Apparently they're still talking about the second multiplex

It seemed, about six years ago, the idea of a second national DAB multiplex died with Channel 4 Radio. Certainly, now that so many people listen to the radio (and "radio") through the internet the idea that anyone would want to invest a fortune reviving the idea in 2014 seems unlikely... hang on... what's this, mediaGuardian?

Commercial radio rivals Magic owner Bauer and TalkSport parent UTV Media have joined forces in a bid to succeed where Channel 4 failed with a joint application to run the second national digital radio multiplex.

The radio groups have teamed up with transmission business Arqiva for their application for the licence to run the second nationwide digital audio broadcasting (DAB) platform, which will be home to around 10 new national radio services.

Why? In god's name, why?

Arqiva owns the only national DAB multiplex to launch to date, Digital One, which is full to capacity with 14 stations, including five from Bauer – Absolute Radio and its spin-offs Absolute 80s and Absolute Radio 90s, Planet Rock and Kiss – and UTV’s TalkSport.

Mmmm. Full to capacity. It's certainly true that there are no spare slots on the DAB One Multiplex, but given that Smooth is about to leave the multiplex and is being replaced with yet-another-late-20th-century oldies station the idea that there's a load of exciting ideas just waiting to find space seems unlikely.

Planet Rock on the block

Planet Rock - which I think is the only surviving original DAB commercial channel - is up for sale, although owner Malcolm Bluemel might want to stress a little less how he's burned through three million quid propping the station up.

Currently Planet Rock has a million listeners - which is good news - but each one of those represents a 33p loss. It doesn't sound like it would be impossible to shift that towards a break-even point; the question is if anyone would care as passionately as Bluemel did to try.

DAB: I don't feel Amazing now

Amazing Radio is going through something of a golden era - turning a profit, about to expand to America, everything's looking good.

Except it's coming off DAB transmissions.

Why?

Founder Paul Campbell points the finger at Digital One, who run the DAB system:

So why, if everything’s going so well, is Amazing Radio coming off digital radio in the UK? Why for a time at least, will it be broadcasting online and on mobile Apps only?

It’s not our preference. We would have loved to stay on the UK airwaves – it’s been a real privilege to be ‘six clicks to the left of Radio 1’. But we’ve got into a barney with the people who own the transmitter network. It’s about money. ‘Nuff said. The net result is that Amazing Radio will continue on wi-fi, but no longer on the wireless. For the moment, at any rate.

Given that, aside from the BBC, there's bugger all on DAB, it's bemusing to see the Multiplex owners chasing decent programming off their service. Almost as if they'd rather it just went away.

Global Radio wants BBC to hurry up spreading outdated technology

Ashley Tabor, who runs commercial radio effort Global, has been moaning to the Radio Festival that the BBC isn't pouring enough cash down the DAB drain:

BBC director general Mark Thompson recently confirmed that the corporation would fund the rollout of its national digital multiplex to reach 97% of the population.

But Tabor said the issue of local and regional DAB coverage was still unresolved, something he had spent "all year" raising with the BBC without conclusion.

I suspect there has been a conclusion - the BBC concluding that it's probably best to not take calls from Tabor any more.

Ten years ago, DAB had its crack at being the coming thing, and a speedy roll-out would have cemented its position as a distribution mechanism. But the commercially-funded plans were never fulfilled, and now: well, who would buy a DAB radio instead of one that uses IP radio instead? Is anyone really thinking the pisspoor commercial selection of channels on DAB is going to make a purchase of DAB a better bet? "Oh, why would I want thousands and thousands of audio channels when I could instead have three or four slightly different variants of Capital?"

If DAB had any sort of future, the commercial sector would be rushing to build it and enjoy the riches for itself. Instead, it expects the BBC to fund its distribution network for it.

"What has not been agreed yet is the local and regional layers which are not yet at FM equivalent. That is really important," Tabor told the Radio Festival in Salford on Tuesday.

"Does digital radio have a place in the broadcast ecology? Of course. Does radio have a place in digital? Of course. That's a very different thing to switchover.

"At the moment 68% of listening is still analogue, FM reaches every valley in the country. DAB doesn't. That's a key issue and the funding to build that out still hasn't been nailed yet."

Digital radio, absolutely. Radio as part of the digital world, certainly. But that it doesn't follow that DAB is the delivery mechanism for that. Given commercial radio isn't that interested in making programmes or networks for DAB, and people don't want to buy DAB radios, why try and bully the BBC into building transmitters to link up the two uninterested parties?

AsianFX to close

While Gaydar is throwing its hopes and dreams onto DAB, others are struggling: AsianFX is closing. They can't make DAB pay:

A spokesperson for Asian Fx told BizAsia.co.uk; "It is difficult to sustain a service on DAB in the current financial climate considering we launched Asian Fx just as the recession started, thank you everyone who supported the station and who knows when things get better Asian Fx name may return in broadcasting perhaps in a visual format."

I think "broadcasting perhaps in a visual format" means on TV in some form.

Commercial radio doesn't like the BBC

It's not just Nadine Dorries ('we don't need a national broadcaster because ITV have made a period drama') doing cartwheels this morning over the defenestration of the BBC; just yesterday commercial radio was blaming BBC Radio for being too good.

Every few weeks, someone from commercial radio says that Radios 1 and 2 should be made substantially poorer to encourage people to listen to them, instead. This time round, it's Ashley Tabor, who is head of Global, who is saying it's just not fair:

"These two powerhouse radio stations should do what they were set up to do — provide that which cannot be provided commercially, that's where the value is. Good-quality content which is not commercially viable."

Tabor, presumably, isn't so ignorant of radio history that he's really proposing the stations be run along the lines they were established on in 1967, when there was no commercial radio at all broadcasting from the UK.

I'm not sure Radio 1 and 2 have even been told their role is only to broadcast non-commercially viable stuff, but given that commercial radio is apparently incapable of producing programmes of the quality of the two BBC networks, that would appear to be what happens more-or-less by accident.

The Global boss said Radio 1 was not doing enough to support new British music, adding that he wanted it to break at least 10 new UK bands next year — and described its playlist as "very, very mainstream".

But if Radio 1 doesn't mix Top 40 music with new bands and acts, how is it going to "break" (by which I guess Tabor means 'help towards the mainstream') anything?

And if a band is broken by Radio 1, does that mean they're then mainstream and should be dropped from the radio station straight away? Is Tabor suggesting the Sunday night Top 40 rundown should only be allowed to play the new entries?

To be frank, I'd be very surprised if setting some sort of confused 'break bands' target to 10 wouldn't mark a major reduction in the number of acts given support by the BBC in their early years. And would a band that finds a small audience who follows them for years, but doesn't have a top ten hit, be considered a mark for this mysterious target or not?

Tabor likes strange maths, though:

He claimed the two stations were delivering on only 30% of their public service commitments.

I'd love to see his working on that. Does the announced Panorama-style programme on Radio 1 bring us up to 32%?

Paul Keenan - head of Bauer's radio things - has another cunning plan:

Paul Keenan, chief executive of Kiss and Magic parent Bauer Radio, said the two BBC stations could be used as a key driver in encouraging digital take-up by removing them from analogue and making them digital-only, including digital audio broadcasting (DAB).

"If you moved Radio 1 and Radio 2 that would show us the way [on digital]," Keenan told the BBC's director of audio and music, Tim Davie, at the Radio Festival in Salford.

Paul Keenan, I hope you never play poker, as it's probable you'd hold your cards the wrong way round.

You're really suggesting that commercial radio would invest in DAB if Radio 1 and 2 went DAB-only?

Really?

Because given that commercial radio spends every minute of every day whining about how it can't compete with Radio 1 and 2, why would you then rush to join them on a largely unadopted platform? If you really thought there was a future in DAB, you'd be investing in it and campaigning for Radio 1 and 2 to be kept off it.

Presumably Bauer's radio networks have got so used to assuming its audience is a bit dull that they've forgotten we're not all idiots.

Tuning into Ed Vaizey's vision of the future

Just had time to catch up on Ed Vaizey's digital radio switchover speech in full, which is a little bemusing.

First is that he works from the assumption that the future of digital radio must be DAB. Indeed, Vaizey only gives a few lines to the possibility that there's more than one way to get radio stations digitally to people's ears, and that is to sniff that the internet won't work:

First, radio’s digital future will not be delivered by the internet alone; at least not in the immediate future. There would be massive implications for capacity and energy use if all listeners listened to the radio on the internet.

Instead we believe radio’s future is a mixed ecology, with DAB, which is mobile, free at the point of access and cost efficient providing the ‘spine’ of the digital radio offering and the internet providing the added value. We have already seen a trend towards the integration of internet and DAB in radio receivers. We welcome this not least because it allows the listener to decide which platform best suits them.

This isn't very convincing - yes, there would be energy and capacity implications if people listened entirely to internet delivered online (along, as Vaizey fails to mention, with the 'how do you get it to people when they're on the A303' question.) But that doesn't mean it's a non-starter.

After all, there's energy and capacity questions about doing anything online.

And the integration of IP and DAB radios is a bit of a red herring - I nearly bought one of those myself, but went instead for a much cheaper IP/FM device. On the basis that why would I pay extra for a device which offered me no extra stations for the extra cost?

And what does Vaizey mean about the 'added value' services being on the internet? Is that an implication that the DAB stations add no value to British radio? Surely not? But if the added-value stuff is on the internet, why would people be listening to DAB - especially if they've bought a radio that can receive both?

"Rather than listen to the internet station which is really good, I'll tune into the DAB one that's a bit like it."

And where does Vaizey see these 'added value' propositions coming from - later on, when he's rubbishing the idea of dumping DAB for the more-station-for-your-bandwidth DAB+ standard, he makes this observation:

The benefits of DAB+ are primarily a more effective use of spectrum, but DAB already offers significant capacity for new services and there are only so many which the market can sustain.

So there are a load of added value services which will appear online, to be delivered in a way which burns energy and consumes bandwidth - but if you think it might be better to adopt DAB+ to distribute these extra services, suddenly they become too much for the market to stand.

Perhaps Ed should have held off making his speech about radio until he'd had a chance to think about his position for longer than the length of a Heart FM news bulletin.

The lack of coherence shines out of the key detail of the speech, too. The idea of digital switch-over:

On this point I should be clear. We agree that 2015 is an appropriate target date; a point at which all parts of the supply-chain can focus on. If, and it is a big if, the consumer is ready we will support a 2015 switchover date.

Vaizey seems to have decided that DAB makes sense, and that migration from FM to DAB is the policy. He wants everyone working towards 2015 as the moment when that will happen. That is a clear, coherent position.

Only:

We will only consider implementing a Digital Radio Switchover once at least 50% of all listening is already on digital, or to put it another way when analogue listening is in the minority.

At the same time he insists he won't switch off FM while it's still the main way people listen to radio.

So why, exactly, does he think people will choose to swap from FM to DAB without the push of the possibility that buying an FM radio now is a way to purchase an expensive future paperweight?

"We'll switch off the FM network at some point in the future, but not until everyone gets round to not using FM anyway" isn't really a policy, it's just an observation.

BBC announces plans to waste money saved by closing 6Music

Hey! Good news, everyone - by closing down 6Music and Asian Network, the BBC will have enough money to build 60 new DAB transmitters across the country. This will allow even more people to enjoy listening to the empty space left by the closure of the services in high quality digital no sound.

NME Radio goes national

It's not all troops and priests on commercial DAB, you know. Or, at least, won't be from next Monday: NME has found itself a national DAB slot and will be trying it out for eight months to see if there's an audience who are desperate to listen to Claire Sturgess, who have managed to buy a DAB radio set but couldn't, for some reason, tune in online or through digital television.

DAB off-air: Luckily nobody noticed

The commercial DAB national network fell off the air earlier today.

Of course, it's cruel to say nobody noticed: Digital Spy forum members noticed. But many people on Digital Spy only listen to the radio in the hope there's going to be a massive technical failure, so they won't be upset.

Panjab Radio goes nationwide

At last, something different on DAB: Panjab Radio is going nationwide from December 1st. Assuming they can raise the cash. Their website really needs a giant totaliser.

It'll be interesting to see what this does to the Asian Network's audience, which is already a bit slippery - there's certainly room for the two different approaches to broadcasting, although there might not be room amongst the DAB audiences.

Absolute invites you to dance the Prince Charming

Absolute have announced plans to launch an 80s station on the internet and DAB in London.

Absolute 80s aims to be a "nostalgia trip" for 30- to 54-year-olds, playing 80s pop from the likes of the Human League, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, Prince, ABC, Depeche Mode, Blondie and Bon Jovi.

The new station will operate as a jukebox format, without DJs, while the evening playlist will have a party feel.

This is going to take the place of Absolute Xtreme, which - as we were saying last week - is barely distinguishable from the main station. Something had to be done, and this is clearly something.

The worry for Absolute must be, though, that while people like to have 80s themed parties, and some people still dress up as Boy George and Marilyn to have sex from time to time, is it something that people want round the clock?

Yes, Duran Duran albums still sell tolerably well. And Spandau Ballet can sell tickets to a comeback. But there's a market for Clangers DVDs and Bagpuss backpacks; it would be a foolish move to launch a TV channel off the back of that, though.

I'm not clear that there's any demand for a sustained network playing (a very, very small segment of) 80s music without a presenter or context. And if there is, wouldn't sticking 'Wham" into LastFM do the job?

Someone still loves you, DAB

It's hard to find someone with a kind word to say about DAB these days. And even if you do find a kind word, it will be of the "it was a great idea but one whose time has come and gone".

But not Tony Moretta. Oh, no: He takes to the Guardian blogs to argue that DAB has a future. That it is the future.

Of course, his fervent belief in the format is most easily explained by the final line of his piece:

Tony Moretta is chief executive of the Digital Radio Development Bureau

His argument is achingly familiar, pointing out that there are DAB radios in one in three households in the country, while not mentioning the fact that most - probably at least one in ten - radios in the UK aren't.

Moretta points to the success of digital TV as a sign of hope:

And finally, as food for thought, it is six years until the end of 2015 – almost the same as since the launch of Freeview, when there were only about 600,000 households with digital terrestrial television. Now there are almost 18m. A powerful example of what a broadcast industry can achieve through co-operation, innovation and hard work.

But it isn't the same thing, is it, Tony? Digital TV offered a range of extra services; currently, DAB extends your choice very, very narrowly. Old TV sets can be adapted to take a digital signal; most radio sets can't. Households may have two or three TV sets; some households could have more than half a dozen radios.

And that spread of Freeview boxes? Don't forget that those aren't just an example of what the broadcasting industry can do; it was also a way of distributing an alternative method of broadcasting digital radio programmes. By your own figures, there are just nine million DAB sets in the UK; dwarfed by the number of people who can get the same stations on just one of the digital TV formats.

So why is Tony so chipper? He points to the plans:

1. Improved coverage and reception: We will roll out DAB coverage to match FM, through new transmitters and signal strength increases.

You haven't even finished building the initial network yet. We're still waiting for the regional multiplex in Beds, Herts & Bucks to appear; the licence to build it was awarded two years ago. I say "waiting", but there's no baiting of breath on it.

2. Improved, co-ordinated marketing: Last Christmas saw the first joint campaign across the BBC and commercial radio. We are developing this approach still further with the manufacturers and retailers, to more clearly brand digital radios and sell the benefits to consumers.

DAB radios have been on sale in the UK for a decade. If people aren't buying them, it may very well not be an "education" problem.

3. New and improved content: DAB already offers much more choice than analogue, with strong services from the BBC and commercial radio, and this will only increase as the economy improves and the increased take-up of digital improves the business case for digital-only stations.

Although it offers less choice, much less choice, than signals broadcast alongside TV, and a world less than IP radio. So if you're going to go to the trouble and expense of upgrading, what would you go with?

4. Cheaper DAB radios: Already under £30, within 12 to 18 months they will be £20 or even £15. At that price the benefits of DAB will appeal to millions more consumers.

That's the way to drive take-up - "don't buy a set yet, as in 18 months you'll be able to get one for half the price..."

5. Cars: Ford and Vauxhall, the manufacturers of six of the 10 most popular cars in the UK, have announced their support for the Digital Britain proposals. Manufacturers are increasingly fitting DAB as standard or as a low cost option, and this will increase quickly now with a common technical standard across Europe. Low cost, easy-to-use adapters are already available and will only improve.

Wow. Half the seventeen or eighteen new cars they're expecting to sell this year will come from a manufacturer that "supports" DAB. Come on, Tony: even the motor industry doesn't really think new car sales will help the motor industry at the moment, much less a radio format.

And you know what else you can get low cost, easy-to-use adapter for? iPods and iPhones. One will let you have your own music in the car; the other will give you access to an increasing number of broadcast and web-only radio stations on an unlimited data package.

Again, what would you choose?

The cruelest irony is that what might have once been the great hope for DAB - an analogue switch-off - is actually going to be the final kicking. The old AM and FM radio frequencies will wind up delivering wireless internet, making web-radio even more accessible.

What's fascinating is that Moretta's whole argument sees DAB as being in competition solely with FM and AM radios. It's as if Britain had shaped its entire 20th century foreign policy to avoid an invasion from Napoleon.

Digital Britain: Hang on until 2015, DAB

If the parts of Digital Britain which deal with filesharing seem like polite attempts to placate rights holders by pretending they have good ideas, then what to make of the idea of switching off FM and AM by 2015 in a bid to make millions of radios obsolete and fill up the dumps of Britain?

Sure, TV switched over quite painlessly, so far - but TVs and radios are fundamentally different; you can adapt most TVs to take a signal from a set-top box, turning them from analogue into digital. And most households have already, voluntarily, taken themselves digital.

Radios, though, aren't so easy to turn into digital devices. Effectively, if you've got a radio that gets Radio Fuddleduck FM, the only way to make it pick up Fuddleduck Digital is by unscrewing the plug, throwing the radio away, and then putting the plug on a digital radio.

And most households have yet to voluntarily take themselves digital.

Partly because, really, there's little point. Sure, you get 6 and 7, but most of the extra channels are weak, or just what you get elsewhere. Milton Keynes, for example, is still waiting for its regional multiplex, and when it finally turns up, most of its channels are going to be slightly different local variations of Heart. I've got a DAB because I love radio, and gadgets - but the radio I use most often is the one which picks up signals from my wireless router, not the DAB.

So turning off FM and AM isn't going to be as smooth as pushing the last few stragglers to Sky or Cable or Freeview; Gordon Brown might want to cast his mind back to the marches through central London when the BBC proposed removing Radio 4 from Long Wave; taking everything off AM and FM might be a foolish act for a politician bleeding popularity. And to push a broadcast network which has already been surpassed in range by IP radio? Why would you risk that?

It might make more sense to think about how to get wireless internet radio into cars. And leave AM and FM to fade away when there's a serious alternative.

Zune struggling on

Yesterday in Target, noticed that they're still proudly offering the Zune, albeit with a large, nearly empty glass case. Not that Microsoft is bothered, as it's pushing on with its money-burning music player:

Zune HD is the next iteration of the Zune device family and brings a new level of listening and viewing experiences to the portable media player category.

*Zune HD comes with a built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favorite stations multicasting in HD. If you don't like the song playing on your station's HD channel, switch to its HD2 or HD3 channels for additional programming.

Yes, they've effectively added a DAB tuner to the Zune. If they sold in the UK, that would seem a touching degree of faith in the format, but in the US, this really has the air of adding a thing for getting stones out of horses hooves. You're competing with web-enabled devices that have streaming music devices coming out of their touchscreens, and you have the big idea of giving access to stations using a broadcast format that barely registers? Seriously?

The other Zune annoucement is a slightly disingenuous attempt to try and make the brand a success by pretending it's something else:

Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, bringing an exciting catalog of TV and film to the platform. Zune will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, exposing the Zune brand experience to millions of new consumers for the first time. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week, attendees will see firsthand how Zune integrates into Xbox LIVE to create a game-changing entertainment experience.

Well, they've spent all the money on the logo, but even so - wouldn't it make it more sense to call it XBox Entertainment or something less... tainted?

Mind you, Microsoft is rebranding its search as Bing. So perhaps things could be worse.

Global Radio: Listening as they retune

Stephen Miron, who is in charge of Global Radio, talks to the Guardian today, in which he explains where he sees commercial radio heading in the future:

"Our challenge as an industry is to make sure we provide absolutely compelling reasons why listeners should go from analogue to digital," Miron says. "That means making sure listeners can get everything they get on today's FM radio as a minimum, and creating compelling new ones that will attract listeners."

Oddly, Miron's Global has been busily cutting back the range of services available on FM, to the point where Ofcom has been clearing its throat about it. If you can't deliver on FM what audiences are used to on FM, how are you going to be able to do so on digital?

Miron's idea is to get the government to pay for it:

Discussions are at a sensitive stage, but Miron is adamant the government must hand operators an incentive to invest. "As an industry we have already invested £180m in DAB with very little return," he says. "That's a lot of money."

Is it? Global spent £370m on buying Capital - part of a half-billion acquisition spree- so it's not like £180 million across an industry across the best part of a decade is such an awful lot of money. And given that there's precious little to show for it, an outsider might wonder if handing tax quids to a bunch of companies whose brightest contribution to DAB so far has been recording of birdsongs would be the wisest way to spend the money.

James P also sent some observations about his attitude to his network of formerly local stations:

It's all fairly bemusing stuff (particularly his comment that the Heart rebranding happened because "There are lots of itty-bitty stations all over the place" - Apparently simultaneously frustrated by and dismissive of those pesky local stations with their irritatingly different markets and locations), but the strangest claims come at the end. He says "We have advertisers who say, we wish we could advertise on Radio 2. Well now you can - it's called Heart". I can't work out if he's optimistically trying to plug his stations, or if he genuinely believes Heart stations are a rival to Radio 2, and hasn't realised that one of the main reasons people listen to Radio 2 is because those advertisers *can't* advertise there. (That and the more interesting playlist, better presenters, lack of 'speedlinks' instructing you not to miss tomorrow's Breakfast with Jez and Mel for your chance to win £50 with Scruttocks Windows and Conservatories, etc).

At the moment, Radio 2 is doing Big Band Special, which will be followed by Viva Latino. On Heart, Simon Beale is playing a Jamelia record on Heartbreakers. The two networks are virtually impossible to tell apart, aren't they?

"Let us be rubbish, and we'll give you a national rubbish station" pledges Commercial Radio

The Radio Centre, the body which represents "the UK commercial radio industry" (which is, what, two companies and bit of the Guardian?) has come up with a nifty idea to save DAB:

The confidential report by Ingenious Consulting, seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk, said commercial radio would launch a 24-hour national news and speech station and a national music-based entertainment service on the troubled digital audio broadcasting (DAB) platform.

Blimey. That's awfully good of you, people. Investing in a solid product will certainly help DAB and, by providing a quality service, attract advertising which will enable you to make a profit.

That is the idea, isn't it?

You just see this as a commercial deal?

Oh:

In return for the extra commitment to DAB, the report urged the government and media regulator Ofcom to slash the number of hours that small commercial stations are required to produce and allow more co-locating of small-scale broadcasters.

In other words, in order to launch a product that may or may not have a commercial future, the companies what the already pissweak rules which keep local radio vaguely local to be thrown away.

Now, it's not that I don't trust these guys - but does anyone really trust them? Isn't this like when someone comes to your door and offers to clean your garden for a tenner, pockets the tenner, and then disappears? Surely not even Ofcom is dim enough to believe that the commercial news and talk station would remain delivering a premium service for more than about ten seconds after they were allowed to shed off the last of their obligations to the local areas they were supposed to be serving?

What sort of approach is it to say "hey, we can't afford to deliver a proper service in Oldham, or Hastings, or Brigadoon, but we could, somehow, offer you a top-quality pair of 24 hour national stations if you let us drop our obligations"?

Here's an idea - why not try going up to the police and offering to do a spot of forensic work for them if they ignore the law about not stealing stuff from WH Smiths?

Apple dips in DAB

Apple have - without much fanfare - purchased a small stake in Imagination. Who is Imagination? They're the people who own Pure, the DAB radio manufacturer. It's a safe guess Apple is less interested in DAB as such, and more fascinated about the work the company is doing with IP radio.

Ofcom plans to save DAB by law

Today's Radio At The Edge conference saw Ofcom's Peter Davies floating a thought up the mast to see how many sinking rats saluted: perhaps Parliament should make some laws to make DAB work?

The idea would be legislation allowing Ofcom to change the ways that digital radio licences are handed out, enabling the rules to be relaxed and new entrants brought in to... you know... somehow make it all... work. Or perhaps just forcing people to listen by law. So that, in 2012, TV adverts will encourage children to report parents to the authorities if they don't listen to a regulation forty-seven minutes of Dr Fox a day.

Commercial radio, though, seems less than keen on pushing on with DAB, having poured in some money already and having seen very low returns. Especially at a time when the companies are happily, Circuit City like, finding ways to cut back their core services without caring much about quality. It's hard to see what new laws could really do.

The DAB problem is thrown into sharper relief when you compare the US and UK services.

DAB enthusiasts in the UK suggest that what is needed is a radio 'Freeview' moment. But Freeview succeeded by bringing a free service to a previous pay-platform, and expanded the quality and number of channels on offer. DAB is already free-to-air, and (at least initially) offered a wider range of stations; it seems unlikely that having a radio version of E4 was going to make much of a difference.

In the US, DAB is being sold as HD Radio - again, using a TV metaphor, hoping that traction will be found by promising higher quality sound. But DAB - as audiophiles will drone on at you at great length - is no guarantor of audio fidelity.

Trying to sell radio as if it was TV won't work. The BBC's suite of stations does offer something new, but it's not unique to DAB. You could, perhaps, increase the hours of listening to DAB radios by switching 6Music and Radio 7's streams off satellite and the web - but that would make you less popular than Russell Brand at Andrew Sachs' family gatherings.

Mojo not working

There was probably something inevitable in the Bauer radio strategy being pulled back - they're closing down Mojo Radio. To be fair, for a service which overlapped with so many other radio stations, its audience of 279,000 wasn't that bad; Bauer will be hoping those people retune to Q Radio after they close Mojo at the end of this month.