Anyone who’s just spent 100 pounds or more on a smart new digital radio, may be feeling a little underwhelmed now.
With digital stations closing and media firms questioning its future, some critics think you may have picked up the 21st century equivalent of a Betamax video recorder.
For those too young to remember, that was the Sony video format that lost out to VHS in the 1970s and 1980s, despite a huge marketing drive.
Richard Wheatley, chief executive of The Local Radio Company, compared DAB digital radio to Betamax.
Analysts say digital radio should have achieved “must have” status last year.
Web chatrooms are awash with gloomy discussions under headlines such as “Is DAB dead?”
Some complain that the sound quality isn’t as good as advertised. Others say reception is patchy in parts of the country and that digital radio sets are often expensive and poorly designed.
A report by research firm Enders Analysis said the radio industry is stuck “in the middle of a snowstorm around the future of the whole platform”.
The uncertainty has grown after the closure of Oneword and Core and the announcement by GCap Media on Monday that it will shut the Jazz and Planet Rock stations.
Chief Executive Fru Hazlitt said digital radio was too expensive and had not been embraced by consumers in the way it had anticipated.
“We would like to get out of (digital radio) but we can’t,” she said.
Digital’s cheerleaders have played down the negative reports.
Digital radio sales are healthy, more people than ever are listening and new stations will open, they say.
Supporters say digital sounds better and is easier to use than FM or medium wave.
In a joint statement , BBC Radio and 4 Digital Group said they were committed to digital radio: “It is clear to us that DAB has an exciting future.”
But that future may not be clear for years.
Sony only pulled the plug on Betamax in 2002 — years after some studios stopped releasing films on the format.
Are you a digital fan or are you sticking with FM or even Internet radio?
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14 comments so far
I embraced DAB when it came out and liked the clarity, variety and lack of hiss.
- Posted by CliveHaving moved house DAB is now virtually unobtainable so I have reverted to FM.
Until better coverage , to a degree DAB is like Freeview, then the service is working with a millstone around its neck and the detractors have a field day in knocking it. If coverage remains as it is then it is a dead duck.
The general quality of DAB has been so much reduced by seeking quantity of stations over quality (ie chopping up the available bandwidth to gove as many stations as possible, all at a poor quality) that DAB in the UK is miles behind fm as a quality listening medium, particulaqrly for BBC Radio3. On other stations the difference is perhaps less obvious as fm itself is compromised by over-compressed broadcast quality. Nevertheless - LONG LIVE FM!!
- Posted by jeffI find technical quality is no better than FM and at an exrta cost.
More choice is more confusing ! (and is there really a choice?) Who wants all those extra stations broadcasting the same so-called music and inane chatter ?
- Posted by nosmo29This is much the same as freeview DVB. The quality of shows such as sports with big areas of moving imagery (eg, football pitches, racing tracks etc) are worse than that of the analogue format: you can see the way it tries to compress the video footage to send it over the air. However, you can also see this on Sky while watching, eg, football, so I don’t think too much of the current digital TV offerings.
- Posted by PaulI have just bought a £250 DAB tuner ,superb sound ,”the Jazz”is a revelation.I am devestated by recent news concerning DAB.
- Posted by Alan TrussellGovernment must now clarify the position, and future of DAB.
Compensation should be given!!
So here we go again! New Technology without good reason, I reckon. The new sets eat up batteries and or rechargeable’s (last even shorter)! Looking to the acoustic’s of it anyway “normal” hearing people wouldn’t hear the difference. I get the feeling “The Kings clothes - aren’t they nice………..” In other words when you’ve bought one, it MUST be good
- Posted by Art€i heard DAB radio early in its existence and quickly bought into the technology with a tuner for my HIFI. i thought the improvement in sound quality was similar to when i bought a CD player after using cassette tapes. i am lucky enough to have excellent reception at home. i followed this up with a bedside DAB radio and was delighted. i haven’t really expanded my regular listening station far out of those i used to listen to on FM, but i do now listen to the radio more often. Only when i bought an DAB/MP3 player did i find out that DAB does not move around well. Shame really, i think it is great!!!
- Posted by Paul HolmanThe technology for it is still in it’s infancy. More areas of the UK should be granted the same access to services. DAB is excellent… the argument is redundant fo rmyself, you can’t beat digital radio. as for DAB, give them time to improve.. Could FM stations have the same results as the anlogue tv?
- Posted by Usman AnwarI prefer the sound quality of FM, especially for music. Also, I find that in many districts my portable DAB/FM radio suffers from weak signal on DAB,rarely a problem with its FM band
- Posted by Michael StewartIt seems to have taken FM about 25 years to overtake AM so it’s too early to judge. The lack of commercial viablility for some stations reflects too early a move into the DAB market rather than inappropriateness of the technology.
- Posted by AndyI use a DAB portable on the train when it’s good it’s very clear - seems less suceptible to electronic interference, but when the signal is poor it’s horrid - breaks up very easily. Reminds me of the early days of mobiles when coverage was patchy.
- Posted by robinDAB radio is a great piece of kit. Mine tells me not only the station name but what the show is all about.
DAB radio MUST survive: the quality of audio is superb and I have just paid a small fortune for a top of the range model.
I suspect it will flourish as more people get a DAB!
- Posted by Keith M WarwickIf they close down planet rock I shall throw my dab radio in the skip.
- Posted by geePlanet rock was the ONLY reason I bought the dab radio in the first place.
The comparison with Betamax is unjust.There was nothing wrong with Betamax they were perhaps better than VHS.The money for advertising and design and technology went the way of VHS and not Betamax so it was phased out.
- Posted by Cy NicalWhich is something you cannot say about the much hyped DAB.