A typical DAB digital radio receiver with the Digital Radio Development Bureau DAB digital radio marketing logo In the, the roll-out of digital radio is proceeding since engineering test transmissions were started by the in 1990 followed by a public launch in September 1995. The UK currently has the world's biggest network, with 103 transmitters, three national and 48 local and regional DAB ensembles broadcasting over 250 commercial and 34 BBC across the UK.
Dec 07, 2013 Hi, I put together some logos for the BBC DAB Stations, see attached zip. (two files due size limits of forum). Radio station logos Update your Radio station logos regularly and you will always have the latest logos for your favorite regional and national radio stations as well as new broadcasting stations. Smartphone Connectivity Regularly updating the MirrorLink® function guarantees compatibility with the latest applications on your mobile device.
In the, there are already more than 64 different digital stations available. In addition to DAB and DAB+, radio stations are also broadcast on platform as well as in the UK. Digital radio ensemble operators and stations need a broadcasting licence from the UK's media regulator to broadcast. In the long term there will be a switchover from analogue to digital radio when the AM and FM services will cease.
The government has set criteria on the coverage and proportion of digital listening before this occurs. In 2018 the criteria of over 50% of digital radio listening was met which will now require the UK Government to review digital radio in view of a potential switchover. In the same year, the BBC stated it would keep some FM radio for the foreseeable future. Digital radio in the United Kingdom is being promoted by radio stations and the broadcasting industry on the premise that it provides superior quality sound over AM, a wider choice of radio stations, is easier to use, and is resistant to the which other broadcast media are susceptible to. On the other hand, critics say that coverage is not yet sufficient and the quality can be less than that of FM.
In the UK, 50.9% of all radio listening hours by the first quarter of 2018 were through digital platforms, with DAB making up for the majority of digital radio listening (72.3%), and 63.7% of UK households claim to have access to a DAB radio set. However in the second quarter, digital listening had dropped back to 50.2%. See also:, and Experimental transmissions of the DAB Eureka 147 standard from the by the BBC started in 1990 with permanent transmissions covering London in September 1995. With the expansion of its in the spring of 1998, the BBC national ensemble was available to 65% of the UK population by 2001, 85% by 2004 and 96.4% by 2015. DAB+ full-time broadcasts began in 2016.
The Broadcasting Act of 1996 allowed the introduction of national, regional and local commercial ensembles in the United Kingdom. The first national ensemble licence for DAB from the was advertised in 1998 and one applicant applied for the licence. The licence was awarded to the GWR Group and NTL Broadcast, who since the launch were renamed. The two companies formed the ensemble, which began broadcasting on 15 November 1999. The Digital One ensemble has grown and is currently available to over 90% of the UK population although an Ofcom report into Digital Radio in 2015 puts robust household coverage at 89.8% of the UK. Growth and benefits of DAB in the UK. Chart showing the listening share of the United Kingdom's digital radio platforms - DAB(+), Digital TV and online through a device or smartphone/tablet app.
In the United Kingdom, the uptake of DAB has increased since the launch of the BBC national DAB ensemble in 1995. Lower prices, new radio stations and marketing have increased the uptake of DAB radio in the UK. Digital radios were first sold as car radios in 1997, priced around £800, with hi-fi tuners costing up to £2,000 being released two years later.
In 2001, Digital One invested in Frontier Silicon to produce a new processing chip which would allow cheaper portable radios to be produced., and in 2002, 's award-winning Evoke series of radios broke the £100 price barrier, and DAB take up has increased since. The BBC and other DAB broadcasters have been encouraging DAB take up by promoting a number of features which are either new or improve upon former technology in their sales literature.
The benefit of DAB is that due to the use of multiplexing technology and technology, broadcasters including the BBC and EMAP have been able to launch exclusive digital radio stations alongside their existing analogue radio stations. Broadcasters also state that DAB offers better reception, without the problems of interference that are more noticeable through analogue radio. DAB radios also come with features such as station lists, so listeners do not need to retune their receivers, as well as scrolling text, providing information such as breaking news, travel information or the latest track information. DAB has also been marketed as having two major advantages over analogue radio broadcasting in that using technology and more recently DAB+ using, parts of the audio spectrum that cannot be heard by humans are discarded, meaning less data needs to be sent over the air. This, as well as technology, allows a number of channels to be broadcast together on one frequency as opposed to one channel for analogue radio broadcasts.
National, local and regional DAB ensembles use the same frequency for the area they cover. Using a, an ensemble broadcasting a number of stations can cover the same area as a number of FM frequencies which would be required to cover the same area for one station. The BBC carried out successful tests of a single-frequency network in London before launching its national DAB ensemble.
Criticisms of DAB in the UK DAB audibly provides worse audio quality than FM in the UK because almost all stereo stations use a bit rate of 128 kbit/s or lower with the audio codec. Most commercial stations use 112 kbit/s. A bit rate of 256 kbit/s has been judged to provide a high quality stereo broadcast signal. Also, a large and growing number of music stations are only transmitting in mono.
Indeed, the used by the radio stations on other digital platforms, such as cable, terrestrial and satellite are usually higher than on DAB, so the audio quality is also higher. On the other hand, an survey, which was undertaken due to many consultation responses citing poor DAB quality, found that 94% of DAB listeners thought DAB was at least as good as FM. Ofcom estimates that even after extra has been allocated to DAB, around 90 local radio stations will be unable to transmit on DAB, either because there is no space for them on a local DAB multiplex, or because they cannot afford the high transmission costs of DAB that the multiplex operators are charging. Ofcom announced in 2005 that it regarded (DRM) as an option for local stations unable to secure carriage or unable to pay the high transmission costs of DAB. The success of the small scale DAB multiplexes may alleviate this issue to some degree. On 24 January 2009, Ofcom allowed electrical retailers to be granted a licence to rebroadcast DAB signals within their stores to demonstrate DAB radio sets within their stores. The United Kingdom consumer charity, warned that consumers who could not get an adequate DAB signal could be misled by the in-store sets.
The Digital Radio Development Bureau replied to the Which? Report stating that stores contain a steel structure which produce a effect where DAB signals are blocked out. The DRDB recommended that consumers should check DAB coverage online with their before purchasing a DAB radio to avoid disappointment. On 24 November 2010, a number of commercial radio operators refused to run an promoting DAB, one operator stating that it would be 'fundamentally immoral and dishonest' until DAB coverage matches that of FM.
Commercial radio executives have argued that the BBC should pick up the majority of the cost of expanding the DAB network across the United Kingdom. Main article: DAB+ is a major upgrade to DAB, widely used in other countries in Europe. It was first tested in the United Kingdom in 2013 before regular services were launched in 2016. DAB+ is not backwards compatible with DAB so older radios cannot receive DAB+ stations. There are no plans in the foreseeable future for the vast majority of BBC and commercial stations to transition from DAB to DAB+. Estimates given by multiplex operator Switch Digital suggests that a third of radio sets in 2016 were DAB+ compatible.
The United Kingdom Government had previously ruled out any transition from DAB to for the foreseeable future, a decision backed by the radio industry and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The chief executive of the DRDB, Tony Moretta, mirrored the calls by the radio industry and experts to not adopt DAB+ in the UK.
In an interview with the website in 2009, he stated that DAB+ was a 'red herring' and may not be introduced in the UK for the foreseeable future due to the growing number of digital radio sets currently being sold and used in the future which cannot decode HE-AAC and therefore access DAB+ stations. Moretta also cited greater expense for broadcasters and overall satisfaction with the current audio quality of DAB stations of which a move to DAB+ would only benefit a small number of as other reasons. Independent radio analyst Grant Goddard also stated that there was an economic decision not to adopt DAB+ for both the industry and consumers. Despite opposition aired to the Government regarding the introduction of DAB+ in the United Kingdom by the industry and experts, Ofcom began testing DAB+ on the Brighton Experimental ensemble in January 2013 for a period of one month. In March 2014, the BBC announced that it would undertake a trial of DAB+ in the UK later in the year and On September 1, 2014, Folder Media began a four-month trial of DAB+ on the North East Wales and West Cheshire ensemble.
In early 2016, two new stations launched DAB+ services on the Portsmouth trial multiplex. Sound Digital, operators of one of the national multiplexes, launched three full-time broadcasting DAB+ services on 29 February 2016. Since then a number of stations have launched on DAB+ or switched from DAB to DAB+.
As of September 2016, there were over 30 DAB+ stations being broadcast in the UK. In March 2017 the Brighton multiplex became UK's first to only broadcast DAB+. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport published minimum specifications for digital radio receivers in the UK in February 2013 which states that a receiver sold in the UK must be capable of decoding a DAB+ stream of up to 144 capacity units.
Radios must support DAB+ to receive the digital tick mark. DAB frequency plan DAB radio stations in the United Kingdom are broadcast on a number of frequency blocks on.
The original plan devised in for the framework of DAB in Europe was to allocate frequency blocks 11B to 12D for UK DAB broadcasting. However, as part of its Review of Radio, Ofcom has expanded the frequency allocations for DAB and has advertised local and a national ensemble licence on blocks outside the original Wiesbaden plan on 10B to 10D and 11A. Block 5A has also been reserved for the launch of local ensembles.
In 2015, additional blocks were opened up for small scale DAB trials for an initial period of nine months. Ofcom reitreated the use of a number of frequency blocks between 7D and 9C for any future roll-out of small scale DAB multiplexes in its final report regarding the small scale DAB multiplexes published in September 2016. Main article: The BBC's national DAB ensemble broadcasts on frequency block 12B (225.648 ) across the United Kingdom, with coverage currently at 96.4% of UK households.
The multiplex is owned and operated by the BBC and is transmitted from a number of transmitter sites across the country. The BBC's national multiplex carries only BBC national. Stations are carried on the relevant local DAB ensemble where commercial DAB licences are operating. Commercial DAB multiplexes There are a number of commercial DAB multiplexes operators in the UK who run 48 local and regional DAB multiplexes across the United Kingdom. Operators include the two national operators, and as well as local multiplex operators including NOW Digital, Switch Digital. Local and regional ensembles cover 77.8% of UK households. Trial small scale DAB multiplexes Ten small scale DAB multiplexes broadcast in a number of areas across the UK (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Portsmouth, Norwich, Brighton, Cambridge and Aldershot) on what was initially a nine-month trial, extended to March 2020 by Ofcom at the request of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Digital terrestrial television. See also: Digital radio on the digital terrestrial platform started on 30 October 2002 with the launch of the BBC's digital only radio services, and the as well as existing stations and the. All the stations broadcast on the BBC's B. On the same day EMAP Radio (now owned by ) launched three radio stations,. Two other stations also launched,. The BBC later launched, and on multiplex A on 14 February 2003.
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These channels later moved to Multiplex 1 on 3 October 2007. Currently, the digital terrestrial platform has twenty seven radio stations broadcasting from broadcasters including the BBC, Bauer Radio,. Digital satellite radio Unlike North America, the UK does not have a commercial satellite radio service. There are radio stations broadcasting via to the United Kingdom, however these are aimed at home users for playback through their televisions since these same satellites are also used for television broadcast and usually use ' series of satellites at or the satellite at 28.5° east. Radio stations broadcast via the, platforms and any compliant.
The platform has all the BBC's national and regional digital radio stations as well as from the launch on 6 May 2008 on the. Was planning a based digital radio satellite service on the upper frequencies of the L band, however, Qualcomm beat WorldSpace in 2008, securing the L band frequencies in the Ofcom auction process.
Digital cable television A number of digital radio stations also broadcast through platforms, including. Internet radio In the United Kingdom, over 350 of the UK's radio stations also their stations online, not including radio stations, stations and stations who solely broadcast online. In 2011, the BBC and commercial radio operators launched which allows over 400 radio stations to be listened to through its website and apps. In addition various radio stations and third parties allow streaming of internet radio stations through their own websites and apps. A number of British firms, including, Reciva, and Acoustic Energy have brought out which use the signal from a router to stream Internet radio stations within range of a Wi-Fi router.
RAJAR reported that in the period October 2016 to February 2017, 6% of BBC radio and 8% of commercial radio is listened to online and through apps. In 2006, the (PPL) announced that it would charge additional royalty fees on UK stations if they broadcast outside the UK. Radio stations which stream online including and, have implemented to prevent listeners outside the UK from listening to their radio stations and therefore avoided the increased fees. Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM - not to be confused with ) is being considered by for introduction in in 2012, on the present MW (medium wave) band. In the present day, transmissions are limited to a small number of broadcasts by the BBC and other international broadcasters.
In 2005, tests of DRM on radio from European transmitters broadcasting into the United Kingdom were performed by, Asian Sound and CVC. The started broadcasting the BBC World Service on shortwave and radio for a few hours a day across Europe from in Suffolk and in Norway, the latter being receivable across England, Wales and Southern Scotland. Today, the BBC broadcasts the BBC World Service using DRM for one hour a day from the in Shropshire. The BBC undertook a trial of the digital radio mondiale (DRM) technology, which allowed them to explore digital radio using medium-wave frequencies. The trial broadcast using the new technology in the Plymouth area from April 2007 and closed down on 31 October 2008. In May 2009, the BBC released a report on the trial in Devon. The report gave a number of conclusions about DRM from the trial:.
The sound quality from the trial was better than AM quality, but not as good as average DAB quality;. The daytime coverage of the DRM trial extended further than the discontinued AM service. However, the night-time service, as expected to be smaller than daytime coverage due to the characteristics of medium wave broadcasting, did cause problems with interference to the DRM trial. The BBC stated this interference can be avoided, but only with a redesign of the transmission network;. A is possible and would be significantly.
Digital Multimedia Broadcasting In 2006, carried out a technical trial of and on the (formerly UTV-EMAP/Bauer Stoke) ensemble. The trial assessed the reception qualities of both technologies in urban and rural areas as well as the and radio services which could be delivered. There was an ongoing experimental DMB multiplex broadcast in London on L-Band and Cambridge on VHF Band III, used for video, audio and data applications which have since ceased. Analogue switch-over The has a requirement stating that the United Kingdom must prepare for digital switchover. On 29 January 2009 the UK Government's interim report into digital communication for the future by, Digital Britain, made the suggestion that DAB would be the future direction of digital radio in the United Kingdom. It states that only when the following conditions are met, a migration from FM to DAB would begin:. Digital radio listening figures hit at least 50%;.
Coverage of national DAB matches that of FM and local DAB reaches of 90% of the population and all major roads The original Interim Report of the Digital Radio Working Group published in 2008 specified that the 50% threshold for listening figures should be based on those for DAB. This was subsequently watered down to incorporate listening via any digital platform so as to make it easier to meet the criteria. In 2010 the government created a digital action plan which was delivered in November 2013. On 16 December 2013 they announced that 'now is not the time to commit to a switchover'. An updated report was released in January 2014. Since 2010 Ofcom has produced annual reports on the take-up of digital radio. Subsequently, in 2018 the BBC stated it would keep some FM radio for the foreseeable future.
On May 17, 2018, RAJAR, the UK radio audience measurement research company for the UK radio industry published figures that stated that the UK had exceeded the threshold of 50% of radio listening was to digital radio platforms which will trigger the UK Government to begin a review of the progress of digital radio and assess future plans toward a potential digital switchover. Application and licensing The United Kingdom media and communications regulator (and before the formation of Ofcom, the Radio Authority) advertises and provides the licences for digital radio services in the United Kingdom, under the Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996. Application and licensing procedures Ofcom awards licences for digital radio services differently depending on the type of service and the platform.
Ofcom advertises the licences of new digital radio ensembles and are subject to an to the highest bidder. Ensemble licence awards are awarded for twelve years.
To broadcast a service on a DAB ensemble, a station must hold a Digital Sound Programme Service licence from Ofcom. On digital television services, individual stations can apply for either a digital cable and satellite licence to broadcast on the aforementioned platforms, or apply for a digital terrestrial licence to broadcast on digital terrestrial television.
On Digital Terrestrial Television and DAB, broadcasters also need to contact the ensemble or operator of a local or national DAB ensemble or digital terrestrial multiplex to broadcast within a region. DAB ensemble operators have three elements to the charges they levy on radio services which are subject to a minimum and do not include any other possible one-off fees for scenarios such as a station moving its base of operations to another location: Fee Description Carriage Fee A fee based on the capacity units and hours broadcast that a broadcaster pays. The more capacity units a service uses and the more hours a service broadcasts for, the higher the fee.
(Telecoms) Contribution Fee A fee paid for the encoding and distribution of an audio feed to the ensemble operator. Depending on the ensemble operator, this could be charged to stations at a distance outside of the transmission area or could be charged universally.
Deposit A fee levied at the beginning of the contract agreement, non-refundable and used to pay fees in the last year of the contract period. Depending on the ensemble operator, this could be applied to new companies or companies without a long-standing trading record or it could be applied universally. On Digital Satellite, radio stations need to secure capacity with a transponder operator and an uplink to a satellite. To broadcast on the platform, a broadcaster must also secure an slot allowing viewers to navigate to their channel using the set-top-boxes provided. A request for an EPG slot must be done up to nine months in advance. The same procedure applies to secure a slot on the platform, although stations need to contact Freesat UK Ltd instead of BSkyB. On Digital Cable, broadcasters need to contact a cable supplier for carriage.
All stations broadcast in the UK must legally hold a music copyright licence from the, and in order for to be paid to the the main bodies represent. First national ensemble. Main article: On 24 March 1998, the Radio Authority advertised for the first (and at the time, the only one planned) national ensemble to be broadcast on DAB.
The three national commercial services on FM and mediumwave had to be included as part of the ensemble,. The licence was awarded to the sole applicant, GWR Group and NTL Broadcast to form Digital One. Main article: On 1 July 2014, Ofcom re-advertised the second national ensemble licence on frequency 11A for interested parties to submit applications by 31 October 2014. The deadline was extended to 15:00 on 29 January 2015. On 29 January 2015, it was announced that two bidders had applied for the licence to run the second national ensemble. Listen2Digital, run primarily by Orion Media and Babcock International Group amongst others and Sound Digital, run by Arqiva, Bauer and UTV amongst others.
On 27 March, Sound Digital was announced as the winning bidder. Capacity units refer to a measure of a streams bitrate in addition to error correction added to the aforementioned stream. Capacity units are used to accurately determine the total capacity of a DAB ensemble.
Regional ensembles for the West Midlands closed on 27 August 2013. Yorkshire closed on 29 June 2015. Regional ensembles for the North East, South Wales and the Severn Estuary closed on 29 July 2013. North West closed on 24 September 2013.
Regional ensembles for the North East, South Wales and the Severn Estuary closed on 29 July 2013. North West closed on 24 September 2013.
Although not strictly classed as a digital radio service, broadcast on digital terrestrial in audio only up until the launch of Freeview on 30 October 2002. One exception to this was jazzfm.com, which continued to be streamed outside the UK. See also.
References.
Digital DAB radios with image slideshows are currently being trialed in London. For the next two months, DAB broadcasts on stations from, Switch Digital, and - including Capital Radio, Heart, Magic and Virgin Xtreme - will feature colour image slideshows. Images featured on include station logos, artist photos, information, album covers as well as advertising.
James Cridland at Virgin Radio said its listeners tuned in using a multitude of devices, including mobile phones. 'As screens on mobile phones, DAB radios and portable music devices get increasingly larger, we like to give our listeners an added bonus by displaying information about the songs and artists we play, along with short news clips.' Testers taking part in the trial, which started yesterday, have been given a beta version of a forthcoming portable DAB radio from. It features a colour screen so that slideshows can be transmitted and displayed to the device.
'As well as enhancing the experience of our listeners with images to support the programmes they already love, Slideshow means new dynamics for advertisers by adding logos and pictures and more detailed information to radio commercials, and that's a very powerful proposition', said Andrew Harrison, CEO of, the commercial radio association.