC is dedicated to running ABC Local radio for the particular area, and getting the rest of the ABC services from an SFN.
Something like the Canberra trial is hardly worth rolling out, let alone subsidising a rollout of.
What was that tool someone used to do coverage estimates of an FM station? I’d love to be able to plot some of my DAB block planning assumptions onto a map and see what the results would be.
It’s not cynical if it’s what the Commericial Radio lobby is saying:
“We expect this will form the basis of initial discussions with the regional digital radio planning group, which the industry has requested that the minister establishes soon,” Warner says. “We do expect support from the government, bearing in mind governments on both sides supported commercial television for the digital switchover.”
Great news today! Rythmos is live on the DAB+(digital radio). Go and grab yourself a DAB+ radio(digital radio) so you may be able to listen to the “New fresh Greek radio of Melbourne”. All live shows will be slowly transitioned across . In the mean time stay tuned with non stop music.Thankyou for all your support and patience for the new and different sound of Greek radio in Melbourne.
Triple M Classic Rock just played Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit followed by In Bloom. I won’t complain about Nirvana being played, but for the main Triple M playing some at the exact same time.
I kinda expected that Classic Rock was on 60s-80s to keep it away from the Modern Rock equivalent, and should be skewing older now that Triple M have ditched Modern Rock for ‘Rock Variety’.
It’d suck if it fell into the Pure Gold network idea of what is a “Classic”, I don’t mind them playing 2000s stuff, but it would be nice if there could be at least one station on digital that is playing a decent amount of 60s/70s rock.
Indeed, it’s annoying that the genre stations just result in Pure Gold 80s/90s and then More Digital doing 80s and 90s…
I wonder how long the arrangement for CW Remix will last? It’s essentially a neglected station - would be much better served focusing on the 00s or the 70s.
Probably for as long as Chemist Warehouse are being paid by ARN to do their in-house radio station. Similar deal with Nova Entertainment and Coles Radio.
BTW, I agree that the station would be better off being a dedicated '70s or 2000s music station. Better yet, CW Remix’s bandwidth could be used improve the audio quality of the other ARN digital stations but that’s probably asking for too much…
I wonder how well they actually do with it though? Being called ‘CW’ on the label doesn’t help it as a promotional tool, and unlike Coles Radio, it isn’t a ratings success.
Their music choices seem so painfully safe whenever I sample it, and while I hate harping on about it - the audio quality is utterly terrible - 19.6kbps audio, as unlike Pure Gold 80s/90s they are running an image slideshow.
Given it started out as Chemist Warehouse Mix 90s - you’d think they would have some flexibility to give it a defined format - ideally one not tied to an old station brand:
I guess the broad format of CW is because of it being a promo station being tied to their business, which itself doesn’t really have a demographic … their customers would come from all walks of life, thus why they play it safe with their music.
@ Moe
I like what Absolute Radio UK does on their digital channels over there:
Aboslute 60s
Absolute 70s
Absolute 80s
Absolute 90s
Absolute 00s
Absolute Classic Rock
They cover all bases.
Just an observation now I have DAB in my car. I spend about 75% of my time on DAB listening to Pure Gold 80s & 90s, More Digital, Triple M Classic Rock, Smooth FM and Double J. Occasionally I get he need for more “live” sounding radio and flick to FM for 99.7 FM, River 94.9, Breeze FM and Rebel FM. But I never feel the need to listen to the mainstream FM stations in Brisbane, either on DAB or FM. I find it interesting that the only non-DAB stations I listen to are from outside Brisbane or are community stations like 99.7 which aren’t on DAB yet.
The DAB reception is absolutely flawless right across the metro area by the way - except in the tunnels.
If I ever have a car that has DAB+ radio, I would be spending more time on that band whilst travelling around the Sydney metro area. As for the only non-DAB stations that you listen to being those from outside a metro market or community stations, it would be the same for me, except that Smooth is available on FM in Sydney (& Melbourne). For the record, my top FM stations whilst travelling around Sydney (in no particular order) would be Smooth, C91.3, i98, 2ST & Star 104.5.
Why do Nova Entertainment continue to bother broadcasting Novanation as an Internet only station?
Heard tonight (not that I regularly listen) were ads for Stereosonic 2015 tickets at Moshtix!
The website is full of broken widgets and outdated information and posts are as scarce as followers on the Facebook page.
Are they just leaving the lights on so to speak in case Coles decide not to renew their contract (not like that will be likely considering the ratings of Coles Radio)?
For anyone that uses DAB Player software I noticed that there is a newer version dated Jan 2016. Not sure what changes/improvements have been made but it may just be that it now includes L band transmissions.
Except they don’t. Nova have a total of 256kbps in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide from their 2 AM/FM frequencies, while in Brisbane they still only have 256kbps since they only have 1 FM frequency (plus purchased an additional 128kbps) - so since they still run Smooth as a digital only station, that leaves them with the exact same amount of bandwidth as everywhere else.
I didn’t run the numbers before that post, but if they’re broadcasting those extra Coles Radio channels, something is different about what they are doing in Brisbane.
