Ofcom Goes MuxCo for Gloucester

Even though Gregory tried to send me out of the room as I am apparently ‘cursed’ when i’m in the office on award days, MuxCo Gloucestershire Ltd has been awarded the DAB Digital Radio multiplex licence for Gloucestershire!

We are very pleased, especially for the common service providers who are on both Hereford & Worcestershire and Gloucestershire as it gives them great coverage for their stations over the entire area.

I think it’s sometimes easy to get distracted by the announcements from the big boys about DAB investment. However this and the other recent awards to MuxCo shows that a great deal of the smaller operators in the radio industry are very committed to the platform. Up to now DAB has been out of reach of many of these small operators, but now as owner-operators, they can invest in the platform and reap the benefits of growing their audience and coverage.

I’m off to the pub.

Comments

7 responses to “Ofcom Goes MuxCo for Gloucester”

January 22, 2008

Tom Stone

Congratulations on winning your Gloucestershire bid MuxCo as a resident of Gloucester i am pleased you won your bid. I look forward to hearing your DAB service soon. 🙂

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January 23, 2008

Colin Ross

Great news! Hope Smooth Radio can be squeezed on! Good luck!

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January 23, 2008

Andy Hayward

Great news that MuxCo have wone the licence for Gloucestershire. I much prefered the MuxCo transmission plan that included East Gloucestershire, as the people in this area had been left disconnected from the Chelt/Glos area for Too long, Finally the whole county will be able to hear Gloucestershire Local Radio.
Ps, Smooth Radio WM would be a perfect addition to the station line-up.

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January 24, 2008

Rick Taylor

I’m delighted MuxCo has been awarded the licence for Gloucestershire. Although I live in Oxfordshire, I should be able to receive signals from the Blunsdon transmitter, as I already get the Swindon stations.

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March 23, 2008

Mark Andrew

Whilst Muxco’s was the better of the two Gloucestershire applications, it has two big flaws.
Firstly, the Forest of Dean will have little or no coverage, as will the Cam/Dursley/Wotton area. The coverage (or lack of it) for the Forest incenses me. Why should the Cotswolds be so well covered, whilst the Forest is left with zilch? Looks like a class divide to me, with the leafy and affluent Cotswolds more likely to generate advsertising income, than the poorer Forest. A poor show for those West of the Severn, Muxco.

Secondly, I am concerned about many of the proposed stations to be carried will come from Hereford and Worcester, with a Midlands bias. As a Gloucesterian born and bred I look regionally towards Bristol, and would hope that these stations reflect our position as part of the South West.

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March 23, 2008

matt

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your comment, the Forest is a major issue from a transmission coverage point of view. It’s a very difficult to place to cover effectively and still make the multiplex be able to support itself financially. It definitely isn’t about a class divide – just the physics of transmission! What we have pledged to do is do a proper audit of the transmission coverage once we launch (as all of our work so far is based on computer predictions). At that point we can look a what we can do to strengthen coverage across the whole area.

There’s a number of services that will be directly Gloucester-focused including Severn, Star and BBC Gloucester. Local Live, Shuffle and Smithy will be unique to the whole H&W/Gloucester area so i’m sure they’ll be designed to appeal to the whole area directly. We’re also at the mercy of new people wanting to broadcast to the local area. We’ll be happy to cater for them if they come forward.

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March 23, 2008

Mark Andrew

Thanks for the very swift response, Matt. I’m glad you are going to review the position for the Forest; just a bit worried that it will have to wait for after the launch, when I am sure the temptation will be to do nothing for a needy area that suffers for its isolation (and whose key communities: (Cinderfod/Coleford/Lydney) are as big as Moreton/Stow/Bourton that you are managing to serve in the Cotswolds.
To illustrate my concern about the shared stations with Hereford and Worcester, as a rock music lover the best and nearest venues for me are in Bristol. I would therefore expect any station such as Smithy and Shuffle to feature bands playing there.
I also hope that your Traffic station will reflect the local travel to work patterns; e.g. in that the place outside of Gloucestershire that most people travel to is Bristol.
Cheers
Mark

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