GB questiona-se sobre o futuro digital

«There are in fact three forms of digital radio. DAB is compatible with mobile phones and good for portable radio sets and - in theory -cars, although no carmakers install it yet. Lots of people listen to radio via their TVs through their Sky or Freeview boxes because it's easy to use the remote control and saves buying another piece of kit. And others like to listen via their PC, where digital radio is broadcast via the internet. Virgin Radio chief executive Richard Huntingford says: "Radio will become a digital medium, but it's a brave person in these early stages that decides which platform it is that consumers are going to adopt." (...) Broadband has its transmission costs too, and unlike DAB, the more listeners you have, the more it costs to reach them. Oneword spent £15,000 a year streaming over the web to 50,000 listeners. Classic FM has 5.6m listeners. If each of them tuned in online, the transmission cost would be well over £1.5m. But broadcasting to digital radio sets is still too expensive. To bring the price down, say those companies still in digital, the broadcast map must be restructured. Ofcom needs to reshuffle the way spectrum is allocated so that there are fewer transmission points. At the moment, regional broadcast licences overlap with local ones, and there are too many slots for too few stations. At the same time, in some areas there is undersupply, and a number of popular small town stations can't find room on their local digital service. John Myers, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group's radio business, says digital may have a future, but it needs surgery. "Everyone is committed but there has to be change. We will only know for sure if there is a future for DAB if people want it without fear of loss of licence." The medium has a future, but it requires lower transmission costs, better content and better marketing. Without these changes, the only sound coming out of Britain's digital radio sets will be birdsong» How radio killed the digital star Telegraph17/02/2008