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DOI: 10.1177/1354856512451015

2013 19: 177 originally published online 20 September 2012Convergence John Nathan Anderson

Radio broadcasting's digital dilemma

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Article

Radio broadcasting’s

digital dilemma

John Nathan AndersonCity University of New York, USA

Abstract

Although digital radio broadcasting has undergone significant development over the lastquarter-century, no single protocol is poised to break out as a bona fide replacement for traditionalanalogue radio services. This article illuminates the history and status of radio’s digital transition in aneffort to understand its stagnancy. The current state of affairs is due to a variety of factors, including alack of regulatory engagement with the transition, political and economic shifts in the balance of power between the various broadcaster constituencies involved, and the recalcitrance of receivermanufacturers and listeners to adopt any digital radio broadcast technology. The questions raisedby the technologically agnostic nature of radio’s digital malaise beg for deeper scrutiny by media scho-lars, especially those involved in broadcast research as well as technology and policy studies.

KeywordsDAB, Digital radio broadcasting, Digital Radio Mondiale, DRM, Eureka 147, HD Radio, mediaconvergence, media policy, radio history, radio studies

For the last quarter century, the medium of terrestrial radio broadcasting has struggled mightily

with its transition to a digital platform. Unlike the digital television transition, where broadcast

stations were effectively forced en masse to move from an analogue to a digital transmission

protocol, radio broadcasters have attempted to navigate their own digitalization. Since the mid-

1980s, three systems of digital radio broadcasting have been developed.

The first system, Eureka 147 digital audio broadcasting (DAB), utilizes spectrum outside of the

AM and FM broadcast bands to create an entirely new platform for the transmission of digital

radio. Although DAB has had the backing of incumbent broadcasters and broadcast regulators in

several countries, the service has not proven popular, and countries which have adopted DAB are

finding it difficult to wean both broadcasters and listeners off radio’s legacy analogue platform.

Furthermore, improvements to DAB technology have worked to marginalize early DAB

Corresponding author:

John Nathan Anderson, Department of Television and Radio, Brooklyn College, 304 Whitehead Hall, 2900 Bedford

Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA.Email: [email protected]

Convergence: The International

Journal of Research into

New Media Technologies

19(2) 177-199

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transmission systems, and there does not appear to be substantive political or economic momentum

among affected constituencies to write off prior investments for debatable ‘improvements’.’

The second digital radio system to be developed, HD Radio, was designed by broadcasters in

the USA as a compromise between their desire to maintain their place of primacy and incumbency

on the airwaves and the necessity of engaging with the phenomena of media digitalization and convergence. Unlike DAB, HD Radio co-locates analogue and digital radio transmissions on the

AM and FM dials. This has resulted in qualitative compromises – both to the robustness of legacy

analogue broadcasting and to the functionality and extensibility of the HD Radio platform itself.

Although this technology has received the endorsement of the USA’s largest public and private

broadcasters as well as regulators, HD Radio suffers from many of the same adoptive shortfalls

that have plagued DAB.

The newest digital radio broadcast protocol, Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), also places digital

transmissions on existing broadcast bands, but unlike HD Radio, it replaces analogue signals entirely.

Though DRM appears to offer measurable qualitative improvements to the medium as a whole, it,

too, suffers from a lack of adoptive commitment by broadcasters, listeners, and regulators, primarily because it would necessitate the discontinuation of analogue broadcast services entirely. DAB and

HD Radio have been the subject of years of intra-industry discussion about the merits of radio’s digi-

tal transition and organized efforts to affect it; DRM can’t seem to secure a similar opportunity,

which diminishes the system’s potential to be a catalyst in the transition process.

This article interrogates the global state of radio’s digital transition by examining the functional

and adoptive histories of the three extant digital broadcast technologies. Although DAB, HD

Radio, and DRM are quite different operationally, a comparative analysis is possible based on the

difficulties all three have encountered during their development and attempted proliferation. I

argue that these difficulties can be traced back to two critical shortcomings in the manner by which

the medium has attempted to navigate its own digitalization.The first is directly related to the technologies themselves: DAB, HD Radio, and DRM do not

extend the functionality of radio broadcasting to any meaningful degree beyond the services

provided by legacy analogue systems. This makes it difficult for broadcasters to buy into a digital

radio ‘upgrade’ when there is little potential for a return on their investment in these new infra-

structures, not to mention making the necessary investments in exclusively digital programming.

Relatedly, listeners are left with virtually no incentive to embrace these new technologies when

their fundamental shortcomings are so clearly identifiable. Ironically, it is in countries where

radio’s digital transition has received the most attention that the dilemma of adoptive traction is

most clear.

The second shortcoming of radio’s digital transition is tied to the first: the developers of DAB,HD Radio, and DRM all designed their systems from the perspective of incumbent radio broad-

casters, who prefer to proffer digital variants of the status quo instead of embracing the trans-

formative potential of digitalization and convergence – and radio’s ultimate place in such a media

environment. In every instance, media regulators have opted not to proactively engage with the

implications of this perspective, instead letting the most politically and economically powerful

broadcast constituencies guide the transition based upon self-serving priorities. During this entire

process, however, the phenomenon of convergence has engendered new forms of digital radio,

such as satellite and internet-based streaming audio services, many of which are essentially

co-opting the identity of what ‘radio’ is in the mind of the listening public.

Therein lies radio’s digital dilemma: if extant digital broadcast technologies do not serve to provide a vector for legacy radio services to engage constructively in a convergent media

178 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 19(2)

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environment, what are the implications for radio as we’ve known it going forward? As much as

regulators appear to be sold on the idea of broadcast digitalization, broadcasters and listeners are

clearly reticent at casting off the legacy of analogue operation. Proponents who believe that

convergence is the natural end-state of all media systems assert that such a transition is inevitable.

However, as Sedman (1997) has noted, a new radio service

generally requires four levels of adoption: (1) Approval by a governing body (such as the FCC in the

United States); (2) Acceptance by the broadcast station; (3) Consent from the consumer electronics

industry to design and market a new technology; [and] (4) Adoption by the mass buying public.

(1997: 158–159)

The current state of radio’s digital transition – irrespective of the technology chosen by any nation

– falls far short of meeting these criteria. When combined with the development of new, more

naturally convergent forms of ‘radio,’ this dilemma opens up the possibility for potent unsettle-

ment within the medium itself. In addition to providing a survey of the state of radio’s digital

transition around the world, this article represents a call for media scholars to re-engage in thestudy of a medium which many in the academy have written off as somehow ‘dead’ or ‘dying’;

the reality of the situation is that these questions about radio’s future represent a vibrant opportu-

nity to proactively assess and assist broadcasters, regulators, and listeners in the navigation of a

successful digital radio transition, as well as to help the medium of terrestrial radio broadcasting

itself secure and maintain a viable perch in a convergent media environment.

Eureka 147 DAB: A fragmentary first-born

The development of digital radio broadcast technology began with the launching of the Eureka 147DAB initiative in 1985 (Lax et al., 2008: 152). German audio scientists invented the digital audio

encoding algorithm inherent to the Eureka 147 system, while French engineers developed its

broadcast waveform. Unlike analogue broadcasting, where each station maintains its own trans-

mission infrastructure, DAB broadcasters feed their programming into a multiplex transmission

facility where it is then bundled with other program services and broadcast as a unified digital

stream on spectrum specifically reserved for the purpose. Each multiplex serves a specific geo-

graphic area. DAB receivers decode the multiplex signal and play back the program stream that the

listener desires. How the multiplex system is operated differs from country to country: most

countries reserve space on their multiplexes for incumbent public service broadcasters while the

vast majority of remaining capacity is filled by analogue stations that lease multiplex ‘channels’for a fixed period of time. Although this represents a significant shift in the method of radio

transmission (by consolidating the broadcast infrastructure), Eureka’s developers noted that the

DAB system would not directly impinge upon legacy analogue radio stations, which would be left

to operate normally while the Eureka system was deployed.

Early Eureka 147 research envisioned a digital broadcast standard with functionality far beyond

the simple provision of audio. However, a lack of early and overt support for this ambitious goal

led developers to scale back their mission to the creation of a digital radio standard that could

eventually replace analogue AM and FM broadcasting. In 1987, 19 public service broadcasters and

electronics organizations from France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK founded a con-

sortium for the collaborative research and promotion of the Eureka 147 standard (O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 32). DAB was contextualized as a way by which Europeans could ‘take the lead in

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the digital terrestrial radio space and, hopefully, promulgate a world standard’ (O’Neill et al.,

2010: 19).

Intrinsic to achieving this aspiration was pan-European regulatory consensus: each country

needed to harmonize their DAB spectral allocations and operational rules so as to create the con-

ditions for a truly continental digital radio system. This would send an important signal to theworld that DAB was a viable replacement for analogue radio service. However, this consensus was

never realized, which has left the technology’s implementation in the hands of individual coun-

tries. Foregoing basic functional interoperability significantly dampened the enthusiasm for DAB

among consumer electronics manufacturers, who were not enamored with the idea of producing

receivers which might work in one European country but not another (Pizzi, 2004c).

Consequently, the actual implementation of DAB was forced to navigate the incumbencies

found in each nation’s system of broadcast organization. The uptake of DAB has been greatest in

countries where public service broadcasters dominate the radio industry (Ala-Fossi and Stavitsky,

2003: 66). However, the lack of DAB’s ability to accommodate local programming has proven to

be a major factor in its struggle for adoption (O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 33). Eureka 147 consortiummembers sold the promise of increased audio quality and a vaguely defined potential for ancillary

services such as datacasting as the principles by which a digital radio transition would succeed

(Cohen, 1995; n.a., 1996b, 1996c). Qualitatively, the operative rationale for Europe’s digitalization

of radio broadcasting has not been substantive enough to spark deep interest in DAB among reg-

ulators, broadcasters or the listening public. Furthermore, developments within Eureka’s techno-

logical suite have complicated the technology’s uptake by both broadcasters and radio listeners.

In 1995, the British Broadcasting Corporation became the first broadcaster to implement a

multiplex DAB transmission system. Hailed as ‘a new dawn for radio,’ the milestone was char-

acterized as the most significant development in the medium’s history since the introduction of FM

stereo broadcasting. The Eureka 147 consortium confidently predicted that its technology would ultimately replace analogue AM and FM service completely (Cohen, 1995). By the end of 1995,

members of the consortium founded the European DAB Forum (EuroDAB) to promote the

technology’s spread throughout the continent. This was later reconstituted as the WorldDAB

Forum in 1997, suggesting confidence among proponents that the system would quickly catch on

globally. One of the Forum’s primary talking points emphasized the need to digitize radio simply

for the sake of being digital: not to undertake the transition would leave the medium bereft as an

analogue adjunct to an increasingly convergent media environment, which would have unspecified

but negative consequences (O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 33–34; O’Neill et al., 2010: 21).

The hype surrounding the launch of DAB was quite impressive. Five companies exhibited Eureka-

compatible transmitters at the US National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention in 1996(Ross, 1996). The consortium projected that Europeans would purchase 50 million DAB receivers

in the first 10 years of digital radio service, with sales quickly rising to 35 million per year thereafter

(O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 35). By the end of the 20th century, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Swit-

zerland announced plans to test the Eureka system; France, India, and Italy were in the midst of DAB

experiments; and Denmark and the Netherlands reported progress toward the provision of nationwide

DAB service(Clark, 1996). By 2002, the WorldDAB Forum represented companies and organizations

spanning 25 countries (n.a., 2002), and by 2004 more than 284 million people were covered by some

sort of DAB signal; 400 digital program services were available in 20 different countries (Ala-Fossi

and Stavitsky, 2003: 64). In 2006, the Forum changed its name again, to WorldDMB (‘digital multi-

media broadcasting’). More than 1000 DAB program services now existed in 40 nations, reaching 500million potential listeners (Maxson, 2007: 19).


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In reality, however, the actual adoption of DAB by receiver manufacturers and the public was

tepid at best. Although many broadcasters had committed to programming within the DAB

transmission infrastructure, without affordable receivers there would be no meaningful listener

base (Cohen, 1995). A year after the BBC launched DAB service, no receivers were yet in mass

production. The delay was based, in part, on inter-Forum squabbles over DAB’s datacastingstandard. The British and Germans each developed their own datacast protocol, which were not

cross-compatible. This dispute would not be settled – and no datacast-capable receivers would

be produced – until 1998. Thus early-adopter DAB broadcasters took to the air with minimal data-

casting functionality, and listeners were not attuned to the feature (Cohen, 1998; n.a., 1996a).

The patchwork manner by which DAB systems were deployed across the continent did not help

matters. Multiplexes could use different swaths of spectrum, depending on national availability. As

a result, DAB multiplexes in one country were not necessarily on the same frequencies as those in a

neighboring country. This complicated the task of making interoperable digital radio receivers.

DAB proponents first estimated in 1996 that an interoperable receiver would enter the market with

a price point ‘below $750’ (Careless, 1996b). By 1999, after European broadcasters had spent anestimated €300 million on DAB transmission development, there was still no inexpensive means

by which to listen (Ala-Fossi, 2010b: 49). In 2002 – seven years into DAB’s initial proliferation –

the lack of interoperable and inexpensive receivers led some countries to abandon further DAB

testing and curtail existing digital broadcast services (Lax et al., 2008: 154; Pizzi, 2004c). Survey

data from several European countries showed very little listener interest in the technology (Lax

et al., 2008: 151).

On the regulatory front, state-run public service broadcasters led the DAB development effort,

while commercial broadcasters were treated as afterthought-constituencies during its formative

policymaking years (Jauert et al., 2010: 106–107). DAB proponents assumed that public service

broadcasters would maintain their place of primacy within the European radio industry; this wasa strategic miscalculation. The growth of Europe’s commercial radio sector over the last 15 years

has given it increasing political and economic power. Commercial broadcasters’ lack of

enthusiasm for DAB has been exacerbated by an economic slowdown that, over the course of the

last decade, has hit the European radio industry quite hard: several commercial DAB program pro-

viders forfeited their multiplex channels because of falling revenue (O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 39).

With the sentiments of commercial broadcasters ranging from lukewarm to cynical on the potential

for DAB, this has fed further anxiety among receiver manufacturers about investing in a new

digital product that may not contain the same program diversity as its analogue counterpart

(McDonagh, 2000). No pan-European interoperable DAB receiver yet exists (n.a., 2008e).

In addition, the European Commission appears uninterested in pursuing substantive policymaking regarding radio’s digital transition. The EC, argues O’Neill and Shaw (2010), has

been preoccupied with Europe’s digital television transition, and thus ‘have left the success or

failure of DAB in the hands of ‘‘market players’’’ (2010: 36). DAB policy ultimately defaults to the

national level for resolution, where by and large a lack of ‘urgency and political priority’ has

‘deferred the question of whether AM and FM broadcasting needed to be replaced’ at all (2010:

37–38). This lack of regulatory engagement at both the continental and national level further

aggravates the tensions between market players to which the successful implementation of DAB

has been left.

Further complicating matters for Eureka proponents is technological progress itself. More than

20 years have passed since DAB’s initial development; several upgrades and new variants to theEureka 147 system now exist. These include DABþ (essentially an upgraded version of the

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original DAB system), DVB (digital video broadcasting, with two variants – one for televisions

and one for portable media devices), and DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting, which can

convey many forms of digital content to a variety of devices). All branch from the original Eureka

147 design, but none are interoperable. Some countries are considering implementing new Eureka

variants to complement incumbent DAB systems; others are shutting down old multiplexes withthe intent of replacing them entirely; still others are canceling all digital radio-related projects until

the marketplace either settles on a single Eureka standard or receivers become interoperable

between them (Ala-Fossi, 2010b: 57–58).

Today, the pan-European perspective on radio’s digital transition is a muddy one. While there is

consensus that ‘[b]ringing radio into the digital era means more than simply changing its mode of

delivery into digital form’ (O’Neill et al., 2010: 17), the steps by which this might occur remain

unclear. After conducting interviews with radio broadcasters in several countries, Ala-Fossi

(2010a) concluded that there is ‘no single platform or technology’ that constitutes the key mechan-

ism for radio’s digital transition (2010a: 160–161). Competition between platforms, audience frag-

mentation, and uncertainty among radio broadcasters and regulators has probably led to ‘lessconsensus now about the future of radio than at any time in the past’ (O’Neill et al., 2010: 20).

Ala-Fossi (2010b: 45) explains that, depending on one’s perspective, ‘radio is currently either fac-

ing the danger of fragmentation or is surviving by infiltrating new platforms and becoming more

polymorphic’.

In practical terms, European broadcasters now see radio as a multi-platform medium, with

distribution via incumbent analogue technology, DAB variants, satellite and the internet all play-

ing a factor in radio’s future (O’Neill and Shaw, 2010: 39–40; O’Neill et al., 2010: 20). Analogue

radio broadcasting remains alive and well, and is expected to continue to play a significant role in

the radio space: at its annual conference in February 2010, the Association of European Radios – a

continental trade group representing more than 4500 commercial broadcasters – approved a reso-lution opposing any mandatory analogue/digital radio transition (Goddard, 2010a: 260–261).

O’Neill and Shaw (2010) assert that although DAB was portrayed as a replacement for analogue

broadcasting, ‘by the very nature of who framed the questions, [DAB development actually pro-

duced] the best and most innovative digital radio solution which would best serve the needs of the

status quo’ (2010: 39).

Around the world, Eureka 147 variants have found minimal purchase at best in a handful of

countries – but in no place is the technology’s future truly guaranteed. As the first country to roll

out a DAB network, the UK has been the site of the most substantive discussion regarding radio’s

digital transition. In order to entice broadcasters into the digital domain, regulators offered to

extend the terms of their existing analogue licenses in an exchange for a commitment to produceDAB-exclusive programming (Rudin, 2006: 169–170). This practice conferred upon broadcast

incumbents the status of preferred entrants in the digital radio environment, and rising political and

economic power in the hands of commercial broadcasters began to reshape the DAB service itself.

Multiplexes, for example, were established in such a way as to roughly replicate the coverage of

existing analogue radio markets. The net effect, concludes Rudin (2006), has been to ‘greatly

restrict the flexibility of the system – at the local level DAB is no more efficient in the use of fre-

quency spectrum than analogue’ (2006: 171).

In 1996, the passage of the UK Broadcasting Act unleashed an unprecedented wave of

consolidation within the country’s commercial radio industry. DAB deployment was affected:

national broadcast conglomerates began to simulcast programs from one station on many multiplexes and got into the business of owning and operating the multiplexes themselves (Goddard,


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2010a: 65; Lax et al., 2008: 162). This allowed vertical integration to occur within the nascent

digital radio industry (Lax et al., 2008: 170, 173). Yet UK DAB proponents trumpeted the system’s

program diversity: by early 2001, more than 40 DAB program streams were on the air in the

London area alone (Calhoun, 2001). In 2002, the BBC launched its first DAB-only station, 1Xtra,

featuring an urban contemporary music format (Stimson, 2002b). The following year, the BBCannounced it would launch five new national digital radio services and develop local and regional

multiplex systems to increase digital program choice (Hallett, 2003a). By the end of 2003, DAB

proponents hoped to sell 500,000 receivers (Stimson, 2003c) – a far cry from the adoptive goals

articulated in the previous decade.

However, an increase in program diversity came at the expense of improved audio quality relative

to analogue radio. Some multiplex operators believed it was more important to divide up their

available bandwidth into as many program streams as possible – sacrificing the maximum possible

fidelity available per channel – while others chose to carry fewer program streams in higher fidelity

(Pizzi, 2004b). By 2004, the BBC’s official position on the parsing of multiplex channels favored

program diversity over fidelity, thus undermining the original selling point of DAB in the UK (Rudin, 2006: 172). The shift toward cramming as many program streams as possible into a mul-

tiplex has led to a situation where, according to O’Neill (2010b), ‘bitrates are determined the

minimum necessary for acceptable listening, not the maximum or even the recommended levels for

effective audio performance . . . [This results] in a quality of [DAB] transmission that is frequently

described as ‘‘worse than FM’’’ (2010b: 92–93). As the number of multiplexes on the air grew, so did

complaints about inadequate signal coverage. Regulators’ response to this problem was not to

investigate the condition of the multiplex environment itself; instead they required DAB receiver

retailers to install signal-amplifiers in their stores to provide potential buyers with a positive initial

listening experience. Imagine the consternation when those listeners took the radios home and found

that they didn’t work as well as advertised (Goddard, 2010a: 30–32).Disappointment among broadcasters and listeners with the functionality and affordability of

DAB technology grew throughout the first decade of the 21st century. Coupled with the onset of a

global economic downturn, the UK’s digital radio transition began to flounder. In 2008, many

commercial analogue broadcasters abandoned their DAB program services citing prohibitive

operational costs (Goddard, 2010a: 38–39). Goddard (2010a) believes DAB service providers are

losing an average of £27 million per year, which ‘represents around 5 % of commercial radio’s

revenues, a significant impact on an industry which is only marginally profitable overall at present’

(2010a: 116). At the BBC, there is movement away from further investment in DAB-specific

programming. The institution has increasingly funneled resources into alternative digital audio dis-

tribution platforms based around the internet, such as podcasting and streaming-on-demand (2010a: 89–91). Goddard notes that ‘[t]he most listened to exclusively digital radio station in

London is BBC 1Xtra, which ranks 22nd and attracts only a 0.5% share of listening in the market’

(2010a: 125). UK regulators have sanctioned the deployment of newer Eureka variants, such as

DABþ and DMB, but there is no political or economic momentum to upgrade an ‘upgrade’ which

has not provided a meaningful return on broadcaster investment (n.a., 2006b; Pizzi, 2008). Further-

more, since DABþ is not backwards compatible, broadcasters would either have to retrofit or con-

struct an entirely new multiplex network to support the protocol, and radio listeners – including

those who enjoy DAB – would be forced to purchase new receivers. It is not economically feasible

for today’s UK radio broadcasters to maintain an analogue transmission system and carry the cost

of production and delivery of unique DAB content to a multiplex channel which, in the case of commercial and community broadcasters, it must also lease.

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As of 2010, only 9.2% of commercial radio listening in the UK was conducted via DAB, while

79% of all new radios sold were analogue models (Goddard, 2010a: 9). In 2007, there were 34

million cars on UK roads, but only 200,000 had DAB receivers installed. That year, 2.4 million

new vehicles were purchased, but only 20,000 drivers chose to install their own DAB receiver

(2010a: 85). In the decade since nationwide DAB service was established in the UK, more than 7million DAB receivers have been sold – but in 2010 alone, more than 8 million analogue receivers

were purchased (2010a: 15). Commercial broadcasters have proposed restricting stations from

distributing digital content over any mechanism other than DAB, and have even suggested giving

away one DAB receiver to every household in the UK, but these ideas have gained no traction

(2010a: 52–55).

The story of digital radio in the UK actually represents the most positive picture of DAB in

Europe. Elsewhere, the condition of the technology’s uptake is much more confused. Some

countries remain entirely noncommittal about digital radio: in Ireland, for example, the country

does not suffer from FM spectrum congestion. Irish broadcasters (both commercial and non-

commercial) remain focused on the provision of local programming and a healthy communityradio sector exists. As a result, Irish regulators have their attention on the eventual promulgation of

the Eureka DVB standard, which incorporates the provision of digital audio as just one

functionality among many, and they are in no hurry to begin the transition (Branigan, 2004; Lax

et al., 2008: 159–160).

France’s on-and-off affair with DAB is illustrative of the contention surrounding radio’s digital

transition. In 2009, France settled on the DMB standard of the Eureka suite and proposed a time-

table to cover 95% of the national population with digital radio service by 2013. Commercial

broadcasters are ‘increasingly ambivalent’ about this proposal, however, expressing concern that

the infrastructure will favor homogenized national content over local programming. They have ini-

tiated legal action against French broadcast regulator CSA in opposition to the rollout plan (God-dard, 2010a: 107, 131–132). Within the French government itself, some call the DMB launch

proposal ‘implausible’ and demand that an economic model to support the service be identified

before an estimated €600 million to €1 billion is spent on the buildout of infrastructure (2010a:

166–167). As a result, the DMB launch has been indefinitely delayed (2010a: 302). Given that

French engineers played an integral role in the development of Eureka 147 technology, the

country’s level of noninvolvement in its future is surprising.

Germany, Eureka’s other founding developer-nation, has already tried and failed to implement

a DAB system. Regulation of spectrum allocation is a state-level function in Germany, not a fed-

eral responsibility. As a result, there has never been a coordinated plan for the national rollout of

DAB service. In 1996, Bavaria became the first German state to license a multiplex, containing twochannels from public service broadcasters and three from commercial stations (n.a., 1995). How-

ever, less than a year after the launch of the multiplex, VPRT – the trade association for commer-

cial German broadcasters – announced it would no longer promote DAB programming. It

complained about the ‘harmonizing’ coverage attribute of the DAB system, the program subsidies

given to public service broadcast-competitors, and a lack of receivers in the marketplace (Lawton,

1996). By 2002, although state governments continued to offer multiplex licenses, there were few

takers (Ory, 2000; Stimson, 2002b).

During first decade of the 21st century, German broadcasters tinkered with alternatives to DAB,

including DABþ, DVB, and other technologies, but the lack of unified, federal direction on radio’s

digitalization has consigned these practices to the experimental level (Lawson, 2008). In 2009,German broadcast regulators rejected a proposal to spend €42 million to continue building out the


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DAB network, because ‘substantial elements of the criteria agreed previously with broadcasters

had not been met and the viability of the projects could not be demonstrated’ (Goddard, 2010a:

100–101). Efforts have since been redirected toward the construction of a DABþ transmission

network, which launched in August of 2011 and should provide nationwide coverage by

2014–2015, though the ultimate success of this second uptake remains to be seen (n.a., 2011d).Germany’s immediate neighbors have not fared much better. In Switzerland, broadcasters

briefly experimented with the USA’s digital standard, HD Radio. Tests commenced in 2007 and

were declared successful in 2008 (n.a., 2007e; Ruoss, 2008). The following year, five commercial

stations began broadcasting in HD (n.a., 2010b), but further deployment suddenly screeched to a

halt. In 2010, Markos Ruoss, the owner of the station Radio Sunshine and the man primarily

responsible for the exploration of HD Radio, abruptly ended his association with the technology’s

proprietor, iBiquity Digital Corporation. With him went the rest of the broadcasters who had also

experimented with HD broadcast technology (n.a., 2010d). In the meantime, Swiss regulators are

pushing for the launch of DABþ service; however, five of the eight multiplex licenses tendered for

consideration expired without any applicants for them (Goddard, 2010a: 172; n.a., 2010b: 10).Austrian broadcast regulators have put the country’s digital radio transition on indefinite hold,

as there is no consensus on which form of Eureka technology to adopt. Commercial broadcasters in

Austria believe the only way that a digital radio transition could succeed is under some sort of pan-

European standard, which is politically infeasible (Goddard, 2010a: 156). In Poland, regulators

announced their intent to implement DAB in 1995, and the first multiplex license in Warsaw was

awarded in 1997, but there is no momentum for a national DAB rollout (Ladika, 1998; Seidler,

1995).

Like Germany, the Netherlands has also abandoned the notion of a coordinated digital radio

transition. The Dutch DAB Foundation ended experimental broadcasts in 2000 because ‘there

[was] no government policy on licensing DAB frequencies’. The lack of DAB receivers in themarketplace was highlighted as especially problematic (Stimson, 2000b). Over the intervening

decade, DAB deployment and uptake has remained marginal. Regulators in the Netherlands

attempted to rejuvenate the proliferation of digital radio in 2010 by offering automatic renewals of

analogue radio station licenses in exchange for a commitment to provide DAB programming.

Dutch commercial broadcasters did not react favorably to the plan; one noted that their analogue

station reaches more people online than it does over the network of DAB transmitters it’s been

feeding programming to. A proposal to phase out analogue broadcasting by 2015 has been dashed

(Goddard, 2010b).

In Denmark, regulators are debating an analogue radio shutoff in the 2016–2018 timeframe, but

a large portion of the country’s broadcasters oppose the idea. Only 1.5 million DAB receivers have been sold in Denmark as of 2010 and they account for just 8% of total radio listening (Goddard,

2010a: 262–263). Danish broadcasters interviewed by Ala-Fossi (2010a: 157–158) suggested the

key mechanism for radio’s digitalization would most likely be the internet.

Elsewhere in Europe, DAB’s implementation has been similarly haphazard. Spain formally

adopted the DAB standard in 1997, but its promulgation has never been a high priority among

regulators (Corominas et al., 2006: 122–123). In 2008, the WorldDMB Forum assessed the situ-

ation in Spain to be ‘at a standstill, as . . . radio groups remain unsure due to the perceived threat to

their [analogue] markets’ (Jauert et al., 2010: 115). The following year, Spanish regulators

declared the DAB system ‘obsolete’ and a ‘road to nowhere’ (Goddard, 2010a: 107). In Norway,

regulators have abandoned their DAB rollout and now seek to promulgate DMB service; in doingso, they hope to terminate analogue radio by 2017 (n.a., 2011a). However, the number of analogue

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receivers sold still outpaces digital ones by a factor of eight (Hallett, 2006). Between 1998 and

2008, Norwegians purchased a total of 8 million radios, of which 300,000–400,000 were DAB

receivers (Goddard, 2010a: 118). In 2010, sales of internet-streaming radio receivers surpassed the

sale of DAB receivers. The Norwegian Electronics Industry Association now estimates that there

are somewhere between 12 and 15 million FM radios in regular use, compared to just 290,000DAB receivers. The idea of a digital/analogue switchover is not popular: 78% of Norwegian broad-

casters oppose a hard transition deadline (2010a: 257–259).

Sweden was also an early-adopter of DAB technology, but began turning it off in 2002 after it

failed to realize the promised improvements over analogue broadcasting (Pizzi, 2002b). In Decem-

ber of 2005, the government of Sweden announced it would not invest any more money in DAB

infrastructure. After short-lived experimentation with DVB (Goddard, 2010a: 133–134), Sweden is

now testing the DABþ variant of the Eureka system. Although Sweden has had some form of DAB

service on the air since 1995, it only reaches 35% of the national listening population.

DABþ receivers are for sale in Sweden, though they cost about $200 (Zametica, 2010).

In Finland, public service broadcasters were supposed to lead the country’s DAB vanguard,with commercial broadcasters to follow, but this never occurred. Public broadcaster YLE began

DAB broadcasts in 1998 only to discontinue them three years later, ‘clearly see[ing] little future in

the technology’ (Lax et al., 2008: 155–156). Finland has since focused on DVB proliferation and

hopes to provide digital radio as a subsidiary function through this protocol. In 2005, all DAB

services were officially terminated in Finland, effectively ending the country’s experimentation

with digital radio as a stand-alone broadcast medium (2008: 163).

Many other European countries have experimented with Eureka 147 technology but are

unwilling to move toward full-scale adoption. Hungary began testing DAB transmissions in 1995;

a new multiplex was installed to complete digital radio coverage of Budapest in 1998, but expan-

sion efforts ended there. The Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovenia have all tested DAB, butremain uncommitted to its proliferation (Ladika, 1998). In Greece, regulators established a DAB

multiplex in Athens for the 2004 Summer Olympics, but have not made any significant moves to

expand the service since then (n.a., 2004). Malta has launched a DABþ network, but the island

nation needs little spectrum and few multiplexes to provide national coverage. Yet even there the

wholesale replacement of analogue radio by digital broadcasting is not a priority (n.a., 2008d).

Non-European adopters of Eureka 147 technology have suffered similar fates. In Israel, the

government is accepting bids from private companies to build out a DABþ or DMB network,

or both. Authorities expect to subsidize construction at a cost of roughly $6.4 million. There is,

however, no timetable on implementation (Koerner, 2008). Several countries in South America

have investigated the Eureka feature set, but only Brazil seems committed to an actual buildout(Behrensdorf, 1998; Stimson, 2003d). Even so, it is not foreclosing other options: Brazilian regu-

lators have granted stations the authority to experiment with both HD Radio and Digital Radio

Mondiale (Behrensdort, 2005; Bg, 2010; n.a., 2006c, 2007d).

Australia began testing the DAB standard in 1998 as an offshoot of its exploration into the

country’s DTV transition. No formal plan was proposed for the digitalization of radio until 2005,

when regulators formally committed to DAB (n.a., 2005c; O’Neill, 2010a: 146; Stimson, 2004a).

However, within a year they were rewriting their proposal to accommodate the DABþ variant, and

the first multiplexes were on the air by 2009. To entice incumbent broadcasters into the digital

sphere, a six-year ‘grace period’ was written into law that disallowed new digital programming

entrants (n.a., 2007c). DABþ

service is restricted to Australia’s largest cities; the country is simplytoo large to put up the number of multiplexes required to cover the entire continent. Australian


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regulators are therefore considering other technologies, such as Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), to

bring digital radio to non-urban areas, though the DAB and DRM systems are incompatible. There

is no timeframe on when this may occur (O’Neill, 2010a: 149).

In Asia, South Korea waited for developments in the Eureka suite to shake out and chose the

DMB standard as its digital broadcast future. However, the Korean DMB system uses an audioencoding algorithm that is incompatible with its European cousin (Lee, 2006). ‘Trial services’ of

Eureka 147 technology have taken place in China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam, but

none have progressed toward organized proliferation (O’Neill, 2010a: 137). Singapore shut down

its DAB network in 2011: the country’s multiplex operator cited the strong growth of radio lis-

tenership via the internet and mobile telephony as precipitating its decision (Siew, 2011).

The only country that seems to have designed a ‘successful’ digital audio broadcast service is

Japan, which developed its own Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) protocol. It

provides interactive audio, video, image, and text support across a wide range of devices, including

radio and television receivers, portable media devices, and mobile telephones (Maxson, 2007: 23).

Ala-Fossi believes what sets Japan apart from the rest of the world is that the country pursued net-work convergence, or the design of a digital broadcast infrastructure to accommodate a variety of

content and devices, while regulators elsewhere fixated on network digitalization, or the develop-

ment of separate digital infrastructures for legacy analogue media systems (Ala-Fossi, 2010a:

46–47). Surprisingly, the Japanese have no plans to terminate analogue radio broadcast services

as a part of the ISDB implementation process.

In North America, Canada formally endorsed the DAB system in 1995 (Careless, 1995a;

O’Neill, 2010a: 137–138) and organized DAB testing began immediately (Meadows, 1995). As

Canadian regulators solicited British-style multiplex licensees, commercial broadcasters began

preparing to join in the provision of DAB service (Careless, 1995b). However, as the investment

costs of the digital transmission infrastructure became better understood, commercial interest inDAB cooled. Some broadcasters began to openly question whether promises of increased audio

fidelity would be enough to sell the technology to a disinterested public (Careless, 1996a). DAB

receivers were expected to hit the Canadian market in ‘mid to late 1997’ (Careless, 1996c), and that

year the CBC and many commercial broadcasters announced the launch of DAB multiplexes in

Canada’s largest metropolitan areas. Auto manufacturers appeared to give the platform a boost

when General Motors of Canada announced that it would factory-install DAB receivers in its vehi-

cle fleet (Careless, 1996d, 2002; O’Neill, 2007: 77). By 2002, there were 57 DAB stations on the

air, reaching 35% of the Canadian population (O’Neill, 2010a: 140). However, receivers remained

scarce and expensive (Careless, 1998; Pizzi, 2004a). In 2004, General Motors of Canada, citing

‘difficulties . . . over supply of equipment,’ rescinded its commitment to include DAB receiversas standard equipment.

Listener reaction to DAB in Canada was underwhelming. Complaints circulated that the ser-

vice’s fidelity was not as good as advertised, and digital signals were not as robust as their analogue

counterparts. Ultimately, commercial broadcasters used the technology to simulcast their analogue

signals (O’Neill, 2010a: 140–141). In 2005, The Canadian Association of Broadcasters argued that

it was ‘simply not realistic’ to assume that DAB would ultimately replace analogue radio service

(O’Neill, 2007: 86). The following year, 11 multiplexes went silent; those that remained reached a

potential audience of just 11 million listeners, and radio audience measurement services stopped

trying to quantify DAB listenership (Careless, 2006b; O’Neill, 2007: 77–80; O’Neill, 2010a: 140).

Canadian regulators ordered a complete reassessment of their digital radio transition plan in2006 and opened up the field to Eureka alternatives (O’Neill, 2007: 85). This resulted in a brief

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affair with HD Radio. After a year of testing by public and commercial broadcasters (Stacey, 2007;

Stimson, 2007a), the CBC and Radio Canada concluded that they would ‘make no further

investments in [HD Radio] until the interest of other Canadian broadcasters is gauged and while it

monitors the rollout of data services and applications in the United States’ (Stimson, 2007a).

Widespread broadcaster interest in HD Radio never materialized: station owners appeared to bemore concerned about HD-related digital-to-analogue interference from US stations than they were

about adopting the technology themselves (Vernon, 2009).

By 2010, Canada’s digital radio transition had effectively disintegrated. Declaring DAB to be

‘in limbo’ and ‘in peril,’ the CBC shuttered four DAB channels in Montreal. This was interpreted

as part of an industry-wide move away from the platform (Careless, 2010b; Stimson, 2010b). That

same month, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters disbanded (Careless, 2010a). Suddenly

there was no coherent broadcast constituency left to advance the cause of digital radio in Canada.

Regulators have since proposed reallocating DAB spectrum for fixed and mobile wireless devices;

ultimately they would like to see broadcasters develop a digital platform that complements existing

analogue broadcasting services, but the broadcast community is wholly unprepared to assume sucha task (Goddard, 2010a: 214–215; O’Neill, 2010a: 143–145).

HD Radio: Monetization over functionality

Radio’s digital transition in the USA involves a homegrown digital radio protocol: HD Radio. It,

too, has suffered from underwhelming performance, a lack of proactive regulatory engagement

regarding its promulgation, and adoptive reticence by broadcasters, consumer electronics manu-

facturers, and listeners. Although HD Radio appears to those outside the USA to have achieved

some level of sustainability, the domestic reality is quite different.

In 1991, after evaluating Eureka 147 DAB technology, the National Association of Broad-casters – a trade organization representing a majority of the nation’s commercial and public radio

stations – endorsed the domestic adoption of DAB. However, the spectrum on which the tech-

nology worked at the time was reserved for use by the US military. To avoid a confrontation with

the Pentagon, and unwilling to undertake the effort of lobbying for new spectrum on which to

launch a wholly new digital radio service, broadcasters subsequently rescinded their commitment

to DAB and began designing a system to operate in the existing AM and FM bands (Ala-Fossi and

Satvitsky, 2003: 69; Pohlmann, 2005: 646–647; Robertiello, 1991a, 1991b, 1991c).

By 1998, two companies had tendered proposals for such a system to the Federal

Communications Commission (Anderson, 2011a: 40–55), and in 2000 the developers merged to

form iBiquity Digital Corporation. It enjoyed the fiscal backing of the nation’s largest broadcastconglomerates and intellectual support from National Public Radio (Janssen, 2000; Stimson,

2000a). Constrained within the existing broadcast bands, HD Radio represents a compromise of

interests among broadcast incumbents in the USA. iBiquity’s system is essentially designed to be a

blocking mechanism to new competition within the digital radio broadcast space. In doing so, it

cedes any meaningful promise of making qualitative improvements to the medium of radio

broadcasting itself.

HD Radio suffers from three fundamental design problems that significantly limit its useful-

ness. The first detriment relates to the compromise necessary with operation in the existing ana-

logue broadcast bands. Stations that broadcast in HD actually transmit a hybrid signal, in which

digital sidebands are added on each side of the extant analogue transmission. However, because of the FCC’s channel-separation rules, the digital sidebands must be broadcast at a power level that


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ranges from just 1% to 10% of the analogue signal (Anderson, 2006: 7–8). This results in signal

range and penetration difficulties; in the event that an HD signal is interfered with, the system

is designed so that compatible receivers will ‘blend’ back to analogue reception (Anderson,

2011a: 77–79). In this regard, HD Radio relies upon the incumbent analogue broadcast

infrastructure as a backstop for when its system fails, which occurs with alarming regularity onFM (especially in moving vehicles) and AM (at any time when electromagnetic interference, such

as thunderstorms, overwhelms the low-powered digital sidebands).

Furthermore, adding digital sidebands to existing analogue radio stations essentially doubles

(or, in the case of AM, triples) the amount of bandwidth each station needs to broadcast. Fattening

the spectral footprint of US radio stations cannot help but result in the potential for increased

interference between them; interference can be digital-to-digital or digital-to-analog in nature. On

the FM side, HD-related interference to analogue radio signals manifests itself as white noise or a

‘buzz-saw’ sound, while on AM the interference has been dubbed a ‘bacon frying effect’ (Ander-

son, 2011a: 81–84). AM-HD interference is especially insidious as night, when high-power sta-

tions’ signals can be heard regionally or nationally due to skywave propagation. Under thesecircumstances, HD-equipped stations in major markets can wipe out the expanded nighttime cov-

erage areas of smaller-market stations that share the frequency. The proposed all-digital variant of

HD Radio would replace the analogue signal with additional digital capacity, but would not shrink

the spectral footprint of stations from their hybrid broadcast configuration (Anderson, 2011a:

95–99).

HD Radio’s second fundamental detriment relates to the amount of bandwidth afforded the

digital sidebands. An FM-HD station can broadcast up to 150 kilobits per second of digital data,

while AM stations are restricted to 64 kbps (Behrens, 1999; iBiquity, 2007: 2; Maxson, 2007: 6,

91). In comparison, the first iteration of DAB allowed for nearly twice the maximum bitrate that

HD Radio can accommodate. FM-HD stations have a small but adjustable overhead for datacast-ing, allowing them to broadcast text announcements and still pictures. They can also split the audio

portion of their digital signal into multiple program streams, but in doing so they must significantly

degrade the bitrate of each stream, which compromises their fidelity (Janssen, 2004). iBiquity has

attempted to ameliorate this issue by investing in the development of digital audio encoding

algorithms that use perceptual tricks to assemble a full-sounding stream from a veritable pittance

of data (Maxson, 2000: 2, 2007: 93; Mock, 2004; Pohlmann, 2005: 315–330, 651). In the devel-

opers’ own listening tests, a majority of listeners judged the audio quality of HD Radio to be as

good as or worse than FM analogue (Anderson, 2011a: 87–89, 100–101). An AM-HD station can

only broadcast a digital version of its analogue signal, with no room for such functionality as data-

casting or multicasting.The final detriment of HD Radio is its wholly proprietary nature. One company, iBiquity Digital

Corporation, controls the intellectual property rights to all aspects of the HD system, and it has

leveraged this control in Microsoft-style ways that actually discourage broadcaster adoption and

innovation (Pizzi, 2002a). Stations that desire to broadcast an HD signal must first pay a

one-time licensing fee to iBiquity, typically $10,000 or more. However, if a broadcaster wishes

to utilize the extensible features of the system, such as multicasting or datacasting, there are addi-

tional fees, some of which are recurring. For example, iBiquity’s licensing terms require FM-HD

stations to pay a certain percentage of their revenue from multicasting quarterly, or $1000 per year,

whichever is greater (Stimson, 2005a). The company indemnifies itself from any mishaps that may

occur to a broadcaster using its technology and reserves the right to revoke a station’s HD func-tionality at any time. Future upgrades to HD Radio, beyond bug fixes and other core system

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updates, will also come with a price tag (iBiquity, 2009a). In essence, the gatekeeping function

regarding basic access to the airwaves, which has previously been the exclusive purview of the

FCC, is bifurcated in the HD space: broadcasters require a public license from the FCC in order

to occupy some spectrum, as well as a private license from iBiquity in order to broadcast digitally

(Anderson, 2006: 15–16).Receiver manufacturers, which typically pay a flat per-unit royalty fee for any proprietary tech-

nology they include in their products, are required instead to pay a one-time initial fee to iBiquity

plus a quarterly percentage of total HD Radio receiver sales; these licensing terms, like those that

apply to broadcasters, can be revised or revoked by iBiquity at any time (Anderson, 2011a: 91).

Those who wish to develop new applications within the HD Radio feature-suite may only do so

with iBiquity’s express permission, and the company reserves the final word over whether such

innovations can actually be deployed (iBiquity, 2009c). iBiquity has convoluted the reasonable and

non-discriminatory (RAND) terms that typically govern the promulgation of proprietary technol-

ogies by witholding publication of critical normative and informative documents which effectively

keep the workings of HD Radio firmly inside a ‘black box’ to which the company has the only key(Anderson, 2011a: 91–93; Signorelli, 2003).

Broadcast conglomerates with an equity stake in iBiquity have received waivers or reductions in

licensing fees in order to engender the technology’s uptake. Public broadcasters are also eligible

for waivers and discounts, thanks to the research-participation of NPR Labs in the technology’s

development and taxpayer subsidies secured by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (iBiquity,

2009b). Unfortunately, while iBiquity’s broadcast-investors may control the majority of radio

industry revenues in the USA, they do not control the majority of radio stations, and the proprietary

nature of the technology – when viewed in conjunction with HD Radio’s previously identified det-

riments – has soured its potential in the minds of many broadcasters. They question the likelihood

of any return on investment from an HD ‘upgrade’ to their stations (Pizzi, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c;Stimson, 2002a).

The USA’s decision to adopt a digital radio broadcast technology with such handicaps high-

lights the degree to which neoliberal principles have captured the country’s communications

policymaking process. Over the last 20 years, the FCC has shed its capability to engage in

empirical and independent analysis of new media technologies in favor of making policy based

nearly entirely on market principles (Anderson, 2011a: 4–12, 342–346). At its most basic level, the

FCC weighed the relative political and economic weight of the constituencies involved in its HD

Radio rulemaking and made its decision based on those with the loudest voice in that context.

Despite the fact that independent broadcasters, electronics manufacturers, consulting engineers,

and the public expressed nearly unanimous opposition to the adoption of HD Radio, the system’ssupport by an impressive coalition of the nation’s largest public and private broadcasters was all

the evidence regulators needed to heartily sign off on HD’s proliferation (Anderson, 2011a:

110–148). In doing so, the FCC also dismissed any consideration of alternative digital radio

systems.

Former FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein (2007) calls policy decisions that ignore (or

even contradict) basic scientific principles in favor of neoliberal underpinnings ‘faith-based regu-

lation’. Commissioner Michael Copps, who is better known as the most democratically-grounded

US media regulator to come along in more than a decade, inadvertently exemplified this paradigm

when he remarked, after voting in 2002 to approve HD Radio, that ‘a few questions remain to be

settled, including how the IBOC system will function in the real world ’ (emphasis added), thoughhe praised the technology as ‘a splendid example, I think, of private sector partnering’ (Copps,


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2002). Given the system’s proprietary nature, however, the FCC did not require stations to adopt

HD Radio and declined to set a deadline on an analogue/digital radio transition. Regulators

declared that marketplace forces would ultimately determine the system’s success or failure

(Anderson, 2011a: 204).

Marketplace forces do not appear to be doing HD Radio much good. A decade on from theFCC’s approval, less than 20% of all US radio stations have adopted the technology (n.a., 2011c).

Many initial adopters of AM-HD Radio have since discontinued its use, principally because of the

destructive skywave interference it causes (Limas-Villers, 2010; McLarnon, 2012; Stimson,

2010e; Stine, 2010). FM broadcasters have also experienced HD-related interference that can harm

their analogue and digital signals (Beezley, 2010; Hershberger, 2010a, 2010b), but the FCC is

wholly uninterested in rectifying these problems (Anderson, 2010a; McLane, 2010; n.a., 2010c;

Stimson, 2010a, 2010c, 2010d; Wagoner, 2010).

FM-HD broadcasters have settled on multicasting as the system’s ‘killer application’, but the

last decade and a half of industry consolidation has decimated the industry’s capacity to design and

implement compelling new programming. Most digital-only FM channels are derivatives of exist-ing radio formats and heavily dependent on automation and syndication to function properly

(Anderson, 2009b). Some broadcast conglomerates import out-of-market analogue programming

and rebroadcast it as a digital multicast ‘format’ elsewhere (McLane, 2009). Others are construct-

ing or purchasing low-power analogue FM ‘translator’ stations to relay FM-HD multicast streams,

hoping to recoup some of their digital broadcast investments by marketing them as entirely new

stand-alone analogue radio stations (Anderson, 2010b, 2011b). iBiquity Digital Corporation and

its proponents have petitioned the FCC multiple times to tweak the system in hopes of improving

its reception characteristics, audio fidelity, and added functionality. Although regulators have

signed off on every proposal, none of these efforts seem to be working, because they fail to directly

address the technology’s fundamental detriments (Anderson, 2011a: 244–271).HD Radio’s profile among radio listeners is nearly nonexistent. Although a majority of the U.S.

population can theoretically receive at least one HD signal, receiver penetration and listener

awareness statistics suggest the technology still lacks a strong foothold. In 2011, iBiquity Digital

Corporation reported that 5 million HD-capable radio receivers had been sold in the last 10 years,

making for a 0.7% penetration rate among the country’s installed base of 700 million analogue

radios (Stimson, 2011). Consumer electronics manufacturers have produced just a handful of table-

top HD receivers and only one portable model. Auto manufacturers initially elected to introduce

HD Radio only in select high-end models of their vehicle fleets. Wider adoption is likely, but will

be spurred more by an industry wide redesign of in-vehicle ‘infotainment’ systems than by the

innate merits of HD technology itself. These new systems have introduced internet connectivityinto the car, providing a vector for streaming audio to compete with traditional broadcasting

(Anderson, 2011a: 276–277). The listenership of streaming services is growing dramatically, while

listener awareness and interest in HD Radio has actually declined over the last four years (Lasar,

2010; Webster, 2010). Although two-thirds of the US radio-listening public have at least heard of

HD Radio, less than half of those who know it exists desire to learn more about it, much less invest

in a compatible receiver (Anderson, 2011a: 272–273; Kassof, 2012).

Ten years into HD Radio’s proliferation, the future of the technology remains quite uncertain.

US broadcasters, generally speaking, now view HD Radio as something that preserves their place

of primacy on the AM and FM radio dials, though the debate over its inherent ability to preserve

traditional broadcasting’s place of primacy in an ever-expanding digital media environment is con-tentiously pessimistic (Anderson, 2011a: 262–268, 279–280). There is no discernible movement

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toward adoption of the all-digital end-state of HD Radio. The global economic downturn has

significantly depressed the value of publicly traded broadcast conglomerates, drying up their

liquidity and hindering their ability to make continued investments in HD station infrastructure,

programming, and promotion, not to mention further significant investment in iBiquity Digital

Corporation (Anderson, 2011a: 273–275). The stringently neoliberal paradigm of the US digitalradio transition may very well result in its undoing; for the moment though, no constituency

involved in the transition has the political or economic wherewithal to intervene in the status quo.

Elsewhere in the world, HD Radio has found little purchase. In 1995, as Mexican regulators

debated the merits of early digital radio technologies, the radio industry was torn between Eureka

147 and HD Radio. Initially, regulators made moves to allocate spectrum for the promulgation of a

Eureka-based DAB system (Plata, 1995). However, neither DAB nor HD Radio moved out of the

testing stage until 2004 – two years after Mexico’s largest trading partner approved HD Radio’s

proliferation. The industry trade publication Radio World reported that ‘a group of engineers from

the Mexican equivalent of the NAB’ hoped to recommend a digital radio system to regulators by

2005 (Plata, 2004). In 2007, Mexican regulators allowed stations within 200 miles of the US border to commence broadcasting in HD, though many of these stations are targeted toward US audiences

(n.a., 2007b, 2008a).

Mexican regulator Cofitel subsequently received reports of HD-related interference to analogue

stations in Mexico and questioned the FCC about HD Radio’s compliance with international spec-

trum allocation treaties (Plata, 2007; Stimson, 2007b). In 2009, authorities announced a plan to

terminate analogue AM radio service; no timetable was given, nor was a technology selected to

facilitate this transition (Plata, 2009). By 2010, 10 Mexican FM stations and 11 AM stations were

broadcasting in HD, all within the 200-mile buffer zone with the USA (n.a., 2010a). It was esti-

mated that it would cost the Mexican broadcast industry between $280 million and $840 million

in capital expenditures alone to adopt HD Radio nationwide (Plata, 2010). Although Cofitel for-mally adopted the HD standard in February of 2011, the Mexican radio industry does not appear

to be willing to invest such sums in a digital transition (n.a., 2011b).

HD Radio itself has no real promise of global adoption. Although iBiquity and the US trade

press claim that HD Radio has been tested or gained ‘significant interest’ in dozens of countries, all

of them have either frozen their experimentations or selected a different digital audio broadcast

standard (Hedges, 2006; iBiquity, 2010; Kellner, 2009; n.a., 2006a, 2008b, 2008c). Along with the

USA and Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico have for-

mally adopted HD Radio as their digital broadcast technology of choice (Anderson, 2009a; n.a.,

2009). All of these countries are firmly situated within the USA’s sphere of international economic

influence, and none provide the heft necessary to strengthen HD Radio’s position amongcompeting digital broadcast technologies.

Digital Radio Mondiale: The newest also-ran?

The third and final digital radio broadcasting system, Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), may be the

youngest of available technologies, but unlike DAB and HD Radio, it has yet to find any mean-

ingful interest among regulators, broadcasters, or listeners – let alone any study by media scholars.

In March of 1998, representatives of research institutes, equipment manufacturers, and broad-

casters from more than 30 countries met in China under the banner of the Digital Radio Mondiale

Consortium to develop a digital broadcast standard specifically for the AM and shortwave bands.DRM wholly displaces analogue radio signals from the outset, and the system is based on open


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source paradigm, eliminating any proprietary impediments to innovation and proliferation

(Clark, 1998; Senger, 1998). By 2001, a mobile DRM receiver was demonstrated at Germany’s

largest consumer electronics show; in 2002, the International Telecommunications Union endorsed

DRM for use on the AM and shortwave bands, and the DRM Consortium expected the mass

production of DRM receivers to begin shortly thereafter (Stimson, 2001, 2002c, 2002d, 2003a,2003b).

The BBC, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, DeutschlandRadio, Radio Canada International,

Radio Netherlands, and Swedish Radio launched DRM shortwave broadcasts in 2003, targeting all

continents on the planet except Antarctica (n.a., 2003a). Regulators in several countries saw the

initial potential of DRM as a ‘drop-in replacement for existing . . . allocations’, and also thought it

might be useful for jump-starting stalled or stuttering DAB system development by heightening

consumer interest in digital radio more generally (Hallett, 2003b). Between 2005 and 2008, more

than 50 AM and shortwave broadcasters around the world adopted DRM technology, producing

more than 350 program-hours per day in the digital mode, and several countries began test pro-

grams to evaluate the possibilities of widespread DRM deployment (Careless, 2004; Carera,2008; Cohen, 2005; Hallett, 2005b; Mansergh, 2004; n.a., 2005a, 2005b, 2007a, 2008f; Stimson;

2004b, 2004c, 2005b). H Donald Messer, director of the Spectrum Management Division of the US

International Broadcasting Bureau, resigned his post in 2005 to work full-time with the DRM Con-

sortium (Stimson, 2005c; White, 2007). That same year, the Consortium announced plans to

develop an FM variant, known as DRMþ (Hallett, 2005a), which was subsequently certified for

global deployment in 2007 (Mansergh, 2006, 2007).

While DRM offers a perceptible increase in audio fidelity over analogue radio broadcasts and

allows multicasting on every band, the disruptive nature of entirely replacing incumbent analogue

signals is holding back DRM’s unqualified endorsement by any broadcaster or state regulator (Ala-

Fossi, 2010b: 50). The technology’s uptake is similarly stymied by a lack of receivers: for example,Sony Corp., a member of the DRM Consortium, has declined to actually manufacture DRM-

compatible gear (Dumiak, 2006). The only broadcasters demonstrating any realistic interest in

DRM are those in the shortwave bands, where it is the only digital broadcast option they have.

US shortwave broadcasters are organizing to petition the government to end the prohibition on

domestic shortwave service so that Americans might fully enjoy the benefits of DRM (DRMNA,

2010). But even if DRM should come to dominate shortwave broadcasting, that mode alone does

not carry enough political or economic momentum to change the confused trajectory of analogue

broadcasting’s digitalization as a whole.

Conclusion

Radio broadcasting’s digital dilemma is quite real. Of the three extant digital radio technologies

that exist for terrestrial radio broadcasters and listeners, none have demonstrated any semblance of

long-term viability, despite the billions of dollars that have been pumped into their development

and proliferation. The reasons are manifold: DAB, HD Radio and DRM do not provide meaningful

qualitative improvements to the medium beyond those services already provided by analogue

infrastructures; broadcasters and listeners have little incentive to invest in a digital version of the

status quo just because digitalization is heralded as an inevitable future end-state; and regulators

allowed the proponents of digital radio technologies to effectively ignore advances in the develop-

ment of the internet and mobile telephony, some of which have appropriated the transformativeaspects of the convergence phenomenon to engender new forms of ‘radio’ that now challenge

Anderson 193

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legacy broadcasters’ place of primacy within the medium’s popular construction (Ala-Fossi,

2010b: 47).

Many still hold out hope that radio broadcasting will find its own unique path into our

increasingly digital media environment. This is not a view held by broadcasters or listeners: both of

these important constituencies now seem to believe that radio’s future will somewhat uncom-fortably straddle both the analogue and digital worlds, with over-the-air distribution remaining

firmly in the former for the foreseeable future. Without firm consensus from all affected parties

on radio’s digital transition, this situation is bound to persist. However, as convergence-inspired

forms of ‘radio’ continue to encroach on territories that have historically been defined as the exclu-

sive purview of terrestrial broadcasters, this digital dilemma will only intensify.

This unsettling trajectory should be of concern to media scholars. From a policy perspective,

radio’s digital transition represents an important parable about how certain political and economic

priorities and actors have come to be relied upon in dangerous ways that seek to preserve the status

quo at the expense of a medium’s technological and functional evolution. From the context of

broadcast studies, the very nature of what constitutes ‘radio’ in a digital media environment is nowan open question for debate. Although these aspects remain woefully underexplored, it is hoped

that this examination of digital radio’s state of play inspires further research into these quandaries,

with an eye toward critically and constructively addressing them – not just for the sake of radio

itself, but also for a better understanding of the nature of the convergence phenomenon and its

implications for the ongoing transformation of all legacy media systems.

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Author biography

John Nathan Anderson, a radio refugee from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, has been writing aboutmedia policy and activist practice for 15 years (see http://diymedia.net). He is an Assistant Professor and

Director of Broadcast Journalism in the Department of Television and Radio, Brooklyn College, City Univer-

sity of New York. Anderson received his PhD from the University of Illinois Institute of Communications

Research (2011), his master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass

Communication (2004) and his undergraduate honors degree from Valparaiso University (1996).

Anderson 199

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http://www.rwonline.com/article/effort-to-get-hd-radio-chips-in-phones-progressing/24655




http://www.dailynews.com/lalife/ci_15177216

http://www.infinitedial.com/2010/11/broadcast_medias_failure_to_co.php

http://www.infinitedial.com/2010/11/broadcast_medias_failure_to_co.php

http://www.dailynews.com/lalife/ci_15177216










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