Prospects bleak for digital radio

Digital radio on mobile phones could be the defining success for a section of the mobile industry that still doesn't have a clear idea of where it's headed. With sporadic music platforms and still no industry-standard track price, DR could offer users the ability to pause, rewind and record songs from hundreds of stations, whilst listening to completely new music in crystal clear sound. So why don't we all have DR-enabled mobiles?

Pascal Grierson Content Director of new mobile radio service Cliq told UKMR: "All the mobile phone manufacturers can make mobiles with Digital Audio Broadcasting or Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld chips in them." Brilliant! "But so far no mobile network operator in the UK is prepared to order the quantity of handsets these manufacturers need to justify production." Pants!

Some countries have already made the leap. As reported by Australian IT this week, Commercial Radio Australia unveiled a DR-enabled mobile phone that will use its screens to show images and text broadcasted from the station. CRA's managing director Chris Gould said that: "digital radio was a natural feature to offer in handsets because more people were now listening to radio through their mobile phones."

That's also true for the UK. According to stats released by The Independent this August, the number of people over the age of 15 who have listened to the radio via their mobile phone had risen by 27% over the past year to 4.4 million.

But a lot of the growth of DR on mobiles rests on the progress of the national 'switch' from analogue. The decision-maker Ofcom has stated that AM and FM analogue stations should be 'switched off' when "digital listening accounts for 50% of all listening" and that the licensing for both will be reviewed within the next few years. Once this has happened, DR will be everywhere and as users' expectations of music quality and variety increases there should be sufficient demand for mobile music to get its act together.

Speaking to Napster Europe's Thorsten Schliesche, this is a key point: "The issue of operators and manufacturers taking digital radio seriously will be decided on the consumer's desire to control their content, rather than consume music passively… mobile offers a highly convenient and spontaneous transaction method, so it's certainly worth further investigation." (Beren Neale)