The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

TAFKAlawhec

This is off-topic, but in terms of DAB taking a good bit of time before building up a plurality of its listener base - it was the same for FM in both Ireland and the UK. It took at least 30 years from the official launch of the first BBC FM broadcasts for it to overtake MW/LW as the preferred choice of listeners in Britain, while it took about 25 in Ireland. Indeed had the IRTC not essentially mandated that all local stations it licenced in the early 90's broadcast on FM only**, it might have taken even longer. While the difference between the two platforms means that there are no direct steady comparisons (FM only had AM to go up against in its growing pains years, no satellite or IP distribution then to compete with compared to DABs own issues in trying to grow), if quite a lot of the arguments thrown against DAB being a waste of resources had applied at the same time period for FM - that had its own similar issues in its early years of expensive receivers with mediocre sensitivity, sub-par transmitter coverage etc. - then there would have been increasing demands for the FM networks to have closed by the late 70's at the latest as a cost saving measure, because after all it was clear that (at the time) the preferred platform of choice by radio listeners was MW & LW. Thankfully, both the BBC & RTÉ stuck with FM, coverage & technology to support it improved and the rest is history. Not saying that the same trajectory will definitely occur with DAB, but given a chance it can get there, especially with DAB listener hours in the UK now exceeding that of FM.

I said myself on here a few years back that DAB was itself somewhat of a solution looking for a problem that was in some ways clumsily developed as side-project to DVB. But with some tweaking of its original technical parameters and a different market & regulatory regime in many parts of Europe now compared to the 90's & early 2000's, it's now starting to find itself as a potential solution to providing additional choice to listeners in portable/mobile situations that's as easy (if not easier) to tune in as FM/AM radios are without the additional faff that radio streaming on-the-go still has - though that could change.

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120499251#Comment_120499251

Didn't somebody on this board go to the TX site during the period of "refurbishment" on a clear day and saw no work go on? I'd be reasonably certain that the "work" announcement was a way to give RTÉ an excuse to see how many were actually lost trying to listen to RTÉ Radio 1 with no LW reception, but because of previous backlashes it would, shall we say "not great", for RTÉ to essentially say that it was stress-testing the transmitter's regular audience?

It reminds me of a few years ago when the BBC temporarily ceased broadcasting Radio Merseyside on 1485 kHz for a few weeks to see how many complaints it & a few other BBC local radio MW TXs also being taken off-line would generate. They found out that most of the complaints concerning the Mersyside MW TX came from ex-Liverpudlians now residing on the north Wales coast where the MW TX reached but the FM transmissions didn't (and were outside the "editorial" area of the station). The MW TX was then brought back on line with programming but of course was permanently shut down a few years later, but that first temporary shut down was a bit more "direct" compared to RTÉ.

Yes interestingly a member of the RTE board did give that summer 21 downtime as one of the deciding factors, saying they got "very very few" inquiries that time. What very very few means is anybodys guess

I don't think it's a good thing that media outlets completely ignored the save 252 cause this time around, it basically shows the group think that exists across all the traditional media now.

RetroEncabulator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120497645#Comment_120497645

Considering Ireland is 13.37 times smaller than the UK, RTE didn't do too badly even getting 6 stations on air.

The killer here is that commercial radio saw DAB as a potentially disruptive technology rather than an opportunity and frankly, the market is just too small. There's just absolutely no way that you could support 60 national radio stations here. There simply is not the scale of ad revenue.

You'd be looking at DAB with maybe 10-14 stations max, which isn't all that much more than FM can sustain anyway.

I actually thought in some ways the US approach of enhancing FM by adding IBOC (HD Radio) basically allowing existing FM stations to expand their services by using adjacent frequencies to carry digital services would probably have made a whole lot of sense in the Irish market, as the FM stations typically own their own infrastructure. You could easily imagine ILRs with a couple of extra channels squeezed in for extra options, sports coverage, specialist music and so on.

DAB definitely suits bigger markets with more centralisation more than it suits somewhere with a relatively small 4 channel PSB that's already stretched to the max even doing that, two national commercial stations, a few regionals and and everything else pretty much being driven very locally.

HD Radio obviously wouldn't be a flier here as we're not in North America and the protocol supported is DAB. It would be like rolling out ATSC instead of DVB-T but, you can see how our market is structured quite differently to some of the continental ones.

As far as I'm aware DAB was also a total flop in Canada. There was a big lack of equipment though because the services there were only carried on the L band (1452–1492 MHz) which is more like MMDS or mobile phone frequencies than broadcast radio.

It's crazy the way some dab fans keep compairng Rep of Ireland to Britian, a much better example would be northan Ireland, and there's almost feck all indigenous content on Dab in Northern Ireland, it's all imported content from GB. Even the small scale mini muxes up there were looking extremely thread bare the last time I checked.

RetroEncabulator

It isn't a reasonable comparison. You can see the same with SaorView. There were big plans to have that carry a subscription TV MUX, but there was never adequate commercial interest and, a bit like DAB, that boat has long since sailed.

Effectively it just became a direct replacement for analogue PAL television, just adding a few extra digital channels, most of which aren't exactly anything to write home about.

Unlike DVB-T compared to analogue PAL, there really isn't a hell of a lot of difference between DAB and FM with RDS if there are less than about 15 radio stations involved. It has text display, auto-tuning in cars and really there isn't a huge difference from the point of view of a listener who doesn't care what the tech behind it is and FM sounds absolutely fine.

DVB-T is a huge improvement over analogue PAL - better picture, widescreen, EPG and interactive services. All of those things are a big deal and there's really no equivalent on DAB. It's just a system that can carry more channels, but if they don't exist to carry then you start to see a lack of interest.

There was a point where DVB-T could have been developed into a multichannel subscription service to replace MMDS, but that boat's sailed and we're in a world of ISP driven IPTV products from the likes of Eir, Vodafone, Sky and soon Virgin over Siro too and multiple over-the-top products like Now, Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Prime etc etc.

Unless you were going to switch off FM and replace it wholesale with DAB just for the sake of DAB being digital and no other reason, there isn't really a market for the protocol here.

There's a solid national FM stereo network with extremely good coverage in most areas, and it has a long established audience and the ILRs and regionals likewise have their own markets well covered. Replacing that with DAB just for the sake of "it's digital" would be bonkers if it didn't add anything to the experience.

I also can't really see there being much of a demand for gobbling up FM on VHF for mobile data services. We're not short of spectrum and UHF is more suitable anyway.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120499795#Comment_120499795

I miss Hold Your Plums on 1485. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, things more usually go wrong because of cockups. The day that our friend made their visit, it could have been vacant for various reasons. I also have to take at face value their assertion that it required a full shut down, not a BBC type partial shutdown. Blame the old Health and Safety.

The work had to be postponed because of Covid, so that might have made it even more "essential" when they did get round to it. It certainly wasn't a multi million Euro investment in Longwave, as reported on Boards. All along RTE had no idea when their political masters would finally accede to the closure of 252. And if it was essential maintenance, then it was essential.

https://about.rte.ie/2021/06/11/essential-maintenance-of-rte-longwave-transmitter/

This essential maintenance of the transmitter was due to be carried out in 2020 but was postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions. For the health and safety of those carrying out the works, the transmitter must be switched off for the works period, until Saturday 14th August (estimated). Furthermore, the works must be completed during the summer months when there is better light and weather conditions. 

Tullamores 567 was also off for a crazy long time in 2004, something like 21 weeks. I presume had Teamtalk 252 stayed on air, 2fm's MW transmitters would have carried Radio 1 during that outage ? I was also highly surprised that there was a massive campaign to save 567MW in 2008 claiming the elderly wouldn't be able to find LW etc as nobody suggested that the long outage in 04 was unacceptable and to use 2fms recently closed MW TXes to carry R1 on MW while Tullamore was down

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120499757#Comment_120499757

"It took at least 30 years from the official launch of the first BBC FM broadcasts for it to overtake MW/LW as the preferred choice of listeners in Britain, while it took about 25 in Ireland."

Where we were living in Mayo we didn't get decent FM reception until the Castlebar Tx was installed. Don't remember when exactly it came on air. Up to that it was pretty poor reception from Truskmore switched to mono that sufficed, or MW reception from Athlone & Tullamore.

Gerry Wicklow

Just a thought. Perhaps it's time to rename this thread The Future of Radio in Ireland.

As for DAB, I can remember a good few years back, a newly immigrated UK citizen telling me he was buying a (then) very expensive DAB portable radio. I can't print his reply when I explained there was no DAB service where he was living.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120500055#Comment_120500055

I think the local NI stations on DAB are: BBC Ulster, BBC Foyle, Downtown, Downtown Country, U105, Q Radio & Cool FM. Other than that it's the national stations. As others have said there's little or no difference in what DAB & FM provide on a car radio. RDS, AF, and radio text are available on FM. Can get patchy DAB reception here in Dundalk (from Camlough) and comparing with FM, apart from having more stations, there really isn't anything else that would make one want to adopt DAB.

rathfarnhamlad

Polski Radio 1 is taking its LW 225 transmitter offline today & tomorrow for planned maintenance, or so they are saying.

Given the timing I wonder if this is simply a test to gauge how many (or fewer) people are still listening...

TAFKAlawhec

Trying to make parallels between terrestrial radio broadcasting between the UK t& the Republic of Ireland is difficult due to many different factors inc. population, different broadcasting regs, use of different listening platforms etc. and the same somewhat goes for comparing NI to RoI as well, in that in this sense FM radio in NI has its own peculiarities different from that in GB (NI listeners tend to prefer listening to NI based stations rather than those from GB, with the exception of the BBC Nationals) and that its radio market acts as a sub region of the UK. Not to mention that Northern Ireland is hardly an economic powerhouse on its own compared to most of the Republic, let alone Dublin.

What is probably a better comparison is to look at some other countries in Europe that are comparable to the Republic of Ireland in terms of population size, and where the urban area populations of their largest cities are comparable to Dublin in similar respects. Three stand out - Norway (Oslo), Denmark (Copenhagen) & Switzerland (Zurich)

* All three countries have extensively developed DAB+ networks, Norway to the point that it switched off its national PSB & commercial FM radio stations several years ago, leaving just local stations on the band (some are now simulcasting on local DAB ensembles).

* Denmark is relatively low lying (has the lowest high-peak of any country in Europe IIRC) and is around 2/3rds the land area size of the Irish Republic with nearly 6 million people, Switzerland's land area is similar to Denmark's, but is otherwise very mountainous across most of its territory with 8.7 million people, while Norway has slightly more people than RoI (5.4 million to 5.1 million) but has more than five times the land area.

Looking at radiomap.eu and the DAB Ensembles Worldwide websites as sources for terrestrial radio networks in each country, it gives the following details of what's available in Copenhagen, Oslo, Zurich & Dublin. Getting the right numbers for FM stations available in each city is tricky to verify, DAB+ is a little better as there's less ambiguity - but I'll try my best, so it's perhaps best to treat each figure as a minimum (unless stated).

* Copenhagen - 25 FM stations (some frequencies are time shared between stations, so there are more than 25 "stations" - they're just not all available at any one time), DAB - 3 ensembles (1 PSB (DR), 1 national commercial & one regional commercial), 39 stations (though take out the DR 4 & 5 regional variations and you're left with 31 stations). There are however several FM stations that have not yet simulcast on DAB in the city.

* Oslo - 6 FM stations (obviously a small number since no national stations are on FM. DAB - 5 ensembles (1 PSB (NRK),2 national commercial & 2 local commercial), 70 stations (taking out the regional variations of NRK P1, NRK P1+, BEAT & METRO stations, you're left with 59 stations - the radiomap.eu site doesn't seem to have been updated to include the second national commercial ensemble).

* Zurich - 13 FM stations (includes 5 PSB stations - Switzerland has a noted history of having one of the most restricted commercial FM station licencing regimes in Europe). DAB - 4 ensembles (1 PSB, 1 German-speaking Switzerland commercial, 1 North Switzerland commercial, 1 Zurich commercial (though some PSB stations are on commercial ensembles) 72 stations (taking out regional variations of Radio SRF 1 & Energy, you're left with 64 stations).

* Dublin - 20 FM stations (includes local stations like NEAR & Liffey Sound FM, but not any commercial station based outside Co. Dublin (or meant to serve it), nor St. Ita's Hospital Radio).

Looking at what's available in the three cities compared to Dublin, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the main limiting factor to more radio stations being available in Dublin is a combination of a strong licencing regulatory regime for commercial stations that acts quite paternally, and then after that - spectrum availability on the FM band. As I mentioned a few lines back, Switzerland was once regarded as having an even more strong-arm commercial licencing regime than the BCI, but the introduction of DAB has let a lot of the former rules get jettisoned in favour of a more open licening regime for DAB+

And just for another comparison, Helsinki is another city with an urban population level similar to that of Dublin, and there is no DAB+ currently in Finland. It has 32 stations on its FM band. In fairness, the broadcast authorities probably think that's plenty and see no reason to need DAB to extend that available choice especially when you compare it to Copenhagen - and anyway that's one of the few countries still using VHF Band III for DTT (3 muxes in this band IIRC), so spectrum might be tight if anything was planned.

Given Dublin's importance today as a city that is well integrated into the international economy, nearly on a par with Zurich and arguably above Copehagan, Oslo & Helsinki, IMO it could definitely support more terrestrial radio stations either on FM or DAB on a market bearing basis - however the regulatory bar for commercial (non-community) radio in Ireland is set quite high in terms of costs & expected content. The question I put is that is this burden worth it for the current status quo, or should there be a move towards at least some element of deregulation in the radio sector in (the Republic of) Ireland?

Mickey Mike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120502110#Comment_120502110

You could write books on the whole subject.

letovo3275

ever notice that DAB radios are all kind of 'awful'. they mostly are going for an old timey radio retro look, or they are cheap and nasty. they always have really terrible LCD screens and the buttons and dials to control them feel rubbish, and they can be buggy and slow to turn on.

versus smart phones and smart speakers. which aren't like that.

even in cars, the menus for dab radios can be really bad. i rented a car once and it sorted the stations by mux not by name, which was really confusing. made it unnecessarily difficult to find stations.

now that I think about it, it is as if the manufactures abandoned any serious design effort in them in the early 00s.

L1011

They're basically the same few radios inside so there's limited scope to have better controls or screens

RetroEncabulator

Car manufactures all produce AWFUL UIs for their entertainment systems. That's why it's all outsourced to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto now, which is also probably another nail in the coffin for FM and DAB in some ways too.

Does anyone remember years ago there was a "listen line" service you could ring up and listen to RTE Radio 1 over the phone? That service was discontinued very early into the internet age. Some talk/Christian radio stations in America still have such a service

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120503872#Comment_120503872

Yep, I think it was a Belgian number.

Short letter in today's Irish times

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504045#Comment_120504045

The OP of this thread, in fact. 😉

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504211#Comment_120504211

No 😅

Although he, Richard, is/was around here and other forums.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504045#Comment_120504045

That letter is a lesson in how to ensure nobody will vote to extend franchise to emigrants

Serious question, where exactly did the notion come from that there are a load of elderly down on their luck expats in England who get great comfort from listening to RTE ?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120505317#Comment_120505317

The desperation of Irish-resident anoraks in 2014 trying to think of a reason, any reason, to justify keeping 252.

Also, that was the era of The Gathering, the first ever Diaspora (junior) Minister and so on - very easy to push the idea of looking after emigrants.

RetroEncabulator

I definitely thing our idea of “old people” got stuck in notions from people who were much older, their parents era: They’re nothing like the generation from Dad’s Army, Last of the Summer Wines and Grandpa Simpson.

Many of “the elderly” (and I use that term loosely for fear of slaps) nowadays are were in still their 20s in the early 1970s. Some of them are nostalgic about punk rock.

If you are 70 now you were born in 1953. You were 20 in 1973 and in your 30s in the 1980s.

They grew up with the computer age, albeit an earlier era of it and know and expect to use technology. Most of probably don’t even remember what a valve radio was, let alone huddled around one listening to Raidió Éireann and the BBC Home Service.

We really need to readjust our idea of what older is and start catering to the aging punks with arthritis, rather than some idea they’re like Nora Batty.

I wonder is there any possibility that RTE would bring back LW 252 for a very occasional use like to relay the all Ireland hurling & Football finals this summer ? AFAIK they still rent shortwave airtime in the USA and Africa every year to carry the all Ireland finals so it wouldn't be too shocking if they did that i guess

RetroEncabulator

Well, you'd have to maintain it and test it from time to time and so on. Can't see that being something they'd want to do. It's an overhead, and not an insignificant one.

letovo3275

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120510330#Comment_120510330

Mrs Browns boys, comedy genius. "I've a longwave radio hahahahahahaaaa!! <canned laughter>"