About 300 CE industry movers and shakers flocked to the...
About 300 CE industry movers and shakers flocked to the “Drive 2 Digital” conference in London Monday seeking clarity on the U.K. government’s plans to switch the nation’s over-the-air radio service from analog to DAB digital. Many said they arrived…
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at BBC hoping to hear U.K. Broadcast Minister Ed Vaizey set a date certain for the digital radio switchover. However, Vaizey, who was out of the country on government business, used a video presentation merely to restate his previous position -- that at the end of 2013, the government will announce a hard 2015 date for the analog switchoff, but only if half of all radio listening hours by late next year are digital. At the conference, John Mottram, head of radio at Vaizey’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, estimated that the proportion of digital listening hours now stands at an encouraging 31.5 percent. “We are absolutely certain switchover is going to happen,” Mottram declared. It’s in “cast iron,” he said, then added this disclaimer: “But we can’t guarantee 50 percent by the end of 2013.” It was then left up to a succession of speakers at the conference to highlight the practical problems of increasing digital listening hours from 31.5 to 50 percent. For example, 42 percent of all U.K. homes now own at least one digital radio, one presenter said. But 20 percent of all radio listening hours are clocked in cars and trucks, he said. There are 31 million vehicles on Britain’s roads, and only 5 percent have a digital radio, he said. Moreover, although a quarter of all new cars registered in the U.K. now come factory-fitted with a digital radio, they tend to be concentrated among the more expensive models, and in austere times people are keeping their old cars longer, he said.