Digital Radio has started broadcasting in Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne. After starting in Perth last week.
According to reports in the Australian Newspaper commercial stations Mix, Gold, SEN, 3AW, 3MP, Fox, Magic, Nova, Triple M, Vega, Sport 927, Radar, Pink Radio, Koffee and NovaNation have launched their digital radio signals.
To listen to digital radio you will need to purchase a new digital radio, that is a device that has a DAB+ chip in it. According to Sky News Business Channel’s MediaWeek program digital radios will be priced from about $150.00. At the moment on digital radio plus website there are 28 different models available.
What are the advantages of Digital Radio?
According to www.digitalradioplus.com.au digital radio provides a number of benefits, including:
Clearer Reception and sound quality
Extra features, such as Digital-only channels, pausing live radio, scrolling text and a raft of other features
Tuning station by name rather than frequency
Digital-only channels will provide broadcasters and advertisers a chance to target niche markets, using a low-cost model
The real issue is will digital radio find an audience in Australia? The key it would appear for digital radio to find traction in Australia is forming a partnership with automotive manufacturers. Most of us, it would appear, when driving home to and from work, or picking the kids up from school listen to the in-car radio, and therefore if the radio industry can have new cars installed with digital radios this would provide them with strong market traction.
According to www.themotorreport.com.au Commercial Radio Australia, the industry body for commercial radio stations in Australia, has begun talks with the automotive industry to encourage them to add a DAB+ chip into those receivers for the Australian market. They are also looking at having options for adding DAB+ radios to cars already on the road.
Another area to consider whether digital radio will work in Australia, is looking to the United Kingdom. Having lived in the UK for 12 months and purchased a digital radio whilst living there, digital radio certainly had its advantages. Such as listening to Test match cricket on BBC’s digital only channel Five Live Sports Extra or listening to non-stop pop music on the now defunct Core FM.
Digital Radio was launched in the UK in 1999 and according to the latest figures published today in the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, the penetration rate of digital radio is at 33.3% (those who listen to digital radio at least once per week) and total share of all listeners grew in the last three months to 20.1%. These figures compare to digital television in the UK which according to OFCOM, the UK regulator, at the end of 2007 had an 86.7% penetration rate of all UK households. So whilst digital radio has a fifth of the radio population its penetration rate trails substantially compared to that of digital TV in the UK. Meanwhile, according to Paul Budd Communication, the penetration rate of digital TV in Australia is still only 31.8%, even though it has nearly been available in Australia for nearly a decade.
Therefore it looks like it will be an uphill task for digital radio to find audience traction across the country. This is especially so given the ease of access to new forms of radio broadcast, either through streaming over the Internet or listening to your favorite program via podcast. For example, Austero’s Hamish & Andy drive program, which is broadcast across the Today network daily, is currently rank #2 for downloads on Australia’s iTunes Store.
In any event, it appears that Commercial Radio Australia, along with their public broadcasting buddies at the ABC and SBS Radio have started on the right foot by gathering together to ensure they can market digital radio to the consumer, as opposed to the TV industry’s attempt to have households switch to digital TV, which has only just formed Freeview.