Digital Radio

An interesting conversation with the founder of Kinderling radio, on RN:

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ABC would be kicking themselves they didn’t invest in Kinderling. I think they will seek to buy them out once they become too popular to their own children’s services.

Interesting to compare Australian digital radio (or even just Australian commercial radio) to the station formats offered by Equinox Broadcasting to the Binghampton NY market using HD radio (4 streams) and translators - population 50,000

Sunny 107.1 - soft rock, Solid Gold 104.5 - oldies, Z93 - classic album rock, Cool 106.7 - 70’s and 80’s, 100.5 The Drive - Alternative Rock

They also have a couple of stations in adjacent markets.
95 The Met - Classic Rock
Cool 96 and 97 - Classic Hits

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i’m not sure. The ABC doesn’t generally buy out other stations do they? they will more likely do a competing service.

i can however see Radio Disney buying up kinderling and trastioning it to the teen demographic.

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Are these HD radio services only or analogue FM simulcasts?

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HD services but also available on FM translaters

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Very interesting how radio is licensed over there. Lots more flexibility.

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I was commenting because there seems to be a wider selection of commercial stations formats in that small region than the entire state of Queensland and that includes Brisbane with 50+ digital stations. These stations have announcers, local weather, local news etc something that is missing from digital stations here. OMG or The 80s station might be OK music choices but they aren’t really presented by Australian networks as viable choices for full time listening and it seems that anything that comes along that might be a competitor to the analogue stations is taken down.

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The Gorilla/Fun Super Digi computer residing in Bills office at 2SM is at it again.

More intermittent glitches in the sound.

Time for a reboot? Maybe he is using Windows XP, need to upgrade to Windows 10. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Lol!

I reckon he is still on Windows 3.1 …

Can MS-DOS play music?

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Some commercial FM HD2, HD3 and HD4 stations have FM translators, and because they are translators are not subject to the ownership rules, so some owners are using HD radio to have more FM stations in an area than they would otherwise be allowed.

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Digital Audio Broadcasting in Australia today is like the early days of FM Commercial Radio in Australia, Just the Big Five Cities had until 1988 when Canberra came onto the Scene with FM 104.7 (now Hit 104.7) and Kix 106 (now Mix 106.3). The DAB+ Rollout is Happening across Australia and Gold Coast and Hobart are about to Experience it as I’ve been to Both Cities in the Past.

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It has also been slow to have any meaningful impact.

I can’t see any real evidence that Digital Radio is impacting on AM and FM yet to any real extent (except with maybe something like “Classic Rock Digital”).

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The biggest impact for me is for AM stations to be able to provide a better sound quality.

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Which coincidently there are none of in Hobart or on the Gold Coast!

AM music stations like 4KQ still rate considerably less than FM music stations do, I don’t think the gap has narrowed much at all with the advent of Digital Radio.

4KQ rated only 0.5% behind Triple M in the last Brisbane survey.

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The first area of Norway to permanently switch off FM will happen “tomorrow”. Polls mentioned in articles show not a lot of support especially as only about 20% of car radios had DAB+

Norway is first country to turn off FM radio and go digital-only

Norway will be the first country to start turning off FM radio. Over the course of 2017, the FM radio network will slowly be switched off, with listeners only able to listen to digital programmes instead.

The northern county of Nordland will cease to broadcast FM radio from tomorrow, with other regions following suit throughout the year.
[

Norway ignores bad reception and starts FM radio switch-off](Norway ignores bad reception and starts FM radio switch-off | Norway | The Guardian)

Norway has become the first nation in the world to phase out analogue radio signals. Starting at 11.11am local time on Wednesday (10.11 GMT), it will begin closing down its FM signal in the expectation that by the end of the year only Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) will be available.

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If the Magic format folds in Feb in Brisbane, KQ will be the only commercial music station for over 40’s. Expect better figures then.

As TV Cynic said, KQ is very close to the FMs for share now.

As for the gap not narrowed, listen to all the stations, what are they doing to increase the use of digital radio? Not hearing any station specific, high budget effort. No vision like Paul Thompson and team with SA FM for FM radio.

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