The shredding of Hazlitt's grand plan meant that proposals for GCap to sell its half of DAB network Digital One were put on hold. Not that that did much to renew confidence in DAB as a broadcasting medium, Hazlitt having been pretty damning of its future prospects in her initial GCap review.
But DAB advocates had a bigger problem on their hands. Just when was Channel 4 Radio going to launch? The TV company had led a consortium of broadcasters to win the second national DAB network licence off OfCom in 2007, yet as 2008 progressed that new service continually failed to materialise, amid many false starts and much denied rumours that C4's advertising department was questioning whether it could make any money out of the planned Channel 4 branded radio services.
As the year progressed the commercial radio sector - who have invest millions in building the DAB network over the years - began to meet to discuss the future of Digital One and the will-it-ever-launch status of Channel 4 Radio. With both DAB networks looking precarious, there were talks of merging them into one enterprise, which was ironic given how much the old GCap management had complained when OfCom first announced its intention to allow a second national DAB network in 2006.
But in the end no such deal was done. In October Channel 4 announced it was pulling out of radio altogether, leaving the second national DAB network in ruins, and the whole future of DAB questioned. Those questions continue, despite DAB radio sets continuing to sell and talk of setting a deadline for turning off analogue radio services underway.
The BBC, which has also invested millions in the digital radio format, has continued to speak up for DAB and, as the year wound to a close, implied it might buy airspace on the Digital One network to help keep it alive. So, DAB's not dead yet, and it's possible neither the BBC nor the commercial sector nor government could let the medium collapse. Though, with the advertising recession about to bite, that doesn't mean its future is completely guaranteed as we go into 2009.