Thursday 26 December 2013

DAB contributes to the decline of UK radio industry

After ten years British radio expert rejects DAB - again
In 2004, Grant Goddard wrote his 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.

Goddard has been writing about DAB because he considered that this single issue has contributed more to the decline of the UK radio industry than all other sector issues combined. Thousands of experienced radio professionals have lost their jobs. Hundreds of genuinely local radio stations have disappeared. Much radio in the UK has become a shadow of its former self. The medium is suffering rapidly declining appeal to those aged under 30. The industry that I have worked in since 1972 is on the rocks. Most of the blame for this sorry state of affairs can be laid directly at the UK radio industry's single-minded pursuit of DAB since the 1990s, at the expense of all other objectives and at a cost of more than £1 billion.

In the end his article Goddard writes: Five years on, the numbers may have changed but the unresolved problems with DAB radio remain exactly the same. My analyses and predictions during the last decade have proven correct … while a small army of DAB propagandists have been paid handsomely during that time to produce a massive volume of 'SouthSea bubble' hot air about DAB radio, partly paid for from public funds. Doubtless they will be rewarded for their failure.

Grant Goddard is a well-known radio analyst and consultant with three decades experience working in the radio and music industries in the UK and overseas. He has been advising investors about their stakes in media companies, counseling commercial radio companies on strategy, developing successful formats for commercial stations, training and mentoring future radio managers. He has also published the books DAB Digital Radio - Licensed to Fail and Kiss FM - From Radical Radio to Big Buisness.

Read the full story: DAB Radio Switchover: Dead As The Dodo