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DAB gets a poor reception

This article is more than 17 years old
Millions have been spent on the digital radio revolution but listeners still complain that the quality is poor. So what's wrong with the technology, asks Bobbie Johnson

When Radio 3 cut the quality of its digital radio broadcasts this summer, it caused uproar among its usually staid listeners. "Some instruments sounded distorted," complained one fan on the website Friends of Radio 3, an informal pressure group. "Unlistenable unless through a table radio," raged another. "Rubbish", "miserable" and "dreadful" were some of the more polite assessments. Last month, after a series of complaints, BBC director of radio and music Jenny Abramsky reversed the move to permanently lop off nearly 20% of Radio 3's bandwidth to make room for Radio 5 Live spin-off Sports Extra, which broadcasts for just a few hours each week.

"Following further tests on the new encoding equipment, we have decided to return to the previous arrangements which were in place for nearly four years," she said.

The rise of digital radio over the past few years has been one of the most powerful trends in the industry. More than half of the country listens digitally at least some of the time, with 30% of the population using DAB radios rather than TV or the internet. This in turn has driven a huge rise in the number of stations. Millions of pounds have been spent on the process, led by the BBC but supported also by the commercial radio industry, which is desperate to improve its ailing revenue base.

But for all of digital's positive press, critics are increasingly questioning the underlying technology. The problem? Sound quality.

In the beginning, the champions of DAB boasted it would provide "CD quality" sound. But with broadcasters clamouring for space on the digital airwaves, the only way to pack more in is to reduce the broadcast quality of others. While this has not proved a huge problem for speech-based programming, which does not require such high bandwidth, the apparent demand for new channels has led to significant cutbacks for leading music stations. The digital versions of Radio 1 and 2, for example, now broadcast at significantly lower rates than when they launched - and now stream at only slightly over 60% of what audio engineers (including the authors of a BBC report first drawn up in 1994) deem "CD quality". If you can get good FM reception, it often provides better quality than DAB. This is one reason why countries including Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia are choosing not to roll out their own DAB networks - preferring to investigate newer technologies that may prove better. It is also the reason why the British government has postponed indefinitely any decision about whether to follow the digital television lead and end analogue radio broadcasts completely.

Yet the supertanker ploughs on. Despite the doubts, last month the BBC signed a new £1.8bn deal with transmission technology specialist Arqiva, which will fund further rollout of Britain's digital TV network - and the installation of a further 160 digital radio transmitters. Enthusiasts argue that if DAB were as problematic as some claim, nobody would ever pump so much money into the network. Not true, say detractors: it is an old system with serious problems.

The problem is recognised by the UK's Digital Radio Development Board. "Everybody has a view and an opinion," says Ian Dickins, the chief executive of the DRDB. "But if you offer digital radio and all you get when you turn it on are the same stations, that's not an attractive proposition. It's an issue of the number of services versus the quality of services."

Although the positive aspects of digital radio are legion, as anyone who struggles to get decent FM or AM reception can testify, the discrepancy between the common perception - that it provides better radio, and more of it - and the reality has not gone unnoticed. The BBC has been lobbying Ofcom to allocate more spectrum space for digital radio, which could potentially be used to improve audio quality.

Even radio stations have been caught up by the hype. In one case the Advertising Standards Authority judged that Jazz FM, which is owned by the Guardian Media Group, had mistakenly claimed that its digital option offered listeners CD-quality sound. "While we recognised that it is possible to transmit services at bit rates sufficiently high for most listeners to equate with CD quality," said the adjudication, "broadcasters can choose to transmit at lower bit rates or in mono."

In fact, the ASA statement does not go far enough - not only can broadcasters opt for lower quality, they actively choose to. Are there better options? Possibly. Although British rollout is ahead of the rest of the world, different digital radio systems can offer true CD-quality programming. Some recent developments even include providing surround sound over the air - a move that would be highly unlikely in the UK, since any station choosing it would need five times the maximum space that single channels are allocated on British radio.

Other options include Digital Radio Mondial, which fills the AM spectrum and is very robust. At higher bandwidths, DRM can deliver CD-quality sound, and although no manufacturer currently builds compatible radio sets, it has already drawn some fans. Australian authorities are now reserving space for DRM broadcasting, and Ofcom has been consulting on whether it should follow suit.

South Korea, which often leads the way in technological terms, has been quick to adopt a different standard called Digital Multimedia Broadcast, which is related to DAB but also allows for video broadcasting. Its makers say it insulates the medium against future developments, rather than relying on heavy investment in several separate systems for audio and video. "Consumers are very comfortable with the technology as it stands," says Dickins. "That suggests the quality is perfectly acceptable."

Ultimately, it may simply be that Britain is already too far along the DAB track to consider other options without embarrassment. But even if music fans are being railroaded into outmoded technologies, they want to make sure the radio that we do have is good enough to listen to.

"Some people are bound to use DAB because they can't get analogue radio. But lots of people who have a genuine choice are still opting for FM," says Sarah Spilsbury, the coordinator of Friends of Radio 3. "But we listen, we hear, and we don't like."

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