The commercial radio sector met last week to discuss the future of digital audio broadcasting, following the decision earlier this year by GCap, who own half of the national DAB network Digital 1, to pull out of the medium, saying they wanted to concentrate on their analogue and online services rather than continuing to support DAB.
Although Global Radio's subsequent takeover of GCap meant the proposed sale of its half of Digital 1 never happened, a number of GCap digital services have gone off the air, and some of its rivals are also reconsidering their digital-only services given current uncertainty in the advertising market.
While others, and especially the BBC, say they remain committed to DAB, the future of medium has been put into further doubt because of the continued delays in the launch of the second national DAB network, which was awarded to Channel 4. There are increasing questions as to whether Channel 4's much hyped move into digital radio will ever actually go live, while some, including Global, are proposing that C4 take a stake in Digital 1 and return is own DAB licence, because there simply isn't a big enough market to support two national digital networks.
It was with all this stuff in mind that the commercial radio body RadioCentre called a meeting of radio chiefs last week, to see if they could reach an industry-wide consensus on the future of DAB to share with government early next year. However, it seems little was agreed at the meeting, with one insider blaming Channel 4 for hindering the bid for industry-wide consensus.
The Telegraph quote one source thus: "Channel 4 are particularly difficult to get to agree to anything. They seem to want to have endless meetings without reaching a conclusion".
Despite not reaching any agreement on the future of DAB, the bosses of commercial radio did seemingly agree to regroup to discuss the topic further in the next few weeks. An exact date for those discussions is tbc.