I hear people like Trevor Long, George Moore state that digital radio is dieing or not worth it. Especially now that radio app is available in apple play and Android auto cars.
Streaming sevices can customise ads for different target audience so it might be a new way to get more $$$. Like youtube. I think radio may go down this path and analog plus digital radio may become less relevant. Cars could come with a sim card. Standalone radios have a sim card too?
Glenn Wheatley should have changed the format to an updated digital version of EON FM and play 70s and 80s rock and new wave music with the old playlists, and promote it especially in Melbourne and Iām sure it would get more listeners and attract people to digital radio.
Thatās a great analogy re Digital Radio and AM stereo.
Digital Radio has been around for seven years now and still struggling to make any real inroads.
Promotion, availability (particularly in cars) and I think a lack of āmust haveā stations have all contributed to the somewhat underwhelming success of Digital Radio in Australia.
Yeah give it time before radio does a deal to go nonmetered with the carriers. Agree may not 100 percent replace but we heading that direction. I have been listening to pandora not many issues. But I do live in Sydney.
Iāve asked about that on the Digital Radio page on Facebook and just got the response that itās a good idea but the digital radio app doesnāt use a lot of data. I use the iHeartRadio and Google Play Music apps in my car because they are data free on Optus. Iām not going to use any streaming app that chews through the data.
Pretty good - I believe it is turning a profit. They have a much better leadership that understand good radio and the content importance of sales. They also have a format that is cheaper to run since it involves music, and a market that is engaged, loyal and time poor enough for alternatives to not be as available.
Yeah itās the whole data usage and having to fiddle around with the phone that irks me with Radio App or streaming in the car. Believe it or not there are actually times I drive to the shops and donāt take my phone!
I want to just jump in the car and have the radio available and free. Call me old fashioned
Oh I dunno. It is doing much better than AM stereo and availability in cars is growing exponentially.
Remember, every new i30 from now on, just one example.
The challenge with the comparison to AM Stereo is the competition, as the bar is now higher - back then, there were not so many choices for listening (nowadays: spotify, internet podcasts, mp3 players etc). Comparing the 80s and now:
waking up: many rely on their phone, not a clock radio - thereby breaking the radio habit;
in the car: definitely DABās getting there, but most cars have USB connectors which means mp3 players and spotify can win, over a lightly promoted technology that has many stations with bitrates less than FM
at work: very gradual adoption. Where I am at work on the floor there are about 10 radios with two DAB radios - the DAB radios are on Triple J and Smooth91.5, which makes them hardly worth the effort (the other stations to which people listen are Triple M, Gold104 and on Fridayās FoxFM. Meanwhile, I am a luddite with a 160G iPod Classicā¦)
DAB has the potential to make it and is still at the cross roads, but it needs to have all its ducks lined up. It is not doing that and the collapse of EON Sports just seems to be a canary in the mine that DAB is heading off the dark path to technological oblivion.
Sporting events is a challenge with dab or internet streaming. I am not sure if they can fix that. Obviously they have lines going back to the transmitter for am/fm . Are they all analog so no delay?
Once Android auto or Apple play dont need a cable for connectivity that will help a lot. Better still have a sim card built into the car.
I think over there analogue AM and FM is in the process of being switched off.
No date has been set, but I get the impression it will be in the next 5-10 years.
Australia probably wonāt be doing that until the 2040s.
The difference with the UK is that there is actual public awareness of DAB, due to it being promoted by the BBC and commercial operators, and even OFCOM. Of course there is also more continuous coverage across the much smaller area of the UK, but the main factor I believe is promotion and awareness. Remember when Digital television first started here in Australia the TV stations actually pushed it and made people aware. Contrast that to the current radio operators here. They barely acknowledge DAB exists and definitely donāt promote it. If a station finds success like Classic Rock digital they shut it down!!
Itās also a lot more convenient for motorists in the UK than listening on analogue radio, because they can drive across the country without having to switch frequencies for national radio stations, whereas itās the opposite for us because weād have to rescan every time we enter a new DAB area because all the multiplexes are based locally - which Iād imagine is whatās been restricting DAB+ from being launched in the Gold Coast for so many years.
iām not surprised to see the downfall of EON honestly.
as i said when they launched the problems EON had can be summed up as below:
first is the fact that fans of the EPL already had options on radio with the BBC world service carrying match of the day and pretty good coverage around the grounds. even as a fan of a minor premier league club i was somewhat happy with the BBC coverage.
they also relied to heavily on talksport for content. this makes some sense because talksports EPL coverage is quite good, itās only football. bu taking talksport they really positioned themselves as a football station, intentional or not.
when they were taking talksport it was lock, stock and barrel - they had the adverts and the traffic from talksport. all of which had no local relevence.
