DIGITAL RADIO

While DAB+ digital radio goes from strength to strength in Europe, the coverage in Australian remains stuck in the cities. It seems inevitable. But we love it anyway.

DAB+ is expanding in Europe, but Australia seems stuck between geography and a profit motive.

We love radio. Australia loves radio. And when digital radio launched here back in 2009, there was a veritable flood of digital radios released to enjoy the new digital signal. Today digital radio reaches 65% of Australians, but our geography has worked against a full national roll-out. The capital cities were first to receive the service, although even Canberra, Darwin and later Hobart were granted only ‘trial’ services. Regional, rural and outback Australia were put aside for the future. And that urban exclusivity made the important market of in-car digital radio of dubious utility to consumers — drive out of range of Australia’s 25 city-based DAB+ transmitters, and the music dies.

The DAB+ dead zone

Of course, the plan was always to extend this coverage — but it hasn’t happened yet. In 2015 all of the radio industry (commercial broadcasters, community broadcasters, ABC and SBS) requested that the Federal Government establish a Digital Radio Industry Planning Committee to work on policy and a timetable for phased roll-out of services outside of the five capital cities, “possibly starting in 2017”. Rather past that casual deadline, progress has included the Canberra and Darwin services being declared permanent in December 2017, Hobart in March 2018. The regions and the bush — where radio is unarguably a vital community service — remain an enormous DAB+ dead zone.

It’s commercial profit that currently drives or impedes any extension of digital radio coverage. New broadcast areas will only be considered if “licensees make the commercial decision to offer the service” — if there’s no money in it, it won’t happen. So sizeable cities in regional Australia may one day get their own ‘local’ digital radio transmitters — priority markets identified for roll-out “within the next five years” are Newcastle, Dubbo, Albury, Lithgow, Sale, Bathurst, Cooma, Goulburn, Warragul, the Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Bundaberg, Mandurah and Murwillumbah. But it seems unlikely that digital radio will ever achieve a national service.

ACMA does have a ‘Digital radio regulatory roadmap’, and a Technical Sub-Committee (TSC) which spent 12 months preparing recommendations for wider implementation. When it recommended licence area aggregation, to simplify applications and reduce the issues of interference across licence borders, the commercial radio sector, represented by Commercial Radio Australia, chair of the TSC, knocked it back, “not disposed” to the idea.

Meanwhile in Europe…

The friendlier geography of Europe is seeing digital radio enjoying a wider effect there. In December 2017, Norway became the first country to switch off analogue radio and go fully digital. Switzerland may be next (the date will be announced in August); the UK has been talking about it for the best part of a decade but remains cautious. Germany and the Netherlands are fully onboard with DAB+, while Italy and France are legislating that from 2020 all radios sold must have DAB+.

We gain here from the knock-on effects, in-car products especially, as line-fit audio systems are now getting DAB+ by default — 60% of new vehicles sold last year in Australia had digital radio, a figure likely to rise now that an EU-wide directive has made DAB+ compulsory in all new car radios sold in the European Union (FM and AM now appear to be optional).

Ironically this might exacerbate the problem for regional Australia, as often AM is jettisoned to make way for DAB+. In our hi-fi equipment reviews, just as we’ll note “no DAB+” as a negative if it’s missing from a receiver, we often mention “no AM” too — this may not matter much to urban Australia, but it surely does to those where AM remains a vital source of community information. Meanwhile Australia’s rich tradition of community radio has barely a look-in on digital spectrum even in the cities, despite two-ninths of digital multiplexes being theoretically available to community stations. With their small size and often volunteer staff, the regulatory and licensing issues involved in getting there, not to mention the technology investment, is prohibitive for all but the biggest of them.

Success in the city

All of which is a pity, because in urban Australia, digital radio has proven itself. The wealth of stations, the ability to have pop-up stations for special events, the access to higher quality versions of AM stations, specialist jazz and chill and minority channels, the browsing of stations by name rather than frequency, it’s all good. Latest figures show 34% of Australians listening regularly, or 4.21 million listeners each week, although some sources show this as also including those listening to digital-only stations via the internet, which is then not a true indication of DAB+ numbers. There are an estimated 4.49 million DAB+-enabled devices in the market, including vehicles, according to Digital Radio Plus’s October 2018 figures.

We should add our usual note that DAB+, while digital, isn’t necessarily superior to FM. The whole system is designed to smooth over low bit-rate transmissions, and the way DAB+ treats high frequencies is particularly questionable. Hence classical fans used to listening to an FM tuner using a roof antenna and a good hi-fi will probably do well to stick with FM.

But for the bulk of casual radio listening, the convenience, the extras, the station choice, the niche formats, and the solid reception so long as the signal remains strong enough — we are DAB+ fans.