Ofcom spins the switch to AAC+ on DAB

10th November 2006

Someone from Ofcom is quoted as saying the following in a Guardian article about the switch to AAC+ on DAB in the UK:

"It wouldn't be right for us to consider changing at the moment - it could have a severe adverse effect on the interests of citizens and consumers, and more widely on the market for digital radio services in the UK. But we welcome developments and we are keeping the situation under review."

I'm afraid that that is simply Ofcom spin. The truth is that the UK DAB industry is terrified that if the public gets to know that all existing DAB radios will be obsolete in a few years' time then DAB sales would be drastically reduced and consumers would lose confidence in DAB. So, together with Ofcom, they will simply deny that the switch is even going to happen for about the next 12 months, in order not to "spook" consumers.

DAB receivers in the shops will begin to support the new DAB standard from next year, and the vast majority of DAB receivers should support the new standard by the end of next year. Once this is the case, the receivers in the shops will by future-proof, so there will be nothing to spook consumers, so Ofcom and the broadcasters won't need to spin this subject.

According to the DRDB's Five-Year Sales Forecast, there will be 13m DAB receivers sold by the end of 2008 and 20m by the end of 2009. There are only expected to be 4.6m by the end of this year, so if the receiver manufacturers get their acts together we should be looking at a situation where the large majority of receivers will support the new DAB standard in just 2 - 3 years' time.

In 2 - 3 years, once the large majority of receivers can support the new DAB standard, the commercial radio groups will want to launch new stations using AAC+ that wouldn't be possible using MP2, and Ofcom will allow them to do so, because Ofcom, in their own words: "promotes self-regulation wherever possible".

So, when you read any statement from Ofcom and the DAB broadcasters over the next 12 months, make sure your bullshit detector is turned up to the maximum level — and make sure you've got plenty of batteries for the detector, because we'll see lots of statements all denying anything is going to change, when in reality they know full well that we will see AAC+ stations much sooner than they'd like us to believe.