Digital One Multiplex Now Covers 90% Of Britain

Arqiva operated DAB multiplex, Digital One, has announced that 90% of the population of Great Britain now live within its coverage area.

Digital One’s chief executive, Quentin Howard, said: “With the switch on of the 133rd transmitter in Whitby this week we broke another record and commercial radio is leading the way in delivering DAB digital radio to more people than ever before.”

He added: “This announcement reflects the reality that DAB digital radio is indeed in rude health. We had record Christmas sales figures from GfK, the RAJAR results show that DAB digital radio commands 10% of all radio listening and total sales have reached six and a half million sets. Digital One’s announcement that we now reach over 90% of the British population is another hard fact, demonstrating digital radio’s strong position and firm foundations.”

The latest RAJAR figures, for Q4 2007, show that 16.6% of all radio listening is now done via a digital platform, up from 15% in the previous quarter (see Over 16% Of All Radio Listening Now Via Digital).

The figures show that 9.9% of all radio listening is via DAB (versus 8.6% in Q3 2007), 3.1% via DTV (vs. 3.0% in Q3, 2007) and 1.9% via the Internet (vs.1.6% in Q3 2007).

Last month the DRDB reported that one million DAB digital radios were bought in the fourth quarter of 2007, with more than 550,000 sold in December alone, a 22% rise on December 2006 (see Strong Christmas Sales For Digital Radios).

The DRDB said that figures from GfK put cumulative sales of DAB sets at 6.45 million at the end of 2007, up from 4.4 million in 2006. This is in line with the DRDB’s forecast figure of two million set sales in 2007 (see UK DAB Household Penetration To Reach 58.5% By 2011).

Reports in the trade press last week suggested that GCap Media is planning to sell its majority stake in DAB multiplex Digital One (see GCap Could Sell Its Stake In Digital One).

DRDB: 020 7306 2630 www.drdb.org