Has radio blown the future?

Publicity material in the UK highlights five reasons: "No Hiss and Crackle, Spoilt for Choice, Tuning Without Numbers, Stay Tuned and Read All About It."

That means better quality sound; new digital-only stations; the ability to identify stations on the radio dial by name instead of frequency; single frequency networks for national stations so you can stay listening to the same station on a long drive without having to locate different frequencies in different areas; and extra textual information, like song titles and artists, displayed on a screen.

This has been enough to sell 6.5 million digital radio receivers, roughly one for every ten people in the UK. Half a million were sold last December alone. Those who listen to digital radio are big radio consumers, listening on average to five hours more radio each week than analogue listeners. About 9-10 per cent of all radio listening is now digital radio, although less than half of that is digital-only stations.

The optimists say the medium is now developing well after a slow start. A second national commercial operator has been licensed to deliver a further ten national stations, and unsurprisingly is much more upbeat. Led by television broadcaster Channel 4, it will launch in the northern summer and promises “to put radio back where it belongs - at the heart of a multi-media, multi-platform UK”.

It is harder to find such optimism in Canada. The local terrestrial broadcasters’ digital radio services have had to compete with the US subscription satellite services offering many more channels and able to be received along the highways connecting the cities as well as in the cities themselves.

Canada chose the same European transmission standard as the UK, but is using higher L-band frequencies than the VHF-band frequencies being used in the UK. The signals don’t travel as far and different receivers are required.

Then, several years after Canada’s services started, the United States’ decided to adopt a completely different, incompatible transmission standard for its terrestrial services. Canada has now decided to authorise services using the American standard as well, although broadcasters like the CBC who have already invested heavily in the European technology are worried about interference.

Australia has gone to school on these overseas experiences. Introducing legislation to implement the scheme last year, the minister said digital radio “may never be a complete replacement” for analogue. The European transmission standard was adopted and VHF frequencies will be used - the sliver between TV channels 9 and 10 known as 9A. The version of the standard chosen will be an upgraded one, DAB+, which allows two to three times the number of stations to be transmitted and more sophisticated multimedia content.

All the existing commercial stations are being given capacity of 128 kbits/sec to introduce a digital service (one ninth of the capacity of a “multiplex” transmitter). Some might get more, depending on the numbers of stations in different cities. The ABC and SBS will share a total capacity of about 1.15 Mbits/sec - a full multiplex - in each city. City-wide community stations will share 512 kbits/sec in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and half that in Perth, Adelaide and Hobart.

Broadcasters will not have to simulcast their existing service. On the contrary, the previous government emphasised the need for new services and enhancements to encourage the sale of digital receivers. The commercial sector says individual stations will decide how they will use the new technology, stressing the potential to offer “everything from ‘rewind radio’ to real time traffic images and downloadable songs”.

The idea is that the most listened-to parts of the existing radio industry will all use digital transmission to offer a range of compelling new audio content in the new year.

Some of Canada’s problems, however, will be Australia’s as well. Launching the services only in the state capitals means drivers will have to switch back to AM or FM as soon as they leave the city limits, say, on a drive to the Gold Coast from Brisbane or to Canberra, Newcastle or Wollongong from Sydney. There’s to be an inquiry about digital radio in non-metropolitan areas by 2011, and there’s a strong hint that a different technology might be required there. That complicates the decisions for manufacturers of radio receivers and cars.