Digital radio is in a real sorry state in this country!
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I believe in the UK the audio quality is low too. I assume mostly dab standard.
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Donât ever use the word DRM with some of the commercial DAB folk, likely to cop an ear bashing of "this is why it can be, he said this she said that⌠on and on.
Give it up, we all know why you oppose it and continue to sway ACMA against it, because it threatens your dead horse business model, in the day and age of the mess you have made for yourselves.
rant over.
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Why am I for some reason getting feeling that Classic Hits 2CH DAB+ will be completely announcer-free.
I cannot see any announcers retaining their on-air roles apart from Bob Rogers if he doesnât retire beforehand.
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Saving more bucks⌠they would be hurting massive in the pocket, lets just get rid of the presenters you know, the personality that brings in the listeners. Brilliant plan. I hope it works out for them.
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and also letâs axe all regional content while weâre at it aswell⌠
lol.
Each to their own.
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While Iâd never advocate for further unemployment in an ever shrinking, volatile industry, Iâm now starting to wonder if itâd be better for 2CH to close down entirely (but not before a decent âfarewell to 2CHâ program celebrating the stationâs 88 or so year history) when the switch to SEN 1170 happens rather than the eventual death of the station being prolonged by a move to DAB+ only and possibly within time, an announcer-less formatâŚ
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I agree kill off 2CH and let it go off with some celebration unless they can sustain some announcers on DAB. SEN 1170 at least is employing people, perhaps more than 2CH is now?
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Itâs like having Ferrari or Porsche switch from luxury sports cars to wooden go-karts.
Youâre better off blowing up completely rather than existing with half-arsed resources.
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Having said this , Sky Sports radio I sometimes wished had a full-time music station. From time to time they have played music and it was a good selection of music. Now 2ue is on air not really required.
Anyway if the bit rate is less than 64k donât bother in my view. If they could be more creative with the format even more so than today even if dj less. For example play real top 40 charts of the 60s - 80s Iâd listen. They donât need to worry about the ratings as much. Dig into the vault of classic hits more and play more genres from the eras. Sorry now I am dreaming 
.
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I was just about to comment that we are drifting into fantasy land again. 2CH has been a literal dead duck for a while now. And the shotties are being loaded.
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The UK has just followed Europe and mandated DAB+ compulsory in all new cars by the end of this year. Apparently already over 90% of cars were including it. The figures are getting up there here too, but still a few willful resistors like VW!
What I donât get is the right-hand drive VWâs sent to the UK now all have DAB+ so why do they âtake it outâ for the cars destined for Australia? So weird.
One of the other resistors was Subaru but now theyâre including it in most new cars. Toyota still gouge the pricing and include it as an option with Sat Nav.
Suzuki is probably the only other âmajorâ manufacturer still omitting it, apart from VW. MG and SsangYong too.
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Not surprised - VW drop a lot of stuff from their European models for Australia
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I think itâs more about that they have to âadd it inâ for each market because different countries have different digital radio standards eg. we have DAB+, UK is just DAB. And of course some LHD markets are different again, in USA itâs HD Radio.
And as @bacco007 said, some European car fittings donât work here e.g. with the VW Mk8 Golf due to be released here next year, we wonât get the new range of engines because our petrol has high sulphur content, so our Golfs will get the current Mk7 engines.
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Yeah I agree, but youâd think it would actually cost them more to drop something like DAB+ out of their right hand drive models.
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I cant imagine it costs them considerably more to add or subtract DAB+
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UK is now DAB+ too so the VW models going into the UK have DAB+.
Left hand drive markets of course have to be specific (e.g. the US). But with UK and Australia both on DAB+ and both being right hand drive it still makes no sense.
Engines are a different matter, but weâre just talking about audio systems here it shouldnât be that hard.
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and yet my Skoda (of which VW is the parent company) does have DAB+
really should just be standard these days
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Exactly. Skodaâs and Audiâs have it and both are part of the VW family. Something dodgy going on within VW on this.
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VW dodgy? No way.
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