Sales of digital radio sets look likely to soar past one million units by January next year, exceeding earlier predictions, according to a BBC report released yesterday.
The BBC has asked the Government to extend its plans to review the progress of DAB digital radio for three years, saying that the digital radio market, industry and the country are not yet ready for the digital switchover, despite digital radio proving a success so far.
The Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB) has forecast that in the next four years nearly a third of UK households will have DAB digital radio. By 2008, the total number of DAB radio sets is expected to increase by 1200%, taking today’s current total of individual units from one million to 13 million (see Digital Radio In The UK Set For Boom Time By 2008).
The BBC’s report reiterates the Corporation’s belief that DAB is a “robust broadcast medium capable of cheap mass production and integration into a variety of devices.”
Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio and Music Interactive said: “The BBC is fully committed to DAB and, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the BBC, commercial radio, manufacturers and retailers, digital radio looks like being one of the success stories of the year.”
The BBC report asks for a joint industry plan for the digital migration of the entire UK sector to be agreed before this Government review and that the plans should ensure that, before the switchover, analogue provision is matched so that no participant in the radio sector is left behind. It also wants the government to support manufacturers of digital.
The submission calls for the release of five blocks of Band III spectrum for DAB digital radio, for use by the whole of the radio industry. This would enable the convergence of BBC and commercial services that are currently not available on DAB.
The UK’s analogue television signal will be switched off between 2008 and 2012, with the government announcing the timetable and preparing viewers next year. However, with price of digital radios around £50, listeners would have to invest over £1 billion to reach the current level of subscribers to BSkyB, which now stands at 7.4 million.
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