Media

Vaizey assures MPs – no rush to DAB if public not ready

By | Published on Monday 21 February 2011

Ed Vaizey

Broadcasting Minister Ed Vaizey seemingly confirmed to a group of MPs last week that the FM waveband isn’t going to be turned off in the imminent future, assuring concerned parliamentarians that the radio frequency will be operational for “years to come”.

20 MPs met with Vaizey to express concerns raised by smaller radio firms – including the aim to move most stations off FM to the DAB network by 2015, and a recent decision by media regulator OfCom to limit all renewed local radio licences to just seven years.

At the meeting Vaizey said that the 2015 switchover date from FM to DAB would only happen if the radio listening public were ready, and that the FM network will stay in operation after that date whatever.

We already knew that, unlike with the move from analogue to digital TV, analogue radio signals are unlikely to be turned off immediately even once most stations have moved to DAB, if only because the digital network isn’t ready to take all stations in all parts of the country. Indeed it’s been indicated that more community and student stations may be offered FM licences once the big commercial broadcasters have moved exclusively to DAB, with the hope the makers of DAB radios will ensure their devices continue to also receive FM.

The broadcast minister also told the MPs he met that he’d ask OfCom to review its new seven year licence policy.

The meeting was welcomed by the boss of UKRD, William Rogers, the most vocal opponent to the 2015 move to DAB. Rogers told Radio Today: “That the Minister has confirmed that FM will remain for years to come, especially for those stations with no DAB future, is of course welcome, but what is also really helpful, and something we should all welcome as an industry was his open and constructive response to the questions raised by MPs to review the length of licences for local commercial stations which were in effect cut from twelve to seven years in the latest OfCom review”.

He continued: “MPs were encouraged to make representations on this matter and, indeed, to even propose a policy position in this respect and we will be working with them over the coming months to ensure that this issue remains firmly on the government’s agenda of things that need to be looked at again. We need a dynamic and vibrant local radio sector with a bright and genuinely multi-platform digital future. Of course DAB is one of many such platforms but the prescriptive, poorly planned and inappropriate imposition of this single platform simply gets in the way of what consumer choice is all about”.



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