Media

UKRD may make anti-DAB ads

By | Published on Thursday 2 December 2010

This is brilliant. According to The Guardian, independent radio company UKRD is considering launching an anti-DAB ad campaign this Christmas to compete with that being aired by the BBC and some other commercial networks by Digital Radio UK trying to convince the Great British public to buy DAB devices.

As previously reported, UKRD and some other smaller radio firms have said government plans to get the vast majority of radio stations off the analogue FM network and onto DAB by 2015 is totally unrealistic, given a lack of customer interest in DAB and the fact the digital network does not currently cover the whole UK.

Although the bigger commercial stations do, in theory, support a rapid move to DAB, some – including the biggest, Global Radio – are boycotting the current Digital Radio UK campaign because of doubts the BBC will fund the full roll out of the DAB network, as the commercial sector had originally hoped.

But UKRD may do more than just ignore the Digital Radio UK campaign, it might run its own ads spoofing the old ‘a dog is not just for Christmas’ campaign with the strapline “a DAB radio may be for Christmas but might not be for life”, raising awareness that in some parts of the country you can buy DAB radios but there may be no or only poor digital radio signals in the area.

UKRD boss man William Rogers told the Guardian: “There has been a lot of pressure put on us by a lot of operators to launch an alternative to the [Digital Radio UK] campaign which we are seriously considering. It is built around the idea that a DAB radio may be for Christmas but it might not be for life. It would be intended to point out that people need to be absolutely certain before they buy a DAB radio that they have a signal, that it is of adequate strength and quality and that the stations they presently listen to [on analogue] are available on the DAB platform”.

He added: “I want to inject some honesty into the debate about people’s purchase of a DAB radio. There clearly needs to be some sort of campaign to explain the reality behind DAB”.



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