14th December 2005

Swedish Radio are reporting that Sweden's Minister for Culture Leif Pagrotsky has announced that he has turned down Swedish Radio's request for additional investment for DAB.

Swedish Radio, who are Sweden's public service radio broadcaster, wanted the money to roll-out DAB from the current 35% population coverage it already has and to market the system to consumers, but the Minister has said that DAB is too expensive, and that he recommends Swedish Radio should make more use of the Internet for distribution and podcasting, mobile phone networks (DVB-H?), the digital TV platforms and cheaper digital radio systems, instead. The latter probably refers to DRM+, because it is far cheaper to transmit than the ultra-inefficient DAB system. more

14th December 2005

Ofcom has published its quarterly update on the digital TV market. more

14th December 2005

Taking figures from Ofcom's current and previous Digital TV Update reports, it looks like the number of Freeview households could overtake the number of Sky subscribers next year. more

6th December 2005

Channel 4 Chief Exec Andy Duncan is apparently considering putting Film Four free-to-air on Freeview and removing the additional subscription charge on satellite and cable as well. This would change Film Four from having 400,000 subscriptions to being in about 16m homes with digital TV.  more

5th December 2005

Quoting from the ukradio.com article:

"Chairman of digital radio station - Primetime Radio - Roger De Haan has announced his intention to withdraw from digital radio broadcasting. This means that PrimeTime Radio will cease broadcasting on DAB digital radio with effect from May next year when its current multiplex licence expires. 
Despite strenuous efforts, Roger De Haan was unable to agree terms with the multiplex operator that would give the station a viable future." more

5th December 2005

The BBC has responded to Ofcom's recent public consultation on Band III spectrum allocation where Ofcom have proposed to allocate three channels to provide local multiplexes which don't already have one, and another channel for a national multiplex, along with the possibility that if a fifth Band III channel becomes available for UK use at the Regional Radio Conference next year that it be used to allow a second additional national multiplex. more

24th November 2005

Quoting from the MediaGuardian article:

"BBC2's controller, Roly Keating, yesterday revealed that it would be the first of the corporation's channels to be broadcast simultaneously over the internet next year as part of the BBC's efforts to reach viewers via the internet and mobile phones." more

20th November 2005

Ofcom has come to the conclusion that 14 UHF channels that are currently used for analogue TV will be freed-up once analogue TV is switched off on a region-by-region basis between 2008 and 2012. These channels represent a total of 112 MHz of spectrum. more

20th November 2005

GCap Media, the UK's largest commercial radio group, plans to switch off the signals for its two AM stations, Capital Gold and Classic Gold. This change could happen by spring 2007 in order to drive digital take-up. more

20th November 2005

A Director-General of Radio Satellite Viatis, which is a subsidiary of satellite digital radio company WorldSpace, has said that the European satellite digital radio (ESDR) system could be launched as early as late-2007. more

20th November 2005

Australia has set aside some Band I spectrum for DRM+ to use once it is ready. more

17th November 2005

Quoting from The Register website:

"The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications announced on Monday that it will start accepting applications for a licence. The service will be based on DVB-H (digital video broadcasting - handheld) transmission technology. more

17th November 2005

Dutch public service broadcasters are planning on streaming about 50 stations on the net. more

15th November 2005

Telewest, who are merging with NTL, has promised to offer HDTV before Sky or the BBC, and plans to begin a trial next month. more

15th November 2005

Representatives from Philips and Goodmans have complained that the BBC and ITV haven't provided them with any specifications for set-top boxes for the launch of the free-to-air Freesat service planned for next year. more

15th November 2005

AOL plans to offer old Time Warner TV via the Internet. There will be about 3,500 hours of programming from around 100 shows owned by AOL's Time Warner sister company, Warner Brothers, although AOL says it is in talks with other television networks and content owners to increase its range of shows. more

8th November 2005

The press release says:

"In the limited technical trials, it is planned to simulcast highlights of BBC ONE's peaktime schedule in high definition on satellite and cable, as available, from mid-2006." more

7th November 2005

Nokia are to launch their first mobile phone which includes a DVB-H receiver to allow users to view mobile TV in countries where it's available. more

2nd November 2005

All four ITV channels are now broadcasting free-to-air (i.e. unencrypted) on the Astra 2D satellite. more

27th October 2005

The Sky Gnome is now on sale for £69.99. The Sky Gnome is a portable radio for Sky subscribers which allows users to listen to the radio stations within a 30 metre range of their Sky box. more

27th October 2005

BT is planning on launching an Internet download service where users will have joint Internet / Freeview receivers. more

25th October 2005

BBC Radio London 94.9 has appeared on the Sky EPG. The station can be found on channel 902 where it replaces World Service Extra. more

19th October 2005

Ofcom have released the second phase of their Radio Review, and in Appendix B (page 11) they confirm that they are allowing the minimum bit rates of stereo stations to be reduced. more

17th October 2005

Quoting from Helen Coonan's speech, she says this about the current 1980s-vintage DAB system: "Let’s face it, adoption now of a standard that is already 10 years old and may well be superseded, for implementation in another 2 to 3 years, would, in my view, be irresponsible." more

17th October 2005

In the October issue of their Broadcasting Advertising Adjudications, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld 2 out of 3 complaints about the use of the following terms in an adverts for DAB radio:

• 'cyrstal clear sound'
• 'distortion free'

5th October 2005

Verizon Wireless is to launch a mobile TV service to the 30 largest U.S. markets (i.e. cities) in the first quarter of 2006 using a network owned by Crown Castle. Crown Castle have been testing DVB-H for a couple of years and have 5 MHz of L-band spectrum across the whole of the U.S. and previous reports have mentioned that Crown Castle expected a commercial launch of DVB-H in 2006. more

1st October 2005

Following the success of the XM and Sirius satellite digital radio systems in the US (by August the two systems had attracted 6.2 million subscribers, with 9 million predicted by the end of the year), there are four systems that want to launch a satellite digital radio system covering the whole of Europe. more

30th September 2005

The BBC is currently testing live internet streams of BBC1 and BBC2 using the H.264/AVC and Windows VC-1 video codecs.

The best thing in the future for radio listeners is that they are looking at using 128 kbps AAC for the radio stations. AAC is an excellent audio codec, and at 128 kbps it provides very nearly CD-quality. more

30th September 2005

The BBC interactive media player (iMP) trial is to launch over the next two weeks with 5,000 users out of the 30,000 that registered to be trialists. The trial has been delayed by a few weeks due to ironing out problems with the front-end software. more

27th September 2005

A website has been set up to petition the government against Tessa Jowell's decision to stop test matches being shown on terrestrial TV. more

27th September 2005

I've written an article explaining in laymen's terms the reasons behind DAB in the UK having such poor audio quality, and why the modern digital radio systems, such as DRM+, DVB-H and DMB are so much better than DAB. more

26th September 2005

16 channels will be carried on the UK's first DVB-H trial that went live in Oxford last week. more

26th September 2005

Yet another country that was originally a "DAB country" is now looking at alternative technologies. This time a Swiss broadcaster is teaming up with Broadcast Electronics and Ibiquity Digital (the developers of HD Radio) to test the terrestrial HD Radio from as early as next Spring (HD Radio is the system the US is using for terrestrial digital radio), and "HD Radio as a standard in Switzerland is being sought in addition to other standards such as Eureka 147 DAB and Digital Radio Mondiale." more

26th September 2005

In a breathtaking example of hypocrisy, Digital One are now trying to suggest that consumers don't want extra radio stations!  more

23rd September 2005

CSA, the French version of Ofcom, have released details of three DVB-H trials for nine months each and one DMB trial in Paris, with digital radio stations being carried on three of the four trials.  more

22nd September 2005

Sky today announced that they're to launch Sky Three next month, which will be broadcast on Freeview as well as on satellite. more

22nd September 2005

The BBC's radio stations can now access their own dedicated BBCi service on Freeview via pressing red. more

20th September 2005

This won't be news to anybody that has followed the DAB debacle in the UK, but a new report uncovers the squallid way in which media policy in the UK is dominated by a small number of insiders and that the wishes of the general public are completely ignored. more

16th September 2005

Not content with providing low audio quality on DAB, the BBC are now trying to delay the introduction of DRM+. DRM currently only operates at frequencies up to 30 MHz, and work is underway to extend the system to work at frequencies up to 120 MHz. The updated system will then be called DRM+. more

15th September 2005

As you might have seen on BBC News, Tessa Jowell is finally going to announce the dates for digital TV switchover, which will start in 2008 and conclude in 2012. more

14th September 2005

Despite DMB taking an early lead in global mobile TV sales due to a DMB network in Korea going live later this year, DVB-H is expected to overtake DMB as the leading global mobile TV standard by 2008, according to a report by Informa. more

13th September 2005

In what must be good news for those backing mobile TV, some market research carried out by Contentworx has found that among 25 - 34 year olds, almost a third of all TV viewing takes place on devices other than a traditiona TV set. more

13th September 2005

The digital radio saga / farce in Canada has finally been concluded, and the satellite licences will remain in place.

Originally, Canada licensed three subscription-based digital radio systems: 2 satellite-based and 1 terrestrial-based systems. The satellite systems, Canadian Satellite Radio and Sirius Canada, are partnerships with the US-based XM and Sirius satellite radio systems, respectively. more

7th September 2005

German Bundesliga is going to be trialed on DVB-H. more

7th September 2005

ITV have agreed to co-operate with the BBC in launching Freesat, and will broadcast all their channels unencrypted when the platform launches early next year. more

6th September 2005

Intel has invested in DVB-H mobile TV company, Dibcom. more

6th September 2005

DRM Plus (DRM+) could carry surround sound transmissions once it launches. more

6th September 2005

AsiaSpace, who are a subsidiary of the satellite radio company WorldSpace, are lobbying for Australia to use satellite rather than DAB for its digital radio system. AsiaSpace's chairman, Dick Bulter describes DAB as being "very old terrestrial-only technology" and that "by lobbying for the introduction of an old technology the radio industry is trying to raise the barriers to entry. We should be lowering them." Clearly a man after my own heart. more

6th September 2005

ARD, the German equivalent of the BBC, now transmit the following digital radio services: 54 stereo radio stations using 320 kbps MP2  3 surround sound radio stations using 320 kbps AC3; 5 mono stations using 128 kbps MP2. more

6th September 2005

Apparently there were only 30,000 HDTVs by 2004. more

5th September 2005

Chris Smith, who was the Minister at the DCMS when the UK DAB debacle was being planned, has written a report commissioned by the DRDB, those wonderful people that tell us that our FM radios are out-of-date because they don't do "digital quality sound".

As if Chris Smith hadn't already caused enough harm to DAB in the UK he has now written a staggeringly inaccurate report, with about as bad a set of recommendations as it is possible to think of. Joy. more

5th September 2005

German manufacturer, Technisat, are demonstrating a DTT portable radio at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. This coincides with 32 radio stations being added to DTT in Berlin. more

5th September 2005

Pictures are here and here. more

3rd September 2005

New prototype DRM car stereo and portable radios are being demonstrated at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. Morphy Richard, Roberts Radio and Sangean are demonstrating portable DRM/DAB/FM receivers, and Visteon are demonstrating a DRM/FM/CD car stereo. more

3rd September 2005

The international transmission company, WRN, are planning to start DRM test transmissions using the 26 MHz band in London from the Croydon transmitter. more

2nd September 2005

Although Finland announced earlier this year that they were going to switch off their DAB network, according to a leading Scandinavian newspaper, DAB has now been switched off in Finland. more

30th August 2005

On 7th April it was reported that Brazil was considering three digital radio systems; IBOC (HD Radio, used in the US), DRM and DAB, but now it has been reported that only IBOC and DRM will be tested in a trial starting in September according to the Media Network Blogspot: more

26th August 2005

News Corporation is preparing to sell its Dutch radio broadcasters, Sky Radio, for £200m. Rupert Murdoch believes that the popularity of MP3 players is drawing listeners away from radio, making the future of the medium uncertain. more

24th August 2005

Sky have announced that the following channels will be available on Sky HD when the platform is launched next year: Sky Sports; Sky Box Office; 2 Sky movie channels; Sky One; Artsworld. more

20th August 2005

The BBC's interactive media player (iMP) is starting a wider trial on 1st September.

Only a limited number of radio shows and TV programmes will be available in the trial at first, although more shows might be added closer to launch date, apparently. more

18th August 2005

At a DAB workshop in Taiwan in June this year, the Chairman of the WorldDAB Technical Comittee, Frank Herrmann, included the following slide in a presentation (3.2 MB -- the slide is on page 48):

"DAB Perspectives based on [Audio/Video/Data Streaming] Developments

• Pave way for new audio codecs (e.g. HE AAC v2)
• Convert DAB into an "All IP System" (incl. Audio)"

16th August 2005

German broadcaster, ARD, are launching their radio stations on digital satellite (Astra 1H at 19.2^o east) using a bit rate of 320 kbps for stereo stations! more

16th August 2005

The BBC are to hold a nine-month pilot for ultra-local TV news services in Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. If successful, it will consider extending the pilot to 60 areas. more

13th August 2005

Latest figures released by the American satellite digital radio systems show that XM now has 4.4m subscribers and Sirius has 1.8m subscribers -- pretty impressive seeing as subscribers have to pay $13 per month on top of buying new receivers, and way ahead of DAB in the UK with about 1.6m radios sold. more

10th August 2005

After receiving 115 complaints about BBC3's new Digital On-screen Graphics, or DOG, BBC3 published an article on their website which said about those complaining: "Just don't call them geeks who should get a life...". more

10th August 2005

The following image is a screen capture from the current BBC7 TV advertising campaign which shows a close-up of the Panasonic RF-D1 DAB radio. How on earth is this allowed on BBC TV which is not supposed to show commercial adverts? more

10th August 2005

Despite the much-heraled growth in sales of DAB radios, the BBC's digital radio stations have lost a sizeable number of listeners in the second-quarter of this year. more

10th August 2005

BBC R&D are backing research into a PVR that would record all channels on Freeview for a seven-day period, thus it wouldn't require users to programme the PVR to record certain shows, because they'll all be available. more

4th August 2005

Sky have announced that they're launching a new portable radio in October which will allow users to listen to the 80+ digital radio stations available on digital satellite. more

1st August 2005

Speaker manufacturers, Acoustic Energy, are launching an Wi-Fi internet portable radio in November at a price of £199. more

29th July 2005

France's four largest radio broadcasters have all said they don't want to use the DAB system, citing that it is outdated, inefficient and expensive. They say that DAB's main problem is its use of the MP2 audio codec which requires high bit rates to provide good audio quality, which results in each DAB multiplex only being able to carry very few radio stations at a good audio quality, which in turn results in high transmission costs because the capital expenditure for each multiplex can only be shared between few radio stations. They say, as I have said many times on here, that it is time to move on from DAB and instead use modern technology, including taking advantage of the higher efficiency that the HE AAC and AAC audio codecs allow. more

28th July 2005

Seven Japanese radio groups have agreed to set up a joint venture which will lead to a terrestrial digital radio system begin transmissions in 2006. more

26th July 2005

As a sign of things to come, the BBC are allowing fans of The Mighty Boosh, a BBC3 TV series, to watch episodes online a week before they're shown on BBC3. more

24th July 2005

Radio 3 is transmitting at the reduced bit rate of 160 kbps during the daytime when The Ashes test matches are being played due to Radio 5 Sports Extra providing coverage of the cricket. more

24th July 2005

Ofcom has published its Communications Market Report 2005, full of facts and figures from all the respective comms markets. more

24th July 2005

In a speech at the Radio Fesitval in Edinburgh, GCap Media's Chairman, Ralph Bernard, said that he intends to take Ofcom to court over their plans to allow 1 or 2 new national DAB multiplexes to be licensed. more

12th July 2005

The BBC has leased an extra satellite transponder giving it an additional 33 Mbps of capacity, taking their total capacity up to 231 Mbps. more

12th July 2005

Quoting from the BBC's Annual Report published today, on page 17:

"Last year we identified extending the availability of the BBC’s digital services as a priority for 2004/2005." more