Digital radio receivers will be available for less than £100 by the middle of next year, according to radio operator GWR Group. The company’s Digital One subsidiary has developed the technology in partnership with Imagination Technologies.
The new processor chips, especially designed to bring down the cost of digital radios, will be available in a range of systems by electronics manufacturer Goodmans, it was also announced today. They are expected to cost between £99 and £200.
Comment The cost of consumer entry to the world of digital radio has long been one of the nascent industry’s biggest hurdles. Until now, even the cheapest digital receiver cost in the region of £300 and most are significantly more expensive than that. As well as this availability has not been particularly great.
GWR Group is thought to be well-placed to benefit from a take-up of digital radio when it begins to happen and so is naturally keen to fund developments such as the new, low-cost chip from Imagination Technologies. Rival radio group, EMAP, announced just a few days earlier that if it is successful in its bid for the Leicester digital radio licence, it will offer receiver units to consumers in the area for just £49.
These moves, by two of the UK’s largest radio operators, represent a relatively sudden flurry of activity in the digital radio market which, at least at consumer level, has so far existed more in theory than in practice.
It will take equipment subsidies and educational marketing if customers are to show more interest in digital audio broadcasting (DAB) and it seems that UK radio groups are now taking up that challenge with conviction.
Without such investment moves, digital radio may well struggle to get up to speed. There are already a number of commentators who believe that the technology is a bit of a non-starter. No less than Matthew Bannister, former director of radio at the BBC, dismissed DAB as a ‘costly mistake’ in an article in the Times in September.
Forecasts by consulting firm, Indepen, on behalf of the MXR digital radio consortium, anticipate a 58% home reach and 67% car reach by 2013. At this point MXR calculates digital share to take 27% of all listening while, GWR’s Digital One puts the figure at 40%.
Following this period digital will move to become market leader between 2014 and 2016, say the forecasts.
