Anyone know why DAB radio never really took off in New Zealand?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Anyone know why DAB radio never really took off in New Zealand?

turtleattacks

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#288465 1-Jul-2021 13:53

We had it while living in the UK, and it seems that Australia has it too.

Given that radio is such a huge money stream for the media companies (most profitable) - are there any reasons why we don't have it?

Thanks

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Oblivian

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#2737325 1-Jul-2021 13:59

$x,000,000 be my guess.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/101307420/kordia-ready-to-invest-in-digital-audio-broadcasting-if-radio-firms-supportive

2018, but valid. As the licences expired and MBIE have not moved on it.

richms

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#2737336 1-Jul-2021 14:29

it missed the boat, All cars have bluetooth of vaugely acceptable quality now, so just stream what you want instead of broadcast, Its quite clear from the UK that quality doesnt matter on the digital streams and I can get way better than the 64 or 128k they allocate for most stations over in the UK, and am not limited to whoever chooses to serve that local area.

90s and early 2000s you may have been able to con people about the better quality claims, but with what hell bad processing they do to FM its clear that noone cares about quality there either.

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sbiddle

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#2737352 1-Jul-2021 15:22

Business case doesn't stack up.

Media companies didn't care, and with so much radio listening done in cars and such a small % of vehicles with DAB and the fact it would take years to reach an acceptable level with our obsession with Japanese imports.

PolicyGuy

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#2737353 1-Jul-2021 15:26

Oblivian:

$x,000,000 be my guess.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/101307420/kordia-ready-to-invest-in-digital-audio-broadcasting-if-radio-firms-supportive

2018, but valid. As the licences expired and MBIE have not moved on it.

The frequencies the temporary, experimental DAB licenses used were "borrowed" from spectrum allocated to Defence, who were getting increasingly restive about getting their stuff back.

Dunnersfella

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#2737433 1-Jul-2021 16:30

sbiddle:

Business case doesn't stack up.

Media companies didn't care, and with so much radio listening done in cars and such a small % of vehicles with DAB and the fact it would take years to reach an acceptable level with our obsession with Japanese imports.

Exactly, the current duopoly don't want it either...

They've already forked out for their frequencies and certainly done want:

1: Any competition

2: To have to buy anymore frequencies to keep competition at bay.

sbiddle

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#2737693 2-Jul-2021 07:44

Dunnersfella:

sbiddle:

Business case doesn't stack up.

Media companies didn't care, and with so much radio listening done in cars and such a small % of vehicles with DAB and the fact it would take years to reach an acceptable level with our obsession with Japanese imports.

Exactly, the current duopoly don't want it either...

They've already forked out for their frequencies and certainly done want:

1: Any competition

2: To have to buy anymore frequencies to keep competition at bay.

Any significant competition is unlikely. DAB has been in Australia for 12 years now and total audience share from DAB isn't even yet 20% of total radio audience numbers.

If we did have a DAB launch here I doubt we'd suddenly get any new big media players because their potential market share and ad revenue would just be too low.

I just wish we had better use of RDS here, there are still areas where it's not common even from the big players. If they did they they could at least implement AF properly!

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alasta

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#2737696 2-Jul-2021 07:49

It's hard to imagine the two main commercial players wanting to invest in it.

NZME has an ageing audience who are less likely to embrace new technologies like this. Mediaworks are more likely to be able to build a business case for it, but they have more important commercial priorities after their spinoff of the TV operation and uncertainty around whether they will continue to share news content with Discovery.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2737704 2-Jul-2021 08:14

alasta:

NZME has an ageing audience who are less likely to embrace new technologies like this.

This actually created the opposite problem. Older people who rely on radio may be unable to get hardware to listen to AM broadcasts. Newer models typically only have DAB and FM.

Having a look this morning, it appears there are more options now, but a year or two back we struggled to find anything with AM for my mother to use.

alasta

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#2737717 2-Jul-2021 08:51

SirHumphreyAppleby:

This actually created the opposite problem. Older people who rely on radio may be unable to get hardware to listen to AM broadcasts. Newer models typically only have DAB and FM.

Having a look this morning, it appears there are more options now, but a year or two back we struggled to find anything with AM for my mother to use.

That is very interesting. My parents listen to NZME's right wing shock jock talk station which, according to them, only broadcasts on AM in Nelson. I don't know why that is because you would think there would be some vacant FM spectrum in that region.