DAB+ likely to launch in the UK in the next 3 years

DAB+ will arguably launch in the UK next year, because a podcast service using the DAB+ format will be launching on the forthcoming 4 Digital national commercial DAB multiplex next year, and DAB+ podcasts will be launched on one or more of the new local DAB multiplexes as well. But in terms of normal radio stations, I would estimate that DAB+ stations will launch within the next three years.

The launch of new DAB+ stations doesn't mean that existing DAB stations will disappear, or at least not immediately. But if you want to be able to receive DAB+ stations when they launch then you will need to buy a model that is DAB+-upgradeable. There's a few DAB+-upgradeable models in the shops at the moment, mainly consisting of models produced by the market leaders Pure Digital -- such as the Siesta, Chronos II and Highway car adaptor. There's also a range of combined Wi-Fi Internet/DAB/DAB+-upgradeable/FM receivers that "will be available in shops by the end of this year". I can very highly recommend Wi-Fi Internet radios, because there's a huge choice of Internet radio stations (there's over 8,500 stations available -- including all of the stations that are on DAB), and because the audio quality is usually much higher than on DAB. Wi-Fi Internet radios also allow you to stream audio wirelessly from your computer, and the firmware of Wi-Fi Internet radios can be upgraded over the Internet at the press of a button. So if you want a receiver that's future-proof, I would definitely consider buying a combined Wi-Fi/DAB/DAB+/FM receiver.

We should start to see a large number of DAB+-upgradeable models being launched next year, both because countries such as Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Malta are all planning to launch DAB+ services in the next 12 - 18 months and the receiver manufacturers want to cash in on DAB+ sales in those countries, and also because of the demand in the UK -- Channel 4 is particularly interested in using DAB+ on the new national DAB multiplex, and the 4 Digital Group (controlled by Channel 4) wrote the following in April this year in their application for the new national multiplex:

That was written 8 months ago, so the 24 months figure quoted is now 16 months away, which tallies with Pure Digital's plans for DAB+:

The following table shows forecast DAB/DAB+ receiver sales figures for the next few years¹:

1 - the cumulative sales estimate figures have been extrapolated from the DRDB's percentage household penetration forecast -- see the discussion at the bottom of this page for more details on how they were calculated.

Therefore, assuming that the vast majority of models are DAB+-upgradeable or natively support DAB+ from late 2008 / early 2009 onwards, as the above quotes suggest, then over 6 million DAB+ receivers should have been sold by 2010, and around 9 million should have been sold by 2011. Bearing in mind that 6 million is more than the total number of DAB receivers that have been sold so far in the UK, I think DAB+ stations will inevitably launch once that many receivers have been sold, and they might launch sooner than that. Ofcom is a "light-touch" regulator, which in its own words: "promotes self-regulation wherever possible", and the reason the audio quality on DAB is as bad as it is is because Ofcom allows the broadcasters to self-regulate, so Ofcom won't stop the broadcasters launching DAB+ stations in 2010.

Some of the reasons why DAB+ stations will launch once a few million DAB+ receivers have been sold are as follows:

DAB+ allows a far wider range of stations to be carried

The most frequently cited benefit of DAB is that it provides more choice, but in reality there are winners and losers in this regard. For example, people who like classic rock are "superserved" as there seems to be a different classic rock station for every day of the week. In contrast, there are numerous other music genres that aren't served at all, and I reckon that a highish percentage of people wouldn't actually find any of the digital-only stations on DAB to their liking (figures seem to bear this out in practice), which is hardly an ideal situation when they have to try and convince every single radio listener to switch to digital radio if they're ever going to switch FM off.

Stations such as Chill and theJazz are a step in the right direction, but there's still a lot of genres that aren't covered, and the new national commercial DAB multiplex doesn't even have any stations that are aimed at a specific music genre.

DAB+ allows far more stations to be carried (DAB+ can carry three to four times as many stations as DAB can), so DAB+ will be able to solve this problem.

DAB+ will provide higher audio quality

It goes without saying that the dire audio quality on DAB desperately needs to be improved, and DAB+ makes it easy to provide far higher audio quality.

The sooner DAB+ is launched the sooner FM can be switched off, and vice versa

Despite the massive amount of TV and radio advertising DAB has received, DAB sales have been very poor up to now, and it is now looking likely that FM will still be transmitting until around 2020 and possibly longer. However, as DAB+ will allow the broadcasters to provide far higher audio quality and far more stations, this will make "DAB" a far more attractive proposition to consumers, so the launch of DAB+ will increase take-up and bring forward the date at which FM can be switched off.

DAB sales are effectively virtually zero -- DAB+ is on the critical path

All of the non-upgradeable DAB radios -- i.e. the vast majority that have been sold so far and the vast majority being sold this Christmas -- will be obsolete many years before FM could be switched off, because the old DAB format stations will have switched to using DAB+. So DAB sales are effectively virtually zero at the present time if you only count those that would still function when FM could be switched off (the only sales that would count are the few DAB+-upgradeable models that have launched recently). In other words, and using project management jargon: DAB+ is on the critical path, i.e. any delay in launching DAB+ translates into an equivalent delay in FM being switched off.

Analogue stations unable to get on DAB

Ofcom estimates that there will be around 90 analogue radio stations -- out of a total of about 327 analogue stations in the UK -- that won't be able to transmit on DAB even after the forthcoming local DAB multiplexes have been launched over the next year or two. DAB+ is the best option for these stations to start transmitting on "DAB".

Limited DAB multiplex capacity

The trend over the last few years has been that as the number of DAB receivers sold has increased the number of stations has gone up too. Also, as mentioned above, DAB needs to carry a lot more stations anyway. However, the national and regional DAB multiplexes as well as the local DAB multiplexes covering the conurbations are all either already full or very nearly full, so whereas it would be either difficult or impossible to launch new stations on these multiplexes using the old DAB format, it would be easy to fit DAB+ stations on due to the small amount of capacity they require -- DAB+ stations consume about a third of the capacity required for a DAB station.