Came across this review:
Mostly poor reviews for this radio. I’ve not tried it but the big gripe is a poor AM tuner and the expectation that the build quality would be better like Philips used to be.
Others thought it would have a digital radio as in DAB+ but were misled by the specs.
Happy World Radio Day 
I wonder how bad would the cochannel if they got rid of the downtilt etc. Given on fm radio they are not too worried on cochannel interference. DAB would not have the same reach of fm radio given where it is on the spectrum.
And I’m guessing downtilt is the reason why we haven’t heard any reports of DAB being received at long distance via sporadic Es or aircraft scatter (as the signal can’t then get up into the atmosphere?).
This is an exceedingly dumb decision
Yes, we know CRA make routinely dumb decisions.
On MediaSpy, we’ve covered their attempts to frighten third party websites that have cleverly used available source code to stream their stations from their own websites.
The young person who operates Online Radio Box was one of those for a few networks. Fortunately, some continue and I enjoy using them instead of the slow loading environment of their own station websites.
CRA led by Joan are a great example of outdated thinking. The internet and technology has democratised access yet they’re stuck in a protectionist past, a vain attempt to control everything. It’s 2019 and life doesn’t work that way now. CRA need to accept this and make the most of the new era.
Idiots. Next CRA will be dictating which radios we can and can’t use to listen to the terrestrial service.
They obviously want listeners to access streams via their website or their app to increase the effectiveness of advertising on the website or in apps, before listeners can access a stream.
Having a direct link bypasses all this.
I think this is what it boils down too.
Though it may backfire in that they may lose online listeners as a result.
Just run pre-roll ads like Nova’s streams do
so true. i do the majority of my listening via streaming - mostly though my amazon alexa. if i can’t access a station i’ll just move to a new one.
the radio stations need to understand they are not competing within a local market anymore, they are competing worldwide.
let me give you an example - there was a period where my alexa would not play vision christian radio. it didn’t bother me, i started listening to Air 1 from the USA instead.
Yes I agree. Especially for home listening they have to understand they are competing against the rest of the world. In the car the local stations may still have the advantage, but only if they embrace DAB+ properly
Ten years on this year, they still haven’t grasped the basics that us here at MediaSpy identified long ago.
What a ludicrous decision. They do know that direct stream URLs are required for certain Internet radio devices, don’t they?
I always use direct URLs where possible. Less clutter, more radio.
You know, if it hasn’t been done already that will probably be next: The major radio broadcasters geoblocking the online streams of their stations so they can only be heard within Australia.
Do they already do this? If not I’m surprised they don’t!
Radio Today has picked up on the story.
F##king idiots.
CRA CEO Joan Warner also said that the peak industry body supports the introduction of a Mandatory Standard to enable the timely take-down of copyright-infringing content.
So linking to a publicly accessible stream would be regarded as an infringement of copyright in a court of law then. Riiiiiight.
Who gets the commission for those cease and desists that the likes of TuneIn will get? And how will CRA respond when those aggregators rightly point out that employees of radio stations have been voluntarily updating their stations’ profiles for years now?
Exactly.
This is an industry that its commercial sector constantly fights among themselves on overspill. Madness.
If you directly link a stream that is usually inside their ad-wrapped web page, perhaps. The existing link and site blocking scope is fairly broad, making it a relatively small reach to go this step further.
The EU are looking to go down a similar path, with stuff like the ‘link tax’ - where Facebook/Google could be forced to pay publishers for merely linking to their sites and providing what would otherwise be a clearly fair use snippet of the content.
Clearly the radio industry here are looking at that kind of overreach with glowing eyes.
One thing I will say - is if a company is taking a web stream they don’t host without authorisation from the rights holder, wrapping ads around a player and earning money - that is a clear breach and should be able to be the subject of a takedown. That’s very different than a link however.