Ofcom ignores radio in annual report

Don't touch that dial: Ofcom's annual report devotes more space to diversity targets and the quango's own carbon emissions than it does to the state of British radio. The regulator touts its Times award as one of the Top 50 employers for women and Stonewall Award as a Diversity Champion in its 114-page state-of-the-quango …

[Harry]

"14 per cent of new cars have DAB as standard"

What's the point of reporting how many cars have something that everybody *knows* is unlikely to work reliably?

More meaningful would be the proportion that can also support DAB+ or something better.

Indeed, with ofcom still refusing to understand that current DAB is a dead duck perhaps the best thing would be for the manufacturers to gang up, bypass ofcom and install equipment that can support FM abd DAB+ but *not* support DAB.

That would surely force ofcom into what they must surely know they *ought* to be doing -- phasing out the old DAB and not promoting it.

[Anonymous Coward]

No mention either then of

No mention either then of the continued collapse of "independent local radio" into an ever decreasing number of national commercial networks, with the associated collapse in local content. The so-called regulator seems to have abandoned any pretence of remembering the original licence conditions relating to local content which were and as far as I know still are part of these stations' operating licences.

The most local thing you get on most of these stations these days is ads for "local" advertisers (though the ads themselves will likely be sold, written, recorded, and played out centrally).

Robin Valk, where are you now?

[His blog is at http://www.radiotogo.blogspot.com/ and is worth a read if you care about local radio, especially local music radio]

[Wize]

Reducing your carbon footprint?

Stay with non-DAB FM.

This may be a silly question. Are smart phones able to use their FM receivers to decode DAB signals (with a bit of extra software), or is all the FM decoding handled by a separate chip on the average phone and fed in as a sound only signal?

[Bunker_Monkey]

if so..

there would already be an "app for that"

[DominicT]

Ofcom

"The Conservatives vowed to abolish uber-regulator Ofcom" Yeah, because they might have caused some headaches for Tory-pal Murdoch. I doubt they'll be gunning for Ofcom any time soon, given the unsurprising revelations of how evil News International are, and how Jeremy Hunt and the Tories were basically going to dance to whatever tune they demanded. Damn good thing we have the Guardian.

[Bilgepipe]

Carbon Shmarbon

See the years along the bottom of the carbon graph? They're aiming to cut the same amount over two years that they just cut in one year.

It's all just waffle.

[Trollslayer]

DAB has failed

That's it in a nutshell - as Wize said, phones come with FM receivers and there is DAB and DAB+ and there are a couple of hundred FM radios.

Nice idea but the legacy issue has won.

Let DAB rest in peace and save us all money, digital stations are still available over Freeview, satellite and cable as well as the internet.

[nichomach]

£197m?

Wish I had a license to sell air and claim that I was generating income...

[davenewman]

Even broadcasters don't bother to monitor DAB

Here in Belfast, nearly every day there are some hours when Radio Ulster on DAB is overlaid with hiss, so that it is unlistenable. And every couple of weeks we loose all local stations from DAB (while Radio 4 and other national stations carry on).

It looks like no-one at the BBC is monitoring the output of the DAB broadcasts. Otherwise problems would not take hours or days to fix.

Perhaps we should send in postcards with reception reports, like those sent to shortwave stations?

[PocketRadio]

Same thing in the US with HD Radio

"Even broadcasters don't bother to monitor DAB"

Same thing here in the US with HD Radio. Consumers don't care, and same goes for broadcasters. The hardware is very unreliable and HD Rado can be off for weeks at a time, but no one cares, beause no one is listening.

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder they're called:

O£COM

[Queeg]

Just a quick one

I was wondering if anyone from Vulture Towers has send a FOI request or even made a quick phone call to ask.

"Scuse me,where's the digi radio stuff?"

[Richard Porter]

£91.24?

How can a "typical household" spend only £91.24 on communications products? Do you mean per month? If it's per year you can't even rent a fixed line for that, never mind broadband, mobile and the tv licence.

[Anonymous Coward]

You foroot to say

If that is per month that smacks of a daylight robbery.

[PocketRadio]

HD Radio is a farce! Same for the DAB digital radio liars!

In the US, HD Radio is a farce!

http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com

According to Grant Goddard, less than 1% of cars in the UK have crappy DAB radios:

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/

In the US, iBiquity is forcing HD Radio through new car sales, and is now under investigation, along with the automakers, by two law firms! Go get 'um!!!

[davemcwish]

Can't do basic arithmetic either

£15,000 of £284,963 is about 5%. Also it's not a cut its a bonus that has elected not to take up. A real 10% pay cut would be against his basic salary.

Paris:- Cos she's probably just as good at sums as the report's authors.

[Paul Landon]

Their Other Roles

Did the report mention how they are handling phone hacking or prosecuting spammers?

[SImon Hobson]

and that other biggie ...

I bet it doesn't mention that they've been caught not only ignoring their remit to protect legitimate users of the airwaves from unlawful interference - specifically by sitting on their ***es denying that there was any problem with the PLT kit being sold by BT.

And now they've been found out to have well and truly lied in that they knew 100% of the problem a full year before they claimed they had no information to support a complaint - because the report they commissioned from an EMC test house told them in no uncertain terms !

http://www.ban-plt.co.uk/truth-lies.php