Good news for digital only radio stations – after a slow start for the medium which caused some stations to go under, the time might now be here for digital audio broadcasting. Figures out yesterday showed that the arrival of the £99 digital radio set helped nearly double the number of households with a digital radio – up from 75,000 to 135,000. In fact some are saying digital radios were the must-have present for Christmas 2002 – more or less selling out every set in the UK. So much so industry insiders are optimistic sales will continue at a similar pace perhaps taking the number of listeners up to half a million by the end of the year (original estimates were only 300,000).
It is good news for digital radio – which was starting to come under criticism for embarrassingly low audiences, leading one BBC DJ to joke he’d reach more people if he played music in his car and drove around London!