Will DAB / DAB+ ever be back in Ireland?

tinytobe

RTE shut down the DAB / DAB+ transmissions in Ireland. Is there any chance the RTE on DAB / DAB+ will be back at some stage?

There also seems to be a bit of DAB / DAB+ activity in Dublin and other cities. Are these pirates or official licenses?

end of the road

the RTE transmissions won't be back i would guess, all though i do believe the small scale mux tests might still be on air?

the services currently on around the cities are pirates.

as for whether we would see an eventual opening up of the market so that a legal framework would exist so that services and muxes could be licensed, it is what should be happening so that radio in this country can do what it should actually be doing, but i wouldn't hold out much hope unfortunately.

tinytobe

I don't have much hope either, at least for the foreseeable future or the next 5 years.

The officially licensed private FM stations are way to fixed on their territory and location and the idea that DAB / DAB+ would upset the market for them too much. It'll bring in too much possible disruption, as more radio and music channels can easily be offered digitally at little or less transmission cost.

The only thing that's keeping commerical radio stations going at the moment is government advertising and government handouts, most local stations outside Dublin are shutting up shop for the night by 8pm. If it wasn't deemed financially viable when the economy was thriving from 2014 to 2019, fat chance it has now

JDxtra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117663839#Comment_117663839

My opinion is it's too late for Ireland. DAB has already been superseded by streaming services and in car apps.

People want choice, while not perfect everywhere in Ireland, streaming does offer this choice and coverage will only improve. Traditional commercial FM broadcasters here have dug their heels in to protect their markets - but they have missed a trick and this tactic will only speed up their decline.

I suspect many are already in trouble and are artificially held above water due to government purchased Covid adverts.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117664654#Comment_117664654

You may be correct here, however looking at the future, nothing is ever certain. I think DAB and DAB+ is an attempt to keep radio alive and interesting for an audience which is ever increasingly interested in internet streaming. Some countries like the UK, Norway or Switzerland, or Germany seem to have implemented DAB successfully and have often more listeners via DAB than traditional FM. At least in Switzerland and Norway this is the case.

I think ultimately the decline of radio is more because fewer and fewer find FM interesting and the internet offers simply more choice. Traditional FM broadcasters insisting on keeping FM in order to protect their market will only lose out in the long run as listener expectations is increasingly changing.

JDxtra

Plus many other markets have had DAB/DAB+ for many years already. People are familiar with it, they have the receivers in their home and car.

In Ireland, DAB will be starting from almost zero. The competition is strong - almost everyone has a smart phone and large numbers of homes have smart speakers. Cars have Bluetooth and apps.

In comparison, my 1 year old car did not come with a DAB tuner (an optional extra!). It'll be an uphill battle if anything launches. I'd love to see it happen, but just being realistic about its viability.

tinytobe

I would guess that introducing DAB+ in Ireland is very hard at this stage. New cars sold in the EU must have a DAB+ radio these days. As far as I know that's EU law.

I would largely believe that Switzerland would want and keep the DAB+ system in place as an alternative to the internet or streaming systems in the event of some security incident, like for a civil defence matter. The Swiss are good in civil defence matters.

Apparently Switzerland will also switch off FM signals by 2022 or 2023 or so.

dubguy45

I enjoyed DAB in my car and at home. Just paid my TV licence for the 30th consecutive year. I have never watched TG4.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117671174#Comment_117671174

Licence fee payers in 20 odd counties never had DAB ever, it's closure actually brought equality to licence fee payers.

KReid

There was major thread about this before when DAB was closed. Won't open that can of worms again.

In my opinion, DAB is done here. As a few others said, Radio itself is struggling, paying for the rollout of DAB again would be a bad economical move, I can't see much more return on investment with it.

The main stumbling block is that DAB is so specific, you need to buy a Radio designed for it, there's so little value for money in one when you could but a smart speaker that plays the online station and thousands of other ones. It's a requirement in cars now which is a bonus, but equally all cars have Internet connectivity either via a Hotspot or satellite link now.

Not sure why people get fixated on DAB, stations are investing more and more on apps and digital listening, something that offers almost instant statistics on listenership, which is invaluable when it come sto advertisers. It also offers a digital space that can be monitized (you can place additional adverts in that geo target the listener). Future of radio is online, mainly using your phone and smart speaker.

By the time the majority of the country has access to a car with DAB technology it will be 2030 probably, think of the advances that will be made in broadband speed by then.

DAB just missed the boat in Ireland. If it had launched a couple of decades ago and built audience, it would have maybe had a successful rollout, but there were a number of factors, including a different market structure with a dominance of local independent FM radio operators who absolutely did not want DAB taking their audiences onto national or niche broadcasters.

In most of the countries where it was a success, e.g. the UK and Norway, there's big dominance by the public service broadcaster in the radio sector at both national and local level. So, things got driven by BBC or NRK in the early days and commercial interests only came on board after the market was already built.

It has failed in other markets though too e.g. Finland and Portugal also abandoned it and Canada went with HD-radio, which is the US system that allows FM broadcasters to add digital services to their existing signals, which is something I could have seen making sense here for ILRs but, alas, it's a different market for consumer electronics too, so I can't really see there having been any advantage for going for something that wasn't a harmonised EU standard.

DAB always looks like something that was built with BBC or similar PSB type models in mind, where you'd big nationalised networks owning the infrastructure.

The main thing now is that we continue to see Irish stations producing programming that's worth listening to and ensure that it gets online and on air.

I think though, non-specialist DJ driven music stations that are just banging out the hits 24/7 on dull playlists are really going to be a thing of the past. Unless you're providing something that Spotify or Apple Music etc aren't, i.e. some kind of interesting content, your product won't be needed.

Charles Slane

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117672024#Comment_117672024

That's a bit harsh - those counties aren't odd at all.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117675002#Comment_117675002

I think in the UK it's not only the BBC, but also other media organizations such as Global or Bauer. Absolute Radio for instance, is offering various radio "channels" for each decade. This, combined with a large audience and dense population makes DAB / DAB+ the perfect choice in the UK. Germany or Switzerland are probably similar.

I think though the BBC very much blazed the trail for them and drove early demand. There was a long period in the U.K. where there wasn’t that much commercial interest in DAB.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680858#Comment_117680858

In Germany they had issues with DAB, as it never took of there. Oddly, when they introduced DAB+, it was a success. At least one 3rd of German households seem to have a DAB+ radio now, which seems quite remarkable, considering the short time.

Surely DAB is a a badly tarnished brand amongst Irish consumers the same way meteor mobile was? In the early days of Meteor, people bought a phone from them only to discover that their coverage was non existent in a lot of the country, their coverage issues was sorted out after a few years but because so many people had a bad experience in the beginning, it was always regarded as a network for children, poor college students and drug dealers, this is why eircom introduced a sperate Eir mobile brand a few years before retiring Meteor completely. Anyway my point is, so many consumers the past 15 years have bought a DAB radio set only to discover that it has no coverage in their area.

The original incarnation of DAB did a lot of damage to the perception of it. For many years it was being referred to as the Diabolical Audio Broadcasting system, and had issues with "bubbling mud" sounds in bad reception and extremely inadequate bit rates for music stations.

The Irish rollout didn't offer national coverage, nor did it embrace DAB+

If I were designing the rollout, I'd have entirely abandoned classic DAB and rolled only with DAB+ even if it discommoded early adopters, the technology was far superior.

No service should have been on air that was offering worse audio quality that FM as the bare minimum.

The were too mean with bandwidth allocation and they needed to lash more money into building a national network, which should have coincided with DTT rollout to maximise attention.

I think they pandered too much to ILRs and the BAI licencing process is far too arduous and pedantic to have created momentum.

However, we are crying over spilled milk. It's gone and I think unless there's a massive shakeup of the market, it isn't coming back.

The streaming services are improving and cost effectiveness gets better all the time, so I think that's where we are - a hybrid of podcasting and streaming, with core FM services likely to remain relevant, probably for another few decades. I wouldn't be at all surprised if analogue FM stereo is still on air in 2060, when you consider how long AM services lasted, and they were far, far inferior technology in terms of audio quality.

Relax brah

Is club FM dab or am? Appearing in my car as 178.3 MHz

sorry for amateur question

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117722927#Comment_117722927

DAB channel 5C. Pirate FreeDAB most likely.

Relax brah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117722962#Comment_117722962

thanks mate!

tv3tg4

I think tuning into radio by phone or laptop wouldn't be my preference.

Dab offers choice.

There is a sameness to radio output.. Dab gives greater choice

Explosive_Cornflake

What I found odd with DAB is the relatively low quality any time I heard it. Am I right in thinking the bitrate was only 64kbps? If it ran with 192 or something far superior to FM, it would have presented itself as a step forward.

Then, I saw this from Australia, DAB+ with album art,

https://goughlui.com/2016/11/26/radio-dab-in-sydney-25-nov-2016-service-info-slideshows/

It looked so much better than anyting I ever saw here.

Explosive_Cornflake

I'm just looking at the wiki page for Irish DAB, it seems it was 128kbps mostly.

dowtchaboy

For some reason I've been getting email alerts from this site!

http://www.dbdb.ie/

Digital Broadcasting, promoting DAB+

They don't make much sense, like they are a couple of years old.

Be wide - it might be some spammer.

woggle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117751867#Comment_117751867

I believe this was an attempt by BTS/Dusty Rhodes to launch an independent MUX. It didn’t amount to anything in the end.

There seems to be a reluctance from commercial radio operators in Ireland to get behind the technology. I would hazard a guess and say the FreeDAB pirate MUX didn’t help the case.

EmileD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117663839#Comment_117663839

I agree. DAB / DAB+ could bring positive disruption to the radio industry by introducing more competition, leading to higher quality programs and addressing the issue of poor content.

corks finest

We could do with it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484075#Comment_120484075

Why are you posting nonsense around here?

EmileD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484163#Comment_120484163

I'm sorry if my post about the DAB / DAB+ in Ireland seemed like "nonsense" to you. I must have missed the part where you provided any counterarguments or engaged in a meaningful discussion. It's always fascinating to encounter such deep insights and well-reasoned responses like yours. Perhaps you could share your perspective or provide some substantiated points to contribute to the conversation?

Lord Nelson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484075#Comment_120484075

Seriously? The last thing the BAI and their masters in the commercial radio sector want is more competition. The BAI position for years has been predicated on preserving the status quo. In theory, more competition should result in better content however this didn’t transpire to be the case with TV. We went from four stations to 1,000+, the bulk of which are pure shite. What it would result in however is more diversity which would be a vast improvement on the muck being currently churned out.

mrsdewinter

I guess I know the answer to this but why are DAB radios even on sale in Ireland? Another week, another set of offers from a budget German supermarket offering terrific deals on 2 DAB+ radios, only 1 of which seems to include an FM function.

Don't get me wrong: I seem to live in an FM shadow, so I would personally love if DAB were finally to take off.

But from everything that's been said here, the DAB ship has sailed, right?

TheBMG

I take it that the pirate FreeDAB operator is no longer on-air (in Dublin anyway)?

The British RAJARS now put DAB listening figures ahead of traditional AM/FM.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121112546#Comment_121112546

A DAB+ or DAB radio is only realistic if you're living close to the border of NI or you are visiting the UK and other countries with DAB or DAB+ coverage frequently.

The "ship has sailed and now it's too late" is the common story in Ireland, - at the same time other countries are expanding DAB+ and or still in the process of rolling it out.

The RTE has financial issues, the ILR and commercial radios don't want it, and the end user / listener has turned to the internet and the cell phone for a good stream. FM is slowly going away, and Radio 4 as well as Radio 5 on AM will disapear even sooner from reception in Ireland.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121112652#Comment_121112652

There are no confirmed reports that FreeDAB is still on air in Dublin.

Yes the UK has way more DAB/DAB+ listening than traditional AM/FM, - in Switzerland DAB+ is even more listened to.

Explosive_Cornflake

The one thing that baffled me when DAB was a thing here, was the abysmyally low bitrate it was broadcast at. 32kbps for some if I remember.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121113926#Comment_121113926

That's true for the UK, but it mainly concerns news and sports talk kind of content.

What you can really call abysmal is that they do DAB and music and mono. That's not exactly good for a new technology.

However what are the alternatives? Smooth radio and Absolute radio on an AM signal? The cost of transmition and the quality / reception prone to interference is even worse, - albeit the warm sound is really to be missed......

end of the road

the stations broadcasting in mono on DAB in the UK are using the old standard DAB which is mp2, that requires very high bitrates to sound reasonable full stop, never mind in stereo.

the reason is in some cases muxes not supporting DAB+ yet all though i believe that is changing, and still a lot of DAB only radios in use such that dispite the growth of DAB+ radios there is still apparently justification to continue with standard DAB for now.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121114109#Comment_121114109

These DAB only radios with the old standard are sold at cheap prices, often at ASDA and so forth.

The majority of Brits doesn't seem to care what they buy. Pure and Roberts aren't my top choice anyway.

Sony makes better stuff, better chips, more sensitivity for reception, etc.... That's just my experience.

Andy From Sligo

haha a DAB radio sold in LIDL ... to a country that does not broadcast DAB/DAB+

waywill1966

That’s the only time dab will ever be in Ireland, the sets sold in German supermarkets 😂

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121161155#Comment_121161155

It's possibly only of interest for consumers living close to NI, or county Cavan. They seem to have full DAB / DAB+ coverage.

This radio also tunes into FM.

There may be many reasons why one in Ireland wants to buy a DAB / DAB+ radio, like frequent travel to France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium or Norway.

In many countries one can still buy AM radios but all AM transmitters have been turned off.

waywill1966

Arbeiten Sie für LIDL oder ALDI?

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121163056#Comment_121163056

Nain, I certainly don't.

corks finest

Roberts are tops

Andy From Sligo

So, the other issue without a nationwide DAB service is that I am finding the RDS (radio data service) sketchy on the existing FM services.

I took a punt on the Lidl radio ... it sets its time and date automatically from FM & DAB service and has an alarm clock function on it (only after the time has been set) . - I have nearly full bars of signal showing in the display . Put it on Today FM today and it would not set the time. - Tuned it into RTE Radio2 - an 'RDS' sign came up on the screen and the name of the station came up on screen and info of the song playing on the screen, but still the time was flashing and not setting its time - so then I tuned it to RTE Radio1 then the RDS sign came up and after nearly 20seconds of the time flashing the time set correctly. So it seems the RDS signal only works properly and fully on one radio station at the moment which is RTE Radio 1 .. the other stations must not be broadcasting the full RDS information on them no?

Am presuming if there was a DAB+ service the time setting (and station name and info) would work flawlessly and all the time , because it is digital and not analog FM ?

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121181585#Comment_121181585

I would presume so. However there might be a difference between DAB and DAB+ on this as well? I'd be certain to say it would work flawlessly on DAB+ but maybe not on DAB?

I have no real experience with RDS so I can't really say.

I don't think DAB or DAB+ would be back soon in Ireland. For that to happen, the RTE would have to invest a bit, and the RTE is a bit short of funds these days. And the ILRs don't seem to want digital radio.

So for the time being you'd have to be content with the odd overspill from Northern Ireland.

Once they will see that listening figures and commercial revenue are dropping and they aren't reaching the audience anymore as FM offers less and less, than maybe that's a business case for DAB+? It'll be a bit harder then for those going "that ship has sailed" and "now it's too late" if Ireland was the last country in Europe left not having DAB+.

Andy From Sligo

When RTE run the show was it DAB or DAB+ ?

Does it have to be RTE nowdays to bring back DAB(DAB+) nationwide service? - can it not be a private firm get the licence for setting up a DAB service in the ROI ?

StreetLight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121191669#Comment_121191669

RTÉ ran DAB+ with a couple of DAB simulcasts on the same multiplex.

The people behind the current 8radio operation have made a submission to the relevant authority to re-visit the operation and licencing of DAB. All they seem to have received is a watery committal to set up a vague exploration of it.

FreeDAB used DAB+, in unlicenced multiplexes in a few urban centres around the country, but it seems to have fizzled out after a raid last year by Comreg, again due to unnecessarily burdensome hurdles around licencing.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121192227#Comment_121192227

The interest of 8radio in DAB surprises me a bit. If there is only a watery committal by the authorities, I would say, DAB is politically not wanted in Ireland. At least at this point. Maybe that will change.

As far as I know, Portugal has no either DAB / DAB+ same as Finland. If there are any plans there, I don't know.

There is always the debate on whether a new technology is really not accpeted by the population, or it's strategically politically supressed.

In Ireland, I would guess, it's the latter, also considering how much the neighbouring country UK has DAB / DAB+ Digital radio.

kazoo106

It is simply a conditioning and top down policy to the staff of the established stations or groups, to constantly derade the technology on forums such as this - while their overlords derade it to the regulator.

Its a top down approach very much visible on boards with the same people always coming out with the same negative comments - but the thinking and fear is from 2010 - not 2023

Soon it will be irrelevant as we have allowed our radio to be dominated by large UK groups and most of thos arguements no longer stand as networking will probably become the norm in years to come

DAB would be a perfect place to make the "temporary" stations permanent - if only the section 71 nonsense was eliminated, things would thrive.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121192580#Comment_121192580

From a technological point of view it's fairly easy and cost effective for a radio station to start broadcasting. Also the lower the overall cost, the less they'd have to worry about advertising sales figures.

Naturally existing market players don't like that, - or at least at this stage.

Once they realize that they don't reach any audience anymore as FM doesn't allow any growth they may change their minds. Just 4 FM stations for the RTE won't be enough in the future to satisfiy the listener, as taste in music has changed, - and the internet and the smartphone is the answer for many by now.

DAB+ might bring a new market, audience and generation back.