In 2004, I wrote my first article predicting that the UK’s implementation of DAB digital radio was headed for failure. It was not guesswork. I had analysed radio industry data since 1980. I had worked at The Radio Authority when it implemented DAB. I had worked in Ofcom’s radio division. I had seen DAB from inside and outside the regulator and the commercial radio industry. Only five years after its launch, the available evidence demonstrated that DAB was headed for disaster in the UK. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-switchover-dead-as-the-dodo/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
“Digital listening at an all-time high,” shouted the headline of one online news story. Yes, it was the quarterly RAJAR radio ratings, offering opportunities for some journalists to pitch their stories just about any which way they wanted. The opening sentence of this particular report said: “The digital revolution shows no signs of slowing down, and not even the radio airwaves are set to maintain their analogue tradition, as a new [RAJAR] study suggests.” Hardly. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/growing-dab-radio-usage-in-the-uk-confused-you-should-be/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
The latest RAJAR ratings data for Q2 2011 demonstrate the continuing strength of the radio medium in recession Britain. Maybe if your TV or mobile subscriptions are having to be pruned, you turn to radio instead. In times of austerity, one of radio’s greatest attributes is that it appears to consumers to be available ‘free’ at the point-of-use... This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-listening-growth-demonstrates-radios-strengths-in-a-multi-tasking-world/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Data published last week for 2011’s first quarter demonstrate that revenues of the UK commercial radio sector are still struggling to rebound from the previous two years’ ‘credit crunch.’ A large part of the problem is the coalition government’s swingeing cuts to its marketing budget since May 2010, which have afflicted commercial radio advertising much more significantly than other media [see my blog]. Additionally, and very worryingly, in Q1 2011, revenues from local advertisers fell to their lowest level for a decade, even at a time when local radio might be thought to be making client gains from the decimation of the local newspaper industry. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-commercial-radio-sector-revenues-q1-2011-local-advertising-hits-10-year-low/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Andy Parfitt’s departure from the station controller job at BBC Radio 1 after thirteen years marks a significant event for the UK radio sector. Parfitt’s accomplishments during his tenure were many, but did not extend to significantly turning around the station’s audience ratings. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/andy-parfitt-leaves-bbc-radio-1-on-a-high-separating-the-man-from-the-myth/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Each of us has dozens of 'consultations' every day. You know the sort of thing. 'I’m going to the corner shop – anything you want?' 'A Kit-Kat?' 'OK.' However, if I came back with a cat rather than a chocolate bar, you would understandably be unhappy. That had not really been a consultation at all. Ofcom’s consultations on radio are increasingly like that. Ofcom pretends it is going to listen. It doesn’t listen. And then it does whatever it wanted to do in the first place. Mmmm. Surely that is not really a consultation at all. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/when-is-a-consultation-not-a-consultation-when-ofcom-consults-about-radio/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Speaking today at the Intellect conference in London, broadcasting Minister Ed Vaizey tried to assure us that digital radio switchover was still “on course” to happen in the year twenty something or other. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-in-cars-the-straw-that-will-break-digital-radio-switchovers-back/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
I only knew Roger Tate through listening to his programmes on the radio. He was a DJ on Radio Invicta, London’s first soul music radio station, launched in 1970. Invicta was a pirate radio station. Back then, there were no legal radio stations in the UK other than the BBC. The notion of a campaign for a soul music radio station for London had been a little premature, given that no kind of commercial radio had yet existed in Britain. But that is exactly what Radio Invicta did. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/radio-invicta-the-genesis-of-black-music-radio-in-london-still-unfulfilled/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
As soon as the coalition government came to power in May 2010, it implemented Conservative Party policy to make substantial cutbacks to the amount of public money spent on government marketing campaigns. Commercial radio was hit the hardest because, more than any other medium, it had become increasingly dependent upon government expenditure on advertising airtime. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/government-expenditure-cutbacks-clobber-uk-commercial-radio/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
It is good to know that radio is still an extremely popular medium in the UK, something borne out by the latest radio audience metrics published by industry body RAJAR for Q1 2011. However, in its determination to make every quarter’s results newsworthy, RAJAR has a track record of bending the truth to achieve press headlines [see my blog May 2010]. This latest quarter was no exception. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/when-uk-radio-listening-figures-are-this-good-why-does-rajar-need-to-fib/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Moving the goalposts. Governments are adept at doing just that to help them achieve their targets or to make figures look better than they really are. Digital radio switchover is no exception. Given the technical and financial impossibility of the task plotted twenty years ago to completely replace analogue radio broadcasting with DAB radio, it has became necessary in recent months for the civil servants and digital radio lobbyists to move the goalposts. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-downgrade-how-is-90-of-fm-coverage-a-sensible-target-for-dab-to-replace-fm/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
What would have to be done to make DAB radio successful? “What there does need to be, as Freeview and digital satellite has shown in television, is simply a sufficient combination of services, technology, simplicity and price or discount to provide a value proposition for the consumer,” suggested Stephen Carter in 2004, when he was chief executive of Ofcom. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/which-says-dab-radio-switchover-must-be-consumer-led-or-not-at-all/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
When something works well, it just works. You do not need to analyse why it works. It just works. And nobody asks questions as to why or how. That is the case with FM radio. During half a century of development, more and more FM transmitters have been built across the UK (2,100 currently in operation) so as to reach the point now where almost the entire population receives an FM signal (maybe not always perfect, but some reception rather than none at all). This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-downgrade-the-new-masterplan-to-deliver-dab-radio-reception-worse-than-fm/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
When UK companies that had once anticipated they were poised to make a mint out of ‘DAB radio’ realise that things are not going the way they had wanted, they lash out. That seems to be what happened yesterday. ‘Shoot the messenger’ appeared to be the digital radio industry’s reflex response when backed against a wall of facts that tell an unpalatable story. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-sector-rubbishes-its-own-digital-radio-receiver-sales-figures/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Some of Digital Britain’s radio recommendations were unworkable. However, the notion has remained that FM and AM analogue transmitters of the UK’s national radio stations will be switched off once digital radio listening passes the 50% threshold. This was never practical. It was a ‘threat’ propagated by government to the public in the hope of forcing them into buying more DAB radios, instilling fear that they would otherwise lose their favourite stations. The threat failed. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/am-fm-switch-off-of-national-radio-stations-an-empty-threat-whose-expiry-date-has-long-passed/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
Who was UK commercial radio’s biggest advertiser in 2010? British Gas? No, it was second. Autoglass? No, it came third. Volkswagen? No, it was fourth. Unilever? No, it came fifth. Radio’s biggest advertiser in 2010 was the government (in the guise of the Orwellian-sounding Central Office of Information [COI]). Not only was the government the biggest advertiser on radio, but it was far and away the biggest advertiser by miles. The government’s £30m expenditure on radio in 2010 exceeded the sum total of British Gas, Autoglass, Volkswagen and Unilever. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/public-spending-cuts-impacted-commercial-radio-2010-revenues-by-24m/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
In his perceptive commentary on last quarter’s RAJAR radio audience figures, IPSOS’ research manager Andy Haylett noted: “18.5 million adults are DAB owners, yet only an estimated 12.6 million are confirmed listeners. What are the other 6 million doing with their DAB sets? Further investigation shows that there are only 7.4 million listeners to digital-only stations, of which under half (3.3m) comes from DAB listening. This suggests that around three quarters of all DAB listeners are tuning to stations readily available on a traditional analogue transistor.” This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/does-the-nation-love-its-digital-radio-stations-86-of-uk-adults-say-no/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
When something is broken, you have to fix it. Thinking about fixing it, planning to fix it, talking about fixing it, convening meetings about fixing it – none of these will actually fix it. You just have to fix it. DAB radio reception has been broken since the broadcast platform was introduced in the 1990s. Transmitter powers are inadequate and there are insufficient transmitters, particularly in urban areas. These issues have still not been fixed. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/rubbish-dab-radio-reception-why-is-ofcom-working-hard-not-to-fix-the-problem/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
I’m a numbers man. I can tolerate a little numerical exaggeration, a few rounding ups, or even the odd ‘nearly x million’. But when people invent numbers and stick them in their press releases, I reach for my calculator. Not for the first time, today Digital Radio UK advanced the concept of ‘mind over mathematics’ to a new level. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-numbers-why-do-they-keep-making-them-up/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia
The government’s second stakeholder consultation on DAB radio switchover happened this afternoon. It was held in what felt like an underground government bunker in Victoria. No windows, long corridors, and lots of seemingly identical numbered rooms hidden by massive doors that had no viewing windows. When I tried to go up a staircase to ground level, a man appeared from nowhere and told me not to. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-switchover-the-view-from-the-government-bunker/ Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon. LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia