Por que é que o DAB não é o sucesso (esperado?) na GB

Se:

«(...) Rajar believes digital radio listening made up 12.5% by the end of last year, and may have stalled slightly given that it was 11% the year before and 6% in 2004 (...). Ken Garner, a radio expert from Glasgow Caledonian University, is more unequivocal. "The forecasts are totally delusional and probably driven by wishful thinking by the government about what it would like to do with the analogue frequencies. The numbers are based on hoped-for take up and not on evidence."»

O que está a correr menos bem (ou mal...): (excertos)

- digital radio sets have never become cheap enough.

- Car manufacturers have been slow to put digital radios in their products. With digital radio even slower to take off in Europe, many manufacturers have taken the view that it was not worth catering for the UK alone. FOR those with second-hand cars, meanwhile, upgrading to digital radio has meant getting sets specially fitted and in some cases has not been possible at all.

- Another issue has been quality. As Mark Mulligan, a vice-president of Jupiter Research, says: "The sound quality is significantly inferior to that of FM. For example, Radio 3 listeners have complained vociferously about it You are never going to attract the audio buffs."

- Not everyone agrees that quality is a problem, but it is harder to argue with complaints about weak signals. This does not just lead to the background noise of FM radio, but means that the station cuts out altogether. There are also those that point out that the UK's digital audio broadcast (DAB) standard of digital radio has been overlooked in many countries in favour of more recent formats, and that buyers risk being saddled with outdated technology.

- Then there is a debate about whether the stations have been enticing enough. While the likes of BBC6 Music and OneWord, which includes a show with newsreader Jon Snow, have attracted their followers, there has arguably been nothing to compare with Freeview's Film Four or E4 as essential extras. Ken Garner says: "There are very few totally new formats. Most of the stations offered around the country are just imports of successful brands already operating in FM."

- Beyond this there has clearly been a problem with marketing. The Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB), which markets on behalf of all digital broadcasters, only spends £2 million a year, which is a fraction of what a blue-chip company would spend on a major marketing campaign.

fonte: «Analogue radio could be history by 2020 … if Ofcom wins the day», Sunday Herald, 22/04/07 By Steven Vass,

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