nick piggott

OFCOM have always undertaken to be an evidenced based regulator, so it was very pleasing to see the outcome of some research they have done as part of their Future of Radio consultation.

They asked radio listeners about their views on Sound Quality of DAB Radio. Needless to say, 97% of the population either had no view on the issue (3%), or thought DAB sounded just fine to them (94%). That leaves 3% of the population how aren’t happy with it.

James has done a very good dissection of the numbers, so go and have a look there for more info.

In the meantime, I’ve no doubt that the vocal minority will continue to be vocal, but at least we have empirical evidence that they are unequivocally in the minority.

Channel 4 have been showing this promo for their radio service. I spotted it on Monday night before and after “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (great film, BTW). They certainly seem to be keen to show that this is a serious commitment on their behalf; this can’t have been a cheap commercial to make. And maybe it keeps the pressure up on OFCOM (see earlier blog posts). Maybe regulators like quirky films too.

Jack Schofield has posted a blog item on Guardian Unlimited about the difference in audio quality between Windows Media Audio files at 128kbit/s and aac at 256kbit/s. It’s in response to a blind sound-test challenge that PC World are running.

What struck me about this post, and the comments left on it, is its reasonable, balanced approach to sound quality, in stark contrast to the apparently parallel debate about sound quality on DAB radio. Jack mentions DAB in his article towards the end, and infers that it is those people with SACDs and hi-end sound system how are most disappointed when “DAB radio turns them back into mush”.

The majority of the comments left by people are also generally in support of “the quality’s good enough for me” approach, which is encouraging. After so much relentless blugeoning of the sound quality issue by a small number of people, it’s heartening to see a different view and one that seems to be more representative of the mainstream of music consumers.

I’ve certainly thought about mounting a blind-test challenge for various bit-rates of MPEG2 encoding, and far more importantly, different brands of MPEG2 encoders (which can have a far more significant impact on audio quality than the bit-rate). Maybe I’ll set that up.

I am convinced that DAB is suffering from a positioning problem which persists 12 years after the launch. DAB was launched (in Sweden and the UK) as a quality audio proposition. It bombed. There simply aren’t enough people sufficiently concerned about audio quality to invest £600 in a high end receiver to sit alongside their Nakamichi SACD player and their £3,500 turntable. DAB was implicitly repositioned in the late 90’s with the launch of DigitalOne (11 stations) and the expansion of the BBC in 2002. It was emphatically the variety of new services that stimulated the mass market.

MP3 has always had the position of being all about variety. The P2p networks which drove early adoption of file-based music had rotten audio quality (cascaded 64kbit/s MP3) but the attraction was choice and free music. People simply didn’t care how bad it was as long as it was listenable to. I think MP3 (at al) are going to find it difficut to upsell people to “quality” audio for exactly the opposite reasons that DAB is getting brick-batted for being “bad audio”.

It’s hard to see how to make the repositioning of DAB in the UK more explicit; it would be counter-productive to run messaging saying “never mind the quality, hear the quantity” when most people think DAB sounds mighty fine. (I agree wholeheartedly. I just bought a new car with a very-built-in FM radio, and it sounds very soggy and mushy).

In the meantime, the weight of formal research supporting the “quality is fine” argument continues to grow and grow, which helps rebutt the brickbats even more effectively.

The applications for the UK’s second national DAB multiplex were submitted last week, and have been blogged already.

I’m mentioning it here because the two bids, regardless of their lineups, have very different styles.

Channel 4’s bid oozes enthusiasm and big ideas, whilst NGW’s is more business like in it’s approach. That’s interesting because OFCOM, a bit like a jury, are supposed to judge the facts and nothing but the facts. Any accompanying razzmatazz should be completely ignored, and the winner decided purely on the merits of some fairly unemotional measures in the application document.

That’s been the theory of licence application since it began under the Radio Authority in the early 1990’s. Indeed, it was specifically emphasised in the old RA applications that providing additional information was discouraged and could jeopardise an application.

The reality is though that OFCOM live in the real world, surrounded by the real media, and they can’t help but absorb the excitment / enthusiasm / bullsh!t (take your pick) generated C4. It certainly puts them in a position where there will probably be more questions asked if C4 don’t win the 2nd licence than if they do.

On balance, I like what C4 have done. They’ve invigorated the business of DAB by bringing exciting new ideas and an apparent commitment to deliver. DigitalOne, as the existing national mux, has got all tied up in knots and hasn’t done anything new for radio for a long time (handing over 400kbit/s of capacity to a struggling Mobile TV service doesn’t really help radio).

Even if OFCOM steadfastly ignores these issues, it’s out in the open now, and the expectations for DAB should be set higher.

James alerted me last night to a posting by Steve Green, reviewing Quentin Howard’s (president of WorldDMB) appearance on Working Lunch in his usual style.

I’ll start by concurring that my experiences of Steve are pretty much in-line with those James describes; personal attracks, vitriol and an overwhelming obsession on the issue of sound quality which appears sometimes to ignore facts and realities. So please bear that in mind.

I’m not going to comment on Quentin’s appearance. One appearance by one individual does not constitute the entire policy of the UK radio industry to DAB+.

Virtually everyone agrees on a few very salient and unarguable points:

• DAB+ / aac+ is more spectrum efficient. That means more radio stations in the same space. (Steve and others seem to believe it will lead to a miraculous improvement in audio quality. The market will decide that, not a small, viciously vocal, minority).
• There are at least 4m DAB radios in the UK that will not receive DAB+ broadcasts.
• Nobody wants to disenfranchise consumers who have invested in DAB so far, or are likely to do so in the foreseable future.
• No broadcaster wants to start a DAB+ station that either can’t be received because there are no capable receivers, or is at a significant disadvantage to their competitors because the relative market share is tiny.
• Even if DAB+ capable radios start to enter the supply chain in Q3 this year, as Steve seems to think (and believe me, there’s a big time difference between a fabless silicon manufacturer saying designs will be ready in Q3 and radios appearing in retail), it will be many years before they account for even half the market, let alone the majority.

Interestingly, the problem of changing from an MPEG2 to MPEG4 technology is far more acute and immediate in DVB-T (Freeview) where Sky are planning unilaterally to ditch MPEG2 transmissions so they can squeeze more MEPG4 stations on (and probably some HD services) but make them subscription only. I suppose they’ll simply offer to swap people’s boxes out if they take out a “Sky Lite” subscription, which would make economic sense to them. (I’d guess a MPEG4 Freeview box would cost around $30 / £16 to Sky).

So why is nobody fretting and frothing at the mouth about what Sky want to do right now that will disenfrancise a whole load (7.5m?) of Freeview people? Maybe nobody who froths and foams has noticed yet?

James notes, entirely correctly, that you could start a DAB+ service now, but it would be clearly classed as a data service, and therefore would not be a Licensed Sound Service. Incidentally, you can run a subscription radio service under MPEG2 and it is still a radio service. But run a subscription service under MPEG4, and it’s data. Maybe somebody will do a Sky with DAB? Start a bunch of subscription radio services (I reckon you’d get 10 in 400kbit/s) and provide a free DAB+ receiver in return. But using subscriptions to subsidise hardware is, in my opinion, the road to ruin and not a good place to move the entire industry.

Incidentally, it’s worth bearing in mind that even if you improve the audio coding efficiency, you still use the same capacity for data services like DLS, Slideshow, Broadcast Website, EPG, TPEG. That isn’t going to go down, but probably will go up as people get used to a more multi-media experience.

One thing that can generally be said for OFCOM is that they are a pragmatic regulator. That’s good for an industry that’s having to move fast these days. I’m sure that when the market conditions are right, the industry will sit down with OFCOM and discuss the start of a transition to DAB+. But that will be a long time off.