Newstalk 106 apply for a quasi-national licence

dmeehan

Not sure if this is the right forum.....

In the papers there is an article about Newstalk 106 appling for a quasi-national licence. What exactly is a quasi-national licence, and what areas of the country does this cover (and which are not covered)?

Ulsterman 1690

It is a licence to broadcast to about 80% of the Republic

Similar concept to the Channel 5 Television network in the UK

The reason for the limited coverage is that there isint enough frequency space to provide for "full" 98+% coverage provided by the other national services

There is a kind of "law of diminishing returns" effect that comes into play when designing these things i.e. doubling the number of frequencies allocated to a service doesnt lead to a doubling of coverage

DMC

Correct forum on ICDG... quasi-national to the BCI means it covers all the main cities.

JohnDigital

The areas that they will not reach will me mainly the less populated rural areas and much of the southwest coastline. I believe the licensing announcement may be as soon as tomorrow.

Ulsterman 1690

DMC wrote:

quasi-national to the BCI means it covers all the main cities.

I thought that was "Multi City"

"Quasi national" is a bit more than "multi city" but not as much as "national"

dmeehan

I dont suppose there is a coverage map or a list of towns/cities it will cover. Will it cover Killarney or will I have to continue using the Newstalk podcasts?

DMC

Sorry, I meant to say it will cover at least the main cities and surrounds. They wont put in coverage if the population reach is too low.

JohnDigital

http://www.bci.ie/documents/newstalk_transmission.pdf
Coverage map is on page 10 - areas outside the coverage are white, coloured areas will have transmission from various masts.

L1011

The Multi-City licence is coming up later this year is it not? For a multi-city "classic gold" service and all...

Based on pre-existing licencees going for most of these new licences (Spin1038 and Red have applied for the south-west regional, for instance), I wonder will UTV go for the multi-city based on Q102

Ulsterman 1690

JohnDigital wrote:

http://www.bci.ie/documents/newstalk_transmission.pdf
Coverage map is on page 10 - areas outside the coverage are white, coloured areas will have transmission from various masts.

How come that (apart from an small area around Kilkeel/Warrenpoint) the signals magically stop at the border

I thought radio signals didnt do that

L1011

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

How come that (apart from an small area around Kilkeel/Warrenpoint) the signals magically stop at the border

I thought radio signals didnt do that

Did you now know that broadcasters on both sides of the border are equipped with transmitters that have a magic "bendy cliff" threshold that stops any signal leaking across the border?

Even Eircell used them in the past; they used to have coverage marked out at sea and all but the "bendy cliff" saved them from getting one stray echo even in to Northern Ireland

DMC

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

How come that (apart from an small area around Kilkeel/Warrenpoint) the signals magically stop at the border

I thought radio signals didnt do that

In much the same way in the past the signal from Divis on coverage maps magically disappeared south of Cullaville.

Ulsterman 1690

Even Eircell used them in the past; they used to have coverage marked out at sea and all but the "bendy cliff" saved them from getting one stray echo even in to Northern Ireland

Shouldnt the signals out at sea stop at the 12 mile limit or does this bendy ciff only work on land ?

Come to think of it it must be because the bendy cliff doesnt work properly around Carlingford lough either

Must be something to do with hydromorphic backscatter

lawhec

There's no way that they'll get 105.6 from Truskmore cleared - that'll affect Today FM on 105.5 in a large part of N.Ireland (and potentially a large part of Monaghan too though it has its own relay) which I'm sure they wouldn't be pleased about even outside the juristiction.

Considering the service is effectively a speech based one, surely a better idea would be to have FM transmitters for the main population areas and one or two medium - high powered MW transmitters serving the more rural areas, effectively turning quasi-national coverage into a national one - that of course depend on the BCI offering it and werever Newstalk would consider it feasiable, but I can't think of any reason why the BCI couldn't offer it - Ireland has quite a few good MW allocations that haven't been used either for some time or ever.

watty

I think *ALL* Irish LW and MW is changing to DRM. 252 first.

lawhec

watty wrote:

I think *ALL* Irish LW and MW is changing to DRM. 252 first.

A frequency assigned to Newstalk could be in analogue MW first, with conversion to DRM at a later date either mandated by the BCI or when Newstalk felt the commercial decision to do it was right.

Also I don't think Radio North, Radio Star Country or Energy Power 1395 will be going over to DRM any time soon.

Ulsterman 1690

As well as clashing with Today FM I remember hearing that some of Newstalks proposed frequencies clash with Red FM in Cork.

Im suprised Today havent kicked up a stink with the BCI although it could be argued that NI is outside Today FM's franchise area.

Considering the service is effectively a speech based one, surely a better idea would be to have FM transmitters for the main population areas and one or two medium - high powered MW transmitters serving the more rural areas

Id go further and say they shouldnt be on FM at all

Also I don't think Radio North, Radio Star Country or Energy Power 1395 will be going over to DRM any time soon. .

I wouldnt be suprised if they did before RTE :rolleyes:

L1011

1593 surely, and are they even still on-air? All I get is noise on the portable, albeit with nothing but its internal rod + a telescopic. Radiowaves suggests they've used 2fm's 1278 frequency and theres... something there but its indistinguishable.

The other two you listed there are (poor attempts) at border blasters so I wouldn't expect to get them here.... and I do. Have to hold the radio away fro the laptop though.

Are they on actual Irish or Northern Irish allocations or just using empty frequencies?

bk

I'd assume that the reason they want to be on FM is that many radios these days only have FM.

Think about all the radios in new mobile phones, FM only.
Many crappy bedside radios, FM only.

And even with radios that can handle MW/LW, it is often a hastle to change from FM to MW/LW.

Ulsterman 1690

Bar mobile phoness virtually 99% of radios on the market have MW (or AM) as well. And those mobile phone and micro in-ear things have such crap reception that its going to be of damn all benefit to Newstalk anyway (especially since their signals are going to be transmitted at lower power than RTE/Today FM)

People will switch waveband if there is something there to make it worthwhile. The FM pirates in Dublin proved it in the early 1980's when they got people switching from MW to FM

Atlantic 252 proved it again during their heyday in the early 1990's (despite the fact that most radios give pretty poor sound quality on Longwave)

Newstalk could do it but only if they offer something sufficently distinctive yet popular (coupled with a bit of publicity reminding people that MW still exists)

byte

Terestrially, Virgin Radio were the same. They were on 1215MW and FM in cities (maybe only London). Of course, now they're on DTT and satellite also.

As for it being on 105.6FM from Truskmore, there will be complications. Ocean FM broadcast on 105.0FM in areas, so I'd imagine there could be interference?

L1011

.6Mhz is enough spacing, even off the same transmitter - Spin1038/FM104(.4) in Dublin is one example.

Ulsterman 1690

0.6 MHz is a more than sufficent gap between Ocean and Newstalk but the 0.1 spacing from Claremont Carn will definitely prove problematic in mid Ulster and Cavan/Monaghan

ADDS:
MYOB you beat me to it

Actually some stations in Dublin use 0.4 spacings and at a push 0.3 can be used in some situations

lawhec

Ulsterman pretty much gave the same answers as I would have given myself on bk's query. Some of the FM tuners on mobile phones are getting better but many of them still can't match a decent portable radio. The vast vast majority of analogue-only radios being sold still have MW on them, though LW is not as much to be seen these days, thanks largely to the departure of Atlantic 252, I remember back in the early-mid ninties radios without Long Wave were difficult for retailers to sell off! IMHO many FM radios being sold off these days have shockingly bad performace, the one on my MP3 player is appaling - hissy stereo on Q101 for example when I can actually see the Brougher Mountain transmitter! :eek:

A 0.6MHz spacing is perfectly fine. In London there are commercial stations 0.4MHz away from each other with a mixture from same & different sites and they do OK.

The BCI is proposing a similar principle for a religious station to be on AM with some FM frequencies (mostly a sop to the ICB crowd).

Radio North and Radio Star Country still do operate on MW only. I believe Radio North one time had an FM outlet as well that was then sold-off, which then went without trace (apparently the MW outlet was a better money maker!) while Radio Star Country had a low-powered FM outlet in North Monaghan / South Tyrone on 101.2 before Q101 started. Both of them were around pre-1988. Star have their transmitter in Emyvale near the border with 1kW of power and could be cleanly heard in Belfast. R.North I believe operate at 2kW and get out around counties Derry, Antrim and parts of Donegal and Tyrone, though the Sperrins do weaken the signal going southwards.

JohnDigital

It is pretty academic really having a discussion about what band the new quasi-national licensed operator should be on as the BCI decided that the band should be FM and that is what they sought applicants for.

I heard this afternoon that Newstalk have won the licence.

If it were me running a commercial radio station in Ireland right now I would never consider anything other than FM. FM is where virtually all commercial radio listening is to in ROI and a new station needs to start making money from advertising quickly, and they cant do that without listenership data. The amount of time and money that it would take to educate listeners into changing from FM to MW/LW/AM etc would far surpass even the deep pockets of dual funded state broadcaster and would take too long. The first 12 months are make or break time for most stations.

Elmo

http://www.bci.ie/news_information/press78.html

lawhec

JohnDigital wrote:

It is pretty academic really having a discussion about what band the new quasi-national licensed operator should be on as the BCI decided that the band should be FM and that is what they sought applicants for.

I heard this afternoon that Newstalk have won the licence.

If it were me running a commercial radio station in Ireland right now I would never consider anything other than FM. FM is where virtually all commercial radio listening is to in ROI and a new station needs to start making money from advertising quickly, and they cant do that without listenership data. The amount of time and money that it would take to educate listeners into changing from FM to MW/LW/AM etc would far surpass even the deep pockets of dual funded state broadcaster and would take too long. The first 12 months are make or break time for most stations.

It is very much in a sense academic, you're right. The cynical view is that after the pirate shutdown of 1988, the IRTC didn't give any MW frequencies for local radio (they did take some low powered ones for Dublin and Cork, and I've heard a story that Radio Kerry were offered one but I've never had that confirmed), thus killing off MW (in analogue) for the forseeable future, and the reason why there isn't any commercial licenced radio in the Irish Republic right now. A couple of unlicenced operators keep it alive, and thats about it.

Congrats to Newstalk - from reading a brief report on it, it looks like they'll be able to use frequencies between 106-107FM, should provide less room for conflict with existing broadcasters I'd guess.

Ulsterman 1690

and I've heard a story that Radio Kerry were offered one but I've never had that confirmed

As I remember/understand it the first time the licence was advertised they got four applicants but one applicant said they werent interested unless MW was on offer insisting that it wasnt possible to cover the mountainous terrain of the area on FM and the other applicants werent deemed to be "good" enough So the licence was readvertised (still on FM only) With Radio Kerry succesfully applying second time around.

(maybe someone closer to that part of the world can confirm if Ive got that story right)

In other parts of Ireland some applicants also claimed theyd reach profitability far quicker with an AM frequency but dont seem to have been as insistant about it as the original applicants in Kerry were.

Ironically Radio Kerry seem to have done relatively well for themselves on FM wheras stations in other parts of Ireland struggled for many years to stay in business (let alone turn a profit) despite (in most cases) enjoying a virtual monopoly in their franchise areas some only managed to keep their heads above water by merging with stations in neighbouring franchise areas (hardly "local" radio !) although most of them are operating profitably today !

marclt

So it would seem Newstalk won't be able to use the 105 - 106 range with them now consigned to 106 - 107...

Anyone know the frequencies???

icdg

They are also giving up their ILR contract for Dublin, meaning that Dublin regional programming will have to go (apparently, the practical upshot of this is the end of City Edition). Wonder if the BCI will be retendering the contract? Apparently Newstalk gets to keep the 106FM frequency in Dublin too...