RAJAR has today released audience research for the Quarter ended March 2012 and its great to see further strong growth in digital radio listening.

Key headlines for RAJAR are:

• 45% of the population has tuned in via any Digital platform
• 22.1 million adults have access to a DAB receiver up 12% year on year
• For the first time there has been more than 200 million hours recorded for DAB listening

Listening to radio via a digital platform in terms of weekly reach has increased by 5% year on year, with 23.5 million people now tuning in to radio via a digitally enabled receiver (DAB, DTV, internet) each week (up  from 22.3 million in Q1 2011).

The share of all radio listening via a digital platform is now 29.2% (against 26.5% in 2011), with DAB’s share increasing by 15% to 19.1% of all listening (16.7% in 2011).

The share of all listening through DTV is now 4.4%, with Internet’s share at 3.9%.

Last week Pure held an event to celebrate 10 years of making beautiful functional DAB radios. Matt, Greg and I attended and enjoyed seeing the display of Pure Evokes from across the last decade, from the first blue nylon-fronted limited run to the smart 2012 union flag issue. We were pleased to celebrate the distance covered with the team from Pure and toast their successes.

It was appropriate timing for us, looking back and forward – not least because earlier the same day I’d had our kick off meeting with our transmission subcontractor, lining things up for the launch of Muxco WCL later this year.

At GCAP (as was) between 2001 and 2007 Greg Matt and I operated over 20 DAB multiplexes and oversaw the launches for a large amount of those.

I became pretty used to launches and multiplexes but that was then. All sorts of things have changed, not always the obvious stuff.  Here’s an example.

The more multiplexes you launch the more transmitters there are to inexplicably go on the blink at odd times, like, say 3am.

Back then in 2002 or 2003, as now, I’d always have the phone to hand, and after waking with a jolt to hear what had gone wrong, I would notify station engineers instantly, them similarly half asleep. I think it is fair to say they didn’t always give a flying toss that a DAB transmitter that covered 6 sheep in a field had gone down 3db for four minutes. The sheep could still tune in on FM if they so chose and that was the engineers priority. And could I please get off the phone because did I know it was 3am? Consequently we got better at managing that information in a way that suited the radio stations who are our clients, and the ones who pay the bills.

However in this new landscape here in 2012 a station engineer might actually care very much that his DAB feed is affected, even a small amount. DAB is of greater importance than ever and so I can’t approach things the same way as we used to. We will be using new telemetry, which will be customised to our new requirements – so what requirements would we like?

The radio stations, our clients will be the ones at the centre of this process.  Whilst our transmission team crack on with the big pointy mast side of the build, I’ll be getting in touch with the radio station’s tech teams over the coming weeks to work through some practical stuff, and to get a feel for what they need from us.

Generally whenever I talk to people who’ve got in-car DAB they rave about it. Sometimes though I get a big diatribe abut how the signal’s a bit patchy. Oddly though the people I talk to all drive in the same place. A bit of digging and it’s always people who have the plug in adapters that have the trouble. Whilst they can be great devices, you need the aerial bit installed properly to get all the digital radio benefits.

Today, Digital Radio UK have published some details about Volkswagen’s in-house research into digital radio that somewhat proves the point about the need for properly installed sets. Some interesting facts came out of the research.

They talked to 1,000 of their DAB in-car users, 82% said that reception’s good or very good. 72% said they would be disappointed if they no longer had in-car DAB and 50% went on to say that they wouldn’t buy a car without digital radio. When asked what people liked about it 70% said sound quality and 63% new content.

I went along to an event at BT Tower this week to ‘switch on’ an upgrade to London’s DAB infrastructure.

Each area in the country has specific issues based on topography or land use and London’s no exception. Central London suffers from a vast array of buildings of different types which cause DAB signals to be less than robust than those further out fed by the same transmitters. Digital Radio UK have co-ordinated an additional transmitter on BT Tower, alongside some additional power upgrades around the network to provide further resilience.

It’s seen all the multiplex operators work together – London 1, 2 and 3 alongside D1 and the BBC to make this happen.

Whilst this may not affect where you live, it’s an important demonstration of the industry’s desire to ensure that digital radio’s availability continues to improve.

There’s more information on Digital Radio UK’s website.

I’m pleased to be able to announce the launch of our first multiplex – for Wrexham, Chester and Liverpool in November 2012. Clearly, this has taken a little longer than we hoped. At the point we applied for the licence we didn’t necessarily expect a global financial crisis, ownership changes for the vast majority of UK radio stations and the long-running industry discussions between Ofcom, Government, the BBC and the radio groups.

I would hope that you would believe me when I say that the frustration has been felt most keenly in this office, as launching multiplexes is what we want to do!

We’ve announced an initial list of services for this mutliplex, we hope that we’ll be able to add to it over the coming months. We’re talking with many potential operators, but are always keen to hear from  more. You can email me, matt@muxco.com, if you would like more information.

You’ll be able to follow more of the multiplex’s progress here and we’ve also created a twitter account for it as well – @MuxCoWCL.

We don’t have any news to announce about the other multiplexes at the moment, but we’ll update the blog as soon as we do.

The picture here is Gregory signing the 12 year transmission contract for Wrexham, Chester and Liverpool:

We issued this press release this morning:

MuxCo announces launch plans for a New DAB Digital Radio Multiplex serving Liverpool, Cheshire and North Wales

MuxCo today (23 April) announces its launch plans for the new DAB Digital Radio multiplex that will serve Liverpool, Cheshire and North Wales from November 2012.

Using transmitters at Moel-y-Parc, Wrexham Rhos and St.John’s Beacon, the multiplex will serve around 1.8m adults (15+) enabling a range of existing and new services to broadcast on DAB Digital Radio.

The multiplex will broadcast BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru, 107.6 Juice FM, Real Radio and Dee 106.3, allowing these existing services to both broadcast in digital quality and be heard by a wider audience than can currently hear them on FM Radio. The multiplex launch will also see Nation Radio become Wales’ second national commercial station as it moves into the north of the country for the first time.

The launch of the multiplex means there’s also space for new radio stations to broadcast across the area. All that prospective operators need to do is visit www.muxco.com for more information.

Gregory Watson, Managing Director at MuxCo, said “We’re excited that some of the area’s favourite stations and some new radio choices are going to be available for listeners across Liverpool, Cheshire and North Wales. Half the country listens to stations on digital radio each week, we’re pleased that listeners can now tune in to stations on digital radio locally from November.”

ENDS

We can understand that from the perspective of local listeners, the launch dates of both our and other multiplex operator’s licences have come and gone frustratingly with not much information available about the reasons for these delays.

We would like to offer another (possibly equally frustrating) update to assure you that the radio silence is a result of continued workings behind the scenes and not a result of us wandering off to do something else.

As we have detailed before, since the licence awards there have been a number of changes to the regulatory environment which meant we had to begin a process of reviewing all of our plans. As Ofcom talk about in their latest consultation on DAB Planning, there is significant discussion about the coverage of each multiplex and the potential frequencies they will broadcast on. The aim behind this is to enable multiplexes to better match FM coverage and how to increase power levels that ensure the most robust reception for listeners. Additionally, there is a desire from Government to increase the overall coverage from existing and new multiplexes. All multiplex operators have entered into discussions about how this can be achieved (and paid for). The net benefit of all these discussions will be even better digital radio for listeners.

Getting through these discussions is tough. Multiplex operators, the BBC, the Government and Arqiva are all working together on a plan that will require big changes to their own business plans and transmission arrangements. At the same time, all changes have a knock-on effect to everyone. It’s a large puzzle that lots of people are working on and there are many iterations of the plan each week.

The progress is however good and we’re confident that we can get a result that’s even better for listeners and provides a network and infrastructure that’s attractive and affordable for service providers.

We’ve had a number of, understandably, angry emails suggesting that if we are not going to launch the multiplexes, we should hand the licences back. It is our absolute intention to launch the multiplexes, and the reality is that any new multiplex operator would be in exactly the same position, navigating the discussions with the industry to get the new local plan sorted out. Indeed, Now Digital, who also won some multiplexes in the last round, are in the same position as MuxCo.

From a business perspective, both MuxCo and our partners remain supportive of DAB and are keen to launch. We are comfortable with the financial structure of the multiplexes and that the multiplex will provide affordable and robust coverage for service providers. We also have a number of plans for new services that we are frustrated we cannot currently develop and would like to talk more about!

What we do know, however, is that the discussions taking place are going to put local digital radio in an even better position for listeners and service providers and when we’re in a position to launch, we will.

We’ve just updated the pages for our North Wales & West Cheshire multiplexes, our Gloucestershire and Herefordshire & Worcestershire multiplexes and our Surrey & Sussex multiplex.

We have requested to merge what was North East Wales & West Cheshire with what was North Wales to create a single multiplex. We have also requested to simulcast the same set of services on both the Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire multiplexes.

I just wanted to write a few lines outlining our thinking about this. With North Wales we were seeing that many of our service providers would be appearing on both multiplexes and that the westerly multiplex would always be hard to make economically viable on its own. There was also a disappointment that the westerly side would take a little longer time in getting around to. By merging these multiplexes we hope to fix some of these issues and give more of Wales DAB quicker than had been envisaged.

The simulcast of Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire was a harder decision to take especially as listeners in this area tend to look to different areas. We think that there will eventually be demand from service providers to fill both sides separately. However, at the moment (and with all the recent changes to stations in that area) it makes the multiplexes more viable to initially address these multiplexes as a single area. When demand increases, we will then be able to split the multiplexes into their two constituent parts.

We’ve also taken a look at the Surrey & Sussex multiplex and feel it would make more sense for Arqiva to increase their Sussex Coast multiplex to cover more of Sussex and for the MuxCo multiplex to better concentrate on Surrey. As this involves another party, there’s still some more work to be done before we can talk about the plans for these areas. That’s also reflected in its current line-up.

We’ve made these requests to Ofcom as part of their recent work on the future size and make-up of local digital radio multiplexes.

Making Changes

When the multiplexes were awarded, the radio environment was very different to what it is today. As a multiplex operator MuxCo works with different shareholder companies in each area, as well as maintaining a dialogue with the BBC and the local broadcasters about their thoughts and plans. We’ve always been big believers in digital radio, but it’s absolutely vital to have the agreement from shareholders and service providers before we can launch in each area. Were we to launch without this support, and with no tenants, the business would not last very long – it’s also unlikely that a new operator that would be able to succeed without this support as well. We’re genuinely trying to create something that’s sustainable in each area.

Where we are now is that our partners and service providers feel much more confident about the industry and their own future and many are keen that the multiplexes launch so they can grow and develop their businesses. We’ve therefore updated our line-up pages with our current thoughts about service providers for these first areas. An important caveat – these are not the confirmed and final line-ups – there will be some additions (and always the chance of removals as well) – but in the interests of being open – this is what we’re currently building our plans around. It’s also dependent, of course, on regulatory approval. If there’s a station that you think should be on one of the multiplexes, the best thing to do is ‘politely’ request to that station that it should be made available on DAB in that area.

Next stages

There’s currently parallel activity going on. Whilst we’re waiting for approval from Ofcom for our changes we’re in the final operational planning stages with our transmission contractor so we can set a launch date for our first two multiplexes. We hope to announce some dates in the coming weeks.

We’re aware that all of this has been a long time coming and I have to say that we are as frustrated as you that it has taken so long. I can only apologise for the delays and hope that you will find this news and some of the forthcoming updates as being more positive.

As we develop our launch plans for the new multiplexes, if you are interested in providing a service on any multiplex, please let us know.

We have a MuxCo Service Provider Questionaire, which can be downloaded from this page.

The application process is:

1. All applicants must complete the attached questionnaire.
2. Only valid and completed application form will be assessed. Further information may be sought to assist in the evaluation of applications.
3. Applications which we wish to enter a contract with, will be contacted as to this fact and will be sent a draft contract.
4. Before entering into any contract, we will wish to seek confirmation of the following:

• Sight of a valid DSPS licence
• Confirmation of the applicant’s ability to pay the fees detailed in the contract. This would involve confirmation from a bank or financial adviser, and sight of a business plan.

Muxco Service Provider Questionnaire

Click here for more information about being service provider

Digital Economy Act
Summary of Radio Clauses

The Digital Economy Act entered Statute on 9th April

Like all legislation, the Act is incredibly complex, and like all radio legislation it is pretty impenetrable, not least because it does not simply set out a new framework, but instead amends three previous pieces of legislation to achieve its objectives (the 1990, 1996 and 2003 Acts).

Clause 30 – Digital Switchover
This clause sets the framework for digital radio switchover. It is an ‘empowering’ clause in that it allows the Secretary of State to set a date, but does not require one to be set, or
indicate when the date might be. The details of the clause are as follows:

• The Secretary of State may set a date for digital switchover. There may be different dates for different services.  This is good news: the power rests with the Secretary of State, not Ofcom, and there can be different dates for different services.
• Having set a date, the date may be withdrawn. An alternative date may then be set.
• When deciding what date to set, the SofS must have regard to a report submitted by Ofcom or the BBC. That report must consider current and future: provision of digital services, coverage and digital set ownership. It must also involve consultation with all sectors of the industry as well as wider stakeholders including groups representing listeners.
• Once the SofS has set a date, Ofcom must shorten the analogue licence of any service which will be part of the switchover process so that the licence end date is the same as the switchover date. At least two years notice must be given (unless the licence holder consents).

Clause 35 – Local radio multiplex services: frequency and licensed area
This clause is important as it gives Ofcom important flexibility to facilitate any changes that the industry might want to make to the local multiplex layer.

• Ofcom may change the frequency of a local multiplex licence and may reduce/extend its licensed area.
• However, it must first have received an application from the licence holder. The licence holder must have submitted a technical plan.
• Ofcom must consult before granting its approval, and may only consent to this if it does not unacceptably narrow the range of programmes available.

Clause 36 – Renewal of radio multiplex licences
This clause allows a further rollover for multiplex licences. It does so by setting a framework to allow a new piece of (secondary) legislation to be brought forward.

• The new piece of legislation may grant a rollover for a multiplex licence. It may also set out how long the roll-over is for, and other licence conditions.
• The powers to bring forward this piece of secondary legislation expire at the end of 2015.

Follow the progress of the Bill at services.parliament.uk/digitaleconomy

Hello.

We’ve been reading and replying to lots of the comments you’ve been writing and I thought it was probably time for a blog update.

To prove that there are some developments, honest, I snapped the picture above at a meeting we had recently. From the left David Peters and Paul Eaton (from Arqiva) and Nicky Tate and Gregory Wastson (from Folder Media/MuxCo). We met up to discuss the current situation and progress on the multiplexes. But what does that really mean?

First we compared notes on what we think is happening to local multiplexes across the UK, whether we felt that any were likely to merge or change shape, and whether this would affect frequency allocation or availability of frequencies. We then talked about our own areas and the pros and cons of combining any areas and especially what this would mean for frequencies – ie would we want to use one frequency for any enlarged areas or would we want to maintain the existing allocations and muxticast a combined multiplex across two frequencies. We were also weighing up the affect this could have over coverage (positive and negative) and how it would impact or benefit potential service providers. We’re now going to be investigating some our thoughts with Ofcom’s technical teams.

One question we’re asked, is why change anything? Well, for me the key thing is looking at whether any of the industry changes will mean we can have better coverage for less money. I’m also keen to maximise the flexibility on the multiplexes going forward and to allow us to provide innovative (read cheap) solutions for service providers. In DAB’s current development, is it better to cover larger local areas with some services that might traditionally appear on neighbouring multiplexes in the short term, and then split the multiplexes again when demand increases later on? Or does it really not make that much difference and should we proceed as planned? They’re the kind of decisions we’re making.

We also had some good discussions with Arqiva about how the contribution part (ie stations getting their signals to the multiplex) as well as the distribution (getting the multiplex feed) to the transmitters. Contribution is usually a fixed cost, whereas the cost of capacity depends on bitrates, therfore for smaller services it will be good to try and drive that cost down and hopefully encourage services to join the multiplex and to allow short-term services to take part as well.

All these discussions mean that Arqiva can now give us some firm quotations for the transmission costs of some of the earlier multiplexes planned. We can then move to final negotiations with them and then set prices for the service providers – allowing us to formally contract with them for carriage.  Then we can give Arqiva the OK to build the network, and away we’ll go!

Matt.