Radio amnesty fails to lift DAB
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By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 28th October 2010 14:01 GMT

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The radio audience ratings service RAJAR has published the first full
quarter of figures since the launch of a DAB trade-in scheme called
'Radio Amnesty', fronted by ubiquitous luvvie Stephen Fry. The aim was
to induce households to exchange their FM radios for a DAB radio. The
result? DAB's share of digital listening has fallen for the first
time.

The figures tell quite a subtle story. Let's look at the annual growth
trend first.

Radio listening is at an all-time record high. DAB is up 20.8 per cent
year on year; but listening to the radio via telly and the internet
grew faster than listening on a DAB receiver. Year on year, the
digital slice of the pie grew from 21.1 per cent of listening hours in
Q3 2009 to 24.8 per cent from June to September. The target set by the
previous government, and adopted by the current coalition government,
is 50 per cent by 2015. The rate of growth still suggests this will
not be achieved in time, as we suggested back in August.

Now for the quarterly change. The promotion ran for a month and ended
on 26 June. RAJAR's quarter began on 1 July - and ought to have
reflected an audience uptick. Despite the promotion, however, DAB
listener hours remained exactly where they were in Q2, at 162 million.
So the plummy tones of Fry appear have been overshadowed by other
factors, such as wider adoption of the BBC's iPlayer, or people
enjoying radio through their spanking new TVs, bought for the World
Cup.

There may be other reasons why the promotion didn't reflect in an
audience uptake. Perhaps the discounts were not attractive enough.
Perhaps it didn't receive enough retail support - DSG's Dixons and
Currys outlets declined to participate. Or maybe they should have
hired Hugh Grant.

You'd think the radio industry should be celebrating: the appetite for
radio is tremendous, and people are seeking out new media devices with
which to hear it. The fact that people are listening to radio on a TV
should be particularly welcome, since it's a linear format, where
advert-skipping isn't possible. But the radio industry has yoked its
fortunes to DAB.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10...e_stephen_fry/

The digital radio clowns strike again - LMFAO!!!!

I'm in a bit too much of a hurry to read through all of this.

However, the impression I got was that trading in an FM radio only got
people a small discount of a new DAB radio. Perhaps saving then 2 or 3
pounds.

Hardly an attractive offer to make people give up a perfectly good FM
radio, in favour of a DAB radio that eats batteries, probably fails to
get a reliable signal in most households, and provides sh*t sound quality.

Actually I haven't yet noticed any big BBC advertising campaigns for DAB
so far this year. Perhaps that's why DAB seems to be failing even more
than usual.

The usual massive advertising campaigns, just about managed a small
growth in DAB sales. So without the advertising, DAB is an even more
spectacular failure than normal.

Richard E.