DAB Thread

Charles Slane

I suspect that the independent stations may come to regret not getting involved in DAB or DAB+. As smart speakers, internet radios etc become more commonplace, people will realise that there's more choice and specific stations to cater for their taste, but those stations will be less likely to be Irish stations.

If they had got on board with DAB at the start, we could have had their spin-off stations like Classic Hits 80s, 98FM Dance, Sunshine Soul, FM104's Hit Mix, Nova Chill etc keeping people listening to Irish radio. Not to mention RTE Gold, 2XM, Zenith Radio, 8Radio and all the other Irish online stations that may end up getting lost among the thousands and thousands of other online stations.

I can foresee a time when more Irish independent stations merge and more content will come from a central Bauer or Wireless group feed. RTE radio may close its digital channels and end up with just RTE Radio 1.

Meanwhile in the UK, DAB and DAB+ take-up has been huge and it really feels like Ireland has missed the boat on this one. It may be too late now, unless there was an unexpected push for it very soon. But of course we know the politicians are absolutely clueless when it comes to 'new' technology.

TAFKAlawhec

First off, to the best of my understanding DAB(+) has not been banned in the Republic of Ireland. RTÉ shut their partial network down as an expenditure cutting measure, while there has never been any indication of a commercial interest into progressing the platform in the country other than some test transmissions over the years (both licenced and "otherwise").

And before I mention anything else, even if there was a national DAB network in the country there wouldn't be any domestic BBC station on it unless someone paid for them to be there, so let's nip that in the bud real quick.

There's been plenty of discussion concerning DAB(+) over the last couple of years on both here and the ICDG Cable/Digital forum sections. Many of the arguments advocating for the status quo IMO struggles to stand up to effective scrutiny - generally the only reason to keep any DAB network off the air in the ROI (RTÉ, commercial or both) is to maintain the current sound broadcasting status quo - something that has not evolved very much ever since the IRTC was originally set up.

I've made my comments in the past in other threads, I've no real eagerness to rehash them again here. IMO if people want to see DAB progress in the ROI they need to contact various radio broadcasting groups whom might be interested as well as contacting TDs whom would very likely need to legislate for proper provisions.

As it is, I live in Co. Tyrone in the north/NI where I can receive three DAB ensembles, BBC, Bauer NI & Digital 1 - all of whom together give a much broader range of radio stations to listen to (even without the Sound Digital ensemble that's available around Greater Belfast) that what's available on FM from both sides of the border. Definitely a worthwhile addition for people to be able to tune into.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546785#Comment_121546785

it's more an effective ban by proxy rather then specifically being outlawed.

there are a few threads here on the subject which should answer any questions for you as generally everything has been discussed in them.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547657#Comment_121547657

RTE is closing most of it's digital stations, only gold is staying, but for how long is anyone's guess.

This content has been removed.

StreetLight

RTE started their digital radio offering as they felt it would be good public service to cater for a range of tastes.

Those who listened to the service are now going to be denied such a service. So if RTE, through their financial incompetence, are now going to dump part of their public offering, then there is no more reason not to throw open the floodgates of DAB and let other operators have a go in a commercial environment.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548246#Comment_121548246

RTE stopped digital radio services a few years ago. The digital stations carried on as online stations, and available on the digital tv platforms. The most recent announcements from RTE were about scrapping those stations completely, with the exception of RTE Gold, which has had more attention paid to it. Just to clarify.

Antenna

"They have contacted all 160 TDs about this but unfortunately any TD who responded didn't even understand the difference between DAB and WiFi."

It has to be accepted, whether we like it or not, that DAB is virtually a non-issue with voters, in sharp contrast to other related issues in the past such as demand for access to UK TV in this country. In the 1970s there were huge public meetings and political pressure for cable TV (or "piped TV" as many called it) to be allowed in cities and towns outside Dublin (where it was after being allowed) to provide BBC and ITV in addition to RTE. Subsequently the long running "illegal deflectors" saga of course who were providing UK channels in other areas which was an ongoing political issue in areas of the country to the late 1990s.

If the electorate were threatening not to vote, or to vote, for candidates over their stance on DAB, 'nearly anything is possible' (and would overtake 'concerns' about DAB of existing stations), but that isn't the case.

timothydec77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328721/dab-banned-in-ireland

We have an effective cartel of Radio stations in Ireland on the FM band.

DAB is never coming back in Ireland no matter how much i may wish for it to do so.

Podcasts and internet radio is were choice is to be found.

TAFKAlawhec

While it's hard to deny that DAB is pretty much a non issue with most voters in 2023/24 (I'd be very surprised if it was, there's a good few things to be more concerned about IMO), this isn't really much of a factor on its own. Nowhere has DAB/+ been introduced and been successful because the populous at large clamoured for it before any transmissions were brought into official service, they have been successful because they were available and that listeners took to listening to the platform. In this sense it's a "chicken and egg" scenario. Indeed this has been the case for pretty much every consumer technology that has been developed and used ever since the electric telegraph came into being - there was no public clamour for the introduction of FM radio, or satellite TV, or GSM mobile phones etc in the same way - they all came first, was then marketed and eventually became successful (e.g. it took around 20 years after the first FM broadcasts from RTÉ for FM radio to start getting mass audiences away from the MW band).

The big problem as I have mentioned before several times is that in the Republic of Ireland, media law & policy by the governments of the day have nearly always been reactive rather than proactive. The aforementioned drive by communities to distribute the UK terrestrial television channels locally either by cable or UHF lies in a mindset that those living in 1 or 2 channel land, as it were at the time, were seen as cultural backwaters, along with a perception that if one part of the country should get the service then all should get it, which is one that seems reasonable on paper but in practice is tricky to fairly apply, 'cos geography & cost distribution will always be a b*tch. Similar applies for even the current state of radio in the country which was largely laid down as a response to the era of the 80's superpirates & has only been slightly modified over the past 35 years. In both cases this was looking to expand on the local RTÉ only choice that was otherwise the only legal ones available in the state.

The sad thing is that the likes of the engineers & technicians at 2RN (née RTENL) like working with the more advanced broadcast tech that more often than not doesn't get put into full practice, and their experience has been valuable to the EBU. In the end, some technical platforms become very successful (FM), relatively successful (DAB+ where deployed + time), partially successful (DAB v1 - UK and maybe no one else) and bombed (DVB-H). As an example, I'd rate Saorsat, very much an Irish solution to an Irish problem, ranking somewhere between partially successful and bombed - though at least that was a rare case of an Irish broadcaster being proactive by trying something that hadn't really been done elsewhere in Europe. 2RN took the lead, did the dirty work but ultimately proved to others in Europe that a domestic Ka Band service instead of using Ku Band frequencies wasn't generally worthwhile in the end.

timothydec77

The state could of allowed space for public service broadcasters from within Eu.

But they have no imagination.

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121550608#Comment_121550608

The same question needs to be asked like those whom say that the BBC domestic stations should be relayed in the Republic (either radio like DAB, or Saorview)...

Who pays?

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121551319#Comment_121551319

not just that, but the BBC who would be the ones people would want, aren't going to broadcast in ireland anyway.

they are slowly but surely locking down their services to uk only.

AM is almost gone, who knows how long sattelite transmissions will last, streams are locked to sounds only and how long will they remain open to non-uk listeners.

even if you get the direct URLS to the streams, from what i can gather each listener gets a uniqu key as part of the URL and that changes quite regularly so no point in saving them in the likes of VLC ETC.

Former Former Former

Can the OP enlighten us as to the details of the four companies who want to roll out DAB and the submissions they’ve made?

paging @5inag3

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548246#Comment_121548246

The exact opposite is true. RTE giving up on DAB makes it massively less viable for commercial operators.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547657#Comment_121547657

The problem with FM is that transmission is more costly than DAB+. Also FM doesn't offer any sort of growth. And lack of growth means lack of choice.

Personally I simply don't listen to FM anymore, most Irish stations don't interest me, exactly out of the reason that there is no real choice in music.

Due to absence of DAB / DAB+ in Ireland I only listen online, computer, smartphone. But in this case, I rarely listen to Irish stations as well, as I can tap into a very international choice, which again offers more.

Ireland's radio market missing out on DAB and DAB+ simply means Irish radio is going to miss out in general and is slowly retreating. This is a generational change as well.

And then there is the stubbornness of certain decision makers banging the "ship has sailed and now it's too late drum" all the time, whilst other countries like France are rolling out DAB+ nationwide, like the Metropolitan 1 and 2 mux.

Giving DAB+ no future sadly means giving radio no future.

vswr

Directional antenna... clear view of the Mourne's = BBC and D1 Mux's .... better than any Irish offering ever.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564623#Comment_121564623

Where are you based?

Kaisr Sose

Wow what a classy first post. How do you know all this if it's your 1st time posting.

What has you so annoyed to attack.a poster in your first post?

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121572492#Comment_121572492

tell us how you feel about DAB next!

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121573019#Comment_121573019

😁

I think that poster has been banished from the airwaves.

Hotblack Desiato

Radio slowly dying as a medium but markedly so among young adults. Not enough listeners / advertisers to sustainably fill the FM band even in Dublin.

Solution : invest millions in a brand new transmission network which nearly noboby has a radio for! (except maybe in their car) and expect private sector entities to front up millions more to join this network.

Genius!! 🙄

It's just not going to happen - nor should it.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121574684#Comment_121574684

actually, it's that there is not enough advertisers and listeners to sustainably fill the fm band in dublin under the highest cost base model of doing radio to ever be developed.

there is no proof as it can't be shown, that there are not enough listeners and advertisers to sustainably fill the band in dublin if the stations/operators were allowed to choose their own model and content provision.

DAB+ is an extra to the FM band, and the argument as you well know but deliberately misinterpret it, is that the legal frameworks and licensing regime should be in place to allow it's use, after that who does what with it is not your or my problem.

the failures of the FM model are generally irrelevant to DAB+ well at least in grown up countries, as that model is generally not able to be carried across, and as we know it has been shown that DAB+ operation is cheaper then fm.

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121574684#Comment_121574684

We've been through this before - if there is a problem sustaining the current amount of FM radio stations in Greater Dublin in general, then there is a major problem with how commercial radio programming is done in the country - other capital cities & otherwise major notable cities in other parts of Europe, including some in countries notably poorer than the Republic of Ireland, are able to give more listener choice in their respective cities through a higher amount of radio stations. This does not necessarily mean that DAB+ needs to be brought in** to achieve this, as any spare FM frequencies (even low powered ones) could be put to good use (see Helsinki and their FM radio choice in a country where there are no DAB networks being broadcast), but to achieve this the elephant in the room needs to be tackled - namely the burden of regulations placed on broadcasters in the state. With the UK now looking like their radio regulations are to undergo major deregulation shortly and most European countries not having near the same regulatory burden that Irish broadcasters have, there is no point in claiming that Dublin, or ROI in general, has reached a natural level of stations being broadcast until the playing fields are better equalised.

** Well, you could - like in some countries that have only patchy DAB networks at present, you could have a high power DAB+ ensemble TX on Three Rock, maybe Kippure plus up to a handful of low-power fillers in Bray, Saggart, Balbriggan etc. to serve Co. Dublin and much of its commuter belt and you'd have enough coverage from this alone to cover 1/4-1/3 of the population of the state. No ridiculous talking of "millions of Euros" or "hundreds of sites" being required - it's a matter of political will & commercial risk/gain.

Muph89

It's easy to dismiss millions of €€€ and many tx sites if one is only talking about bringing DAB to within the M50, but what about bringing DAB to Goleen, Rosmuc, Belmullet, Tory island and everywhere else that can get FM & Saorview ?

Muph89

If anyone could also name 5 of the indigenous Ulster radio stations that our nordie brothers and sisters have gained from DAB and please give as much detail of the 5 stations schedules as possible

Thanks

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121579895#Comment_121579895

transmission sites can cover a wide area depending on many factors both geographical and transmision variable wise.

Muph89

I keep seeing posts about the "high cost model" the Bai impose on existing radio stations but how could Q102 and Sunshine 106.8 with their two live shows a day possibly be considered high cost? The Bai have been alot more flexible in recently years. Unlike the UK were the industry lobbied for years to deregulate, the rural local stations here want to keep their high level of talk and sports output but are lobbing to get a slice of the TV licence fee

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121582028#Comment_121582028

and they can keep doing that content if they want/if it is viable for them, not sure you are going to find anyone saying they should be prohibited from doing it.

but they should not be expected/forced to do it, and they should not get any of the license fee as it's not license fee payer's job to fund commercial local stations content.

the only way that should happen is if those stations only provide PS content and nothing more which is not going to happen.

dxhound2005

DAB. Dead and Buried.