Sometimes it seems as if the UK radio industry operates in two parallel universes. On the one hand, there is the virtual world of the DAB radio lobbyists, a reality that only seems to exist within the confines of their Soho office and its funders. On the other hand, there is the real world of the 47 million people in the UK who listen to the industry’s radio stations each week, spread far and wide across this green and still largely analogue land.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-usage-going-nowhere-slowly/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

It was the Radio Festival, the industry’s annual get together. Everyone wanted to talk about how wonderful the DAB future of radio would be. But nobody wanted to explain how ‘Digital Radio Upgrade’, the government policy to make the UK’s DAB transmission system fit for purpose, will be paid for. It is the radio sector’s favourite parlour game: pass the DAB Upgrade parcel.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/digital-radio-upgrade-more-like-digital-radio-groundhog-day/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

There has been an abundance of fighting talk from the commercial radio sector in the press in recent weeks. Commercial radio seems determined to pick another fight with BBC Radios 1 and 2, two of the three most listened to radio stations in the UK.

This ongoing phoney war between the BBC and commercial radio is like a war between a one-eyed giant and an over-exuberant mobile phone salesman. The giant will win every time. Commercial radio can huff and puff all it wants, but the BBC knows it is perfectly safe in its house built from Licence Fees. It can afford to chuckle loudly at every challenge like this lobbed at it by commercial radio. Why?

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/david-vs-goliath-commercial-radio-spends-27-per-hour-on-programmes-bbc-radio-2-spends-4578/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

It seems like only yesterday that the Radio Advertising Bureau [RAB] was telling us that: “The [commercial radio] sector has turned a corner and not only halted [revenue] decline, but moved into renewed growth …” In fact, it was 20 May 2010 and the reason for the RAB’s optimism was the sector’s 2009 revenue performance. Yes, revenues in 2009 were down 10% year-on-year and yes, back in 2008, they had already been down 6% year-on-year. But, as I noted at the time, mere numbers never seem to get in the way of the trumpeting of a “terrific achievement.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-commercial-radio-q2-2010-national-revenues-down-40-since-2003/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

This week we saw an outburst in The Guardian that would have done any rich, spoilt brat proud. But no, this was the founder and CEO of Global Group, Ashley Tabor, which owns Global Radio, the UK’s largest commercial radio group, demanding that the BBC “put their money where their mouth is” and invest more in DAB radio.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/having-dab-cake-and-eating-it-temper-tantrums-in-the-global-radio-playpen/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

When you are looking for an exit route from a product you have been developing for nearly two decades, and which has consumed hundreds of millions of pounds, you need to find a damn good reason that will deflect the blame elsewhere. You need a report, an organisation or some bona fide research that screams out ‘no’ at the highest volume. Then your response can be: “I would be a fool to ignore the warning signs voiced by X” when what you are really saying is: “Blame them, not me! It’s them that made me do it.”

DAB radio and digital radio switchover presently seem to be at this point. But there is a big problem for a radio industry that is belatedly trying to find a way ‘out’. Almost all previous reports produced by the government, the regulator, the radio industry, the electronics industry, the working groups, Digital Britain and the car manufacturers have been overwhelmingly positive about DAB and have painted an amazingly rosy future. There has been almost nothing published about DAB by agencies of the state that has said plainly: “Stop this crazy plan.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/the-exit-strategy-for-dab-radio-switchover-the-consumer-expert-group-addresses-vaizeys-big-if/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

I am often asked why I believe that digital radio switchover will never happen in the UK. My answer is always this – the available statistics and data on consumer take-up of DAB radio fail to demonstrate that it will grow sufficiently to become the mass medium for radio broadcasting. I can see nothing in more than a decade of figures to offer an inkling that DAB radio will ever become anything more than a minority interest, compared to FM/AM.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/without-local-commercial-radio-switchover-to-dab-will-not-happen/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

Help seemed to have arrived for those consumers who are confused by the contradictory messages they are receiving about DAB radio, digital switchover and the future of FM/AM radio. The government created a ‘hot topic’ web page that addresses these issues in the form of a ‘FAQ’. Does it help clarify things?

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/back-to-the-future-of-radio-the-fm-band/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

UK commercial radio has been in the doldrums for the last decade. Its audiences have been battered by competition from the BBC, revenues have been declining, and some local stations have been forced to close or merge (sorry, ‘co-locate’). So, when a piece of good news comes along, it is natural that it will be celebrated. The latest RAJAR audience survey for Q2 2010 provided just one such fillip of positivity for the commercial radio sector. But, sometimes, what should have been a small private party gets turned into a showy public display of excess by the celebrants.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-commercial-radio-audiences-one-swallow-doesnt-make-long-term-and-sustained-growth/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

In July 2010, Ofcom had published its first annual report on the progress made in the UK with take-up and usage of digital radio. I criticised the report in this blog for being selective with data and distorting the real picture of the slow take-up of DAB radio. Ofcom responded to two of my criticisms in a subsequent news article in Media Week.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/download-the-first-annual-not-the-ofcom-digital-radio-progress-report-report/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia