Tag: Denmark

NORWAY: digital radio switchover "postponed indefinitely"

In November 2010, a daily newspaper in Denmark reported that the government’s plan for digital radio switchover had been postponed indefinitely [see earlier blog]. Now, the same is reported to have happened in Norway.

“The transition from analogue to digital radio began more than ten years ago. At the end of 2010, we still have no idea what is going on,” said the headline in Norwegian daily newspaper Aftenposten.

In 2009, then culture minister Trond Giske had promised that the Norwegian government would publish a white paper in 2010 on digital radio switchover [see earlier blog]. It has failed to appear. “Recently, it has become clear that the strategy had to be postponed indefinitely,” said Aftenposten.

Ib Thomsen, cultural affairs spokesman for the Progress party, said: “This is undoubtedly a hot political potato and DAB is, in many ways, a risky sport.” He believes that it is wrong to compare the migration of digital radio with digital television switchover, as many do, because the number of radios in use is much greater. “Nevertheless, we should not set a [switchover] date in order to go out and force people to buy new radios,” Thomsen said.

Olemic Thommsessen, cultural policy spokesman for the Conservative party, said: “I am more concerned with getting the policy on the table so that we can advance work on planning a digital radio future.” He noted that it had been a long time since the government’s last review of digital radio strategy, and that subsequent development of DAB and DAB receiver sales had not lived up to expectations.

Trine Schei Grande, leader of the Liberal party, said: “The time is over when politicians can decide how people will listen to the radio.” She believes that the only way to get listeners to invest in digital radio is to make digital content and stations sufficiently attractive. Until then, she said, FM transmissions must be continued.

Øyvind Vasaasen, distribution manager of state broadcaster NRK, said it would not be a very costly issue for NRK to broadcast DAB+ transmissions, should it be required by the government. He emphasised that NRK had a continuing obligation to serve those who had already bought DAB radios that do not support the newer DAB+ standard. “These can be addressed by broadcasting in both DAB and DAB+ for a period,” he said.

The possibility of the government switching from the DAB to the DAB+ standard was taken up by a commentary in Aftenposten, whose headline asked: “Your new, expensive DAB radio may be useless in a few years. What is really happening?” It explained:

“The problem is that there are already more than 300,000 DAB radios in the country. NRK distribution manager Øyvind Vasaasen had said that NRK has a contract with listeners who have already bought a DAB radio, and which makes it difficult to switch [to DAB+]. What about all those who listen on one of the country’s 15+ million FM radios? Does NRK not have a contract with them? And what of DAB users who feel they had signed the contract without full disclosure?”

The commentary continued: ”When [state broadcaster] NRK had argued for a transition from FM to DAB, it had said that the DAB system would give us CD-quality audio from the radio. It has not. DAB technology does allow very high sound quality, but most stations use lower sound quality than FM, according to University of Oslo professor Sverre Holm. Many people find the [DAB] sound clearer and less harsh, but many also complain of less detail and poorer stereo image. Moreover, no local radio station can afford the investment of over half a million kroner to broadcast on DAB, so that the diversity we were promised has not become a reality.”

Even DAB lobbyists are acknowledging the slow take-up achieved to date. Jørn Jensen, president of World DMB, the international marketing organisation for DAB, told Germany’s Digitalmagazin recently:

“Digital radio is still in its infancy. If we compare the situation to the computer market, we are still in the time of MS-DOS!”

DENMARK: "DAB radio: we do not use it here!"


‘DAB radio: we do not use it here!’ said the headline in daily newspaper Ekstra Bladet last month, noting that the proposed digital radio switchover in Denmark has been postponed indefinitely.

Danish state radio, Danmarks Radio [DR], confirmed that it will half its number of DAB radio channels, reducing its total radio services from 23 to between 10 and 12 by next year. In April 2010, the government had insisted that state radio should, in future, focus on quality rather than quantity [see earlier blog]. Despite having launched its DAB channels in 2002, in aggregate they achieve less than a 10% share of radio listening in Denmark.

Mikael Kamber, media director of Danmarks Radio, commented: “It was a great idea when we introduced so many DAB stations at that time. Then, they were a public service channel assignment. DR helped launch digital listening. But I will say that, today, we can state: mission completed.”

Kamber suggested that, with the growth of online music players such as Spotify and TDC Play, consumers now had lots of other options to find exactly the music that suits their tastes. He explained: “Anyone listening can go online and find exactly what interests him. If you want to hear saxophone music, then there are plenty of opportunities to find it. You can even find saxophone music from the New York school on the web “.

One of the factors limiting DAB usage has been listener inertia. In 2009, nine out of ten Danes listened to only one or two radio stations each week. “New figures show that only 6% of listeners to [youth station] P3 change channel,” said Danmarks Radio media researcher Dennis Christensen. “The remainder listen to P3 whenever they turn on their radios.”

Shameless Book Plug

Apologies for the interruption to my normal radio sector analyses, but I wanted to let you know that a book of my writings about DAB radio was published this week. It collects together 99 of the essays that have appeared in this blog over the last two years concerning the digital radio switchover issue in the UK. The period between 2008 and 2010 was a critical ‘make or break’ time for DAB which ended with the legislation of the Digital Economy Act. But have any of the committees, consultations, working groups, reports and recommendations from this period made any difference to the slowing take-up of DAB in the UK? No.

Leslie Burrage, chief executive of Roberts Radio, one of the main UK manufacturers of radio receivers, said recently:

“I’ve been surprised by how many of my peers at the golf club have adopted internet radio and some of those are people who can’t even get a decent FM signal, never mind DAB. The key issue with DAB and the migration to FM is going to be dictated by the speed at which at the motor car can be migrated, and there is no easy solution. If the migrations takes 20 or 25 years to go as it did from FM, the future is just possibly wi-fi.”

Digital radio switchover seems doomed and the only people still talking it up are those who have a direct stake in it, either through their financial investments, or from earning their living from talking it up. Because the UK started on the DAB switchover trail earlier than other European countries, our experiences have relevance to markets that started later on the DAB journey.

This week, it has been interesting to see the interest my book has spurred in markets such as Norway, Denmark and Italy where, like the UK, DAB is still being pursued despite widespread consumer indifference. In Norway, a news story about the local receiver market appeared in the newspaper Aftenposten headlined ‘Customers do not want DAB: FM is still selling like hotcakes’. The buyer at a Norwegian electronics store said that DAB was already a flop and he was quoted: “So far, this year, according to industry sales statistics to which I have access, only one DAB radio has been sold for in-car installation”.

Many countries are awaiting some kind of government decision as to whether digital radio switchover will still be a policy goal. In Norway, a government report on the DAB issue is to be published later this year. In France, a government report on the financial model for digital radio was meant to have been unveiled this week, but was not. In Germany, the 21 September deadline by which state and commercial radio was meant to have submitted a joint plan for government funding to re-launch a national DAB+ multiplex passed without agreement and has had to be extended to 15 December 2010. One German report said “it is highly doubtful whether the negotiating parties will agree by the [new] deadline.” Another report said: “experts suspect that this is the last chance for DAB+.”

In Italy, radio stations that have started broadcasting in DAB and DRM are angry at the lack of digital radio receivers in their shops and have turned to UK manufacturer Pure Digital for help. One Italian report asked: “Do people feel the need to replace their old FM radios? Especially in the era of the smartphone, internet radio and applications, the answer seems obvious.” In Spain, the existing DAB radio licences that were initially issued for a ten-year period in 2000 have just been extended to fifteen years, in the face of widespread consumer apathy towards DAB radio.

It is evident that the digital radio switchover issue continues to generate a lively debate in many European countries. My hope is that our experience in the UK can help other countries make an informed decision about the adoption of a realistic plan for ‘the future of radio’ in their own markets.

DAB DIGITAL RADIO: LICENSED TO FAIL
GRANT GODDARD
Radio Books, London
ISBN 978 0 9564963 0 0
paperback 297×210 mm, 314 pages
1 October 2010
book excerpts here
more information http://www.radiobooks.org
available from online book retailers including Amazon

Book plug over.

DENMARK: state radio axes DAB radio ‘jukebox’ music channels

Danish state radio, ‘DR’, is cutting the number of DAB channels it broadcasts, many of which are ‘jukebox’ music stations, in order to focus on presenter-led programmes. At the same time, it plans to develop more and better on-demand and mobile content, particularly aimed at young people.

These changes were part of the DR programming strategy for 2011 of ‘quality over quantity’ announced by director general Kenneth Plummer, who said:

“The intention is not to create more, but better and more focused content for the Danish people. This is the recurring theme within our plans for the coming year.”

Announcing the policy changes for DAB radio, DR media director Mikael Kamber said:

“We will get to see more ‘real’ content-focused channels on DAB and fewer pure music channels.”

The DR plan is to re-position its DAB radio channels in order to offer genuine public service content aimed at three specific segments of the audience: children, teenagers and the elderly.

One press report said that the number of DR digital radio channels was to be cut from 29 to 10.

The DR digital radio channels collectively had a weekly reach (via DAB and the internet) of 20.1% in 2009, up from 17.1% in 2008. The DR DAB channels attract a 2.5% share of listening in aggregate, low compared to the DR analogue radio channels P4 (46%), P3 (18.3%), P1 (6.9%) and P2 (4.3%). As in the UK, radio listening in Denmark is in slight decline, down by 4 minutes year-on-year to 2 hours 7 minutes per day in 2009.

DAB radio was launched in Denmark by state radio in October 2002, following trials that started in 1995.

DENMARK: government contemplates DAB radio’s future

Politicians in Denmark are presently considering what to do about digital terrestrial radio. The next funding period for state radio runs from the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2014 and will have to take into consideration a political decision taken in June 2009 to forge ahead with the migration from analogue radio to the DAB platform. Presently, only state radio stations are available on DAB.

The governing Liberal Party says it “wants to create real competition in the radio market” because state broadcaster Danmarks Radio has “a de facto monopoly over radio in Denmark and so the diversity and choice in radio remains limited.” The party decided in 2009 that it would support FM switch-off as a means to create a “new start” for radio in Denmark. To ensure that DAB will prove an attractive investment proposition for commercial radio, FM would be switched off between 2016 and 2018. The Liberal policy document states:

“An expansion of DAB radio allows for a potentially very large number of different radio channels. This expansion is in full swing in all major European countries, several of which already offer between 60 and 100 digital radio channels, while Denmark currently only offers 20 channels in total. The technological opportunities need to be exploited for the benefit of listeners. And development of DAB also provides the opportunity to create a balanced radio market, where there are real opportunities for development of commercial radio, which has proven not to be possible on the FM band. We should therefore concentrate on the offensive deployment of DAB. England has the full support of all radio operators in the country who decided to work for the switch to DAB in 2015. Recently, France decided that DAB radios must be in all French cars from 2014 and, in March 2009, the German Broadcasting Commission decided to roll out DAB+ in Germany. Although progress has been slow, and in some places has become completely stagnant, there is no longer the same uncertainty that DAB (Eureka147 standard) is the future of radio.”

The Liberal Party document goes on to cite the ‘success’ of DAB in the UK and mistakenly believes that UK government policy is to switch off FM (a fallacy shared by many):

“Today, around 8% of total radio listening [in Denmark] is on DAB. In England, that figure is 12.7% and soaring. To ensure that DAB is an attractive platform for both listeners and investors, it is important that DAB radios are made attractive by adding more unique content. This is the same set of conditions which must be present in other countries that anticipate the same trends. For example, Norway has estimated that at least half of the population must have a DAB radio before [analogue] switch-off can be announced. England will switch to DAB in 2015. Moreover, it is recommended that all cars sold in England from 2013 must be equipped with DAB radios. This decision is backed by both the public service and commercial radio stations. The assumption is that DAB listening will reach 50% in 2015 and coverage will reach 90% of the country and all main roads. Lord Carter’s report ‘Digital Britain’ in January 2009 also defined a set of criteria that must be met in order to close [analogue radio] permanently.”

Ellen Trane Nørby, media spokesperson for the Liberals, said: “Danmarks Radio is proposing that we switch off analogue radio in 2015, but they offer no viable way to get Danes to listen more to DAB.” Nørby believes that the biggest driver for DAB take-up will be when state radio channels are progressively removed from FM: “The people who listen to DAB are heavy listeners to the channels they cannot find anywhere else. If the offerings on DAB are not unique, why would you buy a DAB radio?”

Nørby said that the transition to DAB needs to adopt a realistic timescale: “Today, we are in a situation where most listening takes place on FM and each of us has about five FM radio receivers, compared to only 1.5 million DAB radios [sold in total]. Therefore, it is important that we have a real debate over the future of digital radio, and how we progress safely from FM to DAB. The honest discussion we propose is in contrast to others who say simply that we must switch off [analogue radio] but do not explain how.”

Although the Liberal policy document is resolute about digital radio switchover, Nørby appears more circumspect in interviews. In December 2009, she said: “It is not enough simply to say that FM will be switched off in 2015 without considering a discussion on content. …. Driving the take-up of digital television was the Danish desire to have a flat-screen TV. I have seen no Christmas boom – and we have not seen this for many years – in the sales of DAB radios. That’s why we Liberals have been so critical of the migration plan, because DAB has not won as much grassroots support as you could ask for.”

The government proposals drew a critical response from Michael Christiansen, chairman of Danmarks Radio. He said: “The Liberal Party proposal is a barely disguised attempt to destroy Danmarks Radio’s stations. … The proposal totally disregards modern Danish music by moving the P3 channel over to DAB at a time when it its coverage is not enough. … Replacing P3 [on FM] with a more or less indifferent foreign [commercial] radio channel, I cannot take seriously. We want to help the drive towards DAB, just as we have driven the migration to digital TV. But no one thought of closing down DR1 or DR2 [TV stations] on analogue until digital TV signals were available [to all]. The notion is so far out that I find it hard to relate to.”