Different Standards: Engineers’ Expectations and Listener Adoption of Digital and FM Radio Broadcasting

Abstract

His research interests include communication policy and emerging media technologies, and recent work has been on radio, in particular digital radio. As part of the Digital Radio Cultures in Europe group he co-authored Digital radio in Europe (Intellect, 2010). He sits on the Executive Committee of MeCCSA, the UK's Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association and has served as chair of that organisation's Radio Studies network.

Radio on demand: New habits of consuming radio content

“…As digital trends continue to accelerate, the radio industry is forced to continually reinvent itself to maintain its relevance in a multimedia web-based world (Cordeiro, 2012; Farrell, 2016; Laor et al, 2019; Moshe et al, 2017; Starkey, 2017; Te et al, 2011). Although digital broadcast has taken longer than anticipated to become established as the norm for radio listening (Lax, 2017), 92 percent of all Americans still report incorporating over-the-air radio content in their daily listening habits (Nielsen, 2017), and about 40 percent now listen to their favourite programmes and hosts on a digital platform such as an iPhone (Punnett, 2016). In younger radio listener rankings, the preference of digital radio listening over terrestrial signal listening is significant: digital radio listening, the most preferred method by younger radio listeners, ranks ‘iPod use’ second and over-the air radio signals third (Saffran, 2011).…”

DAB+ as a systemic innovation: Stakeholder interests and the introduction of digital radio

“…Since the launch of DAB/DABþ, too much emphasis has been put on its presumed technological benefits rather than on consumer benefits. According to Lax (2017), there was a major difference between how technical staff understand radio and how listeners use and appreciate it. Rarely has there been a direct reference to the listeners' perspective; all too often the focus was on 'technical solutions for non-existing problems' (p. 39).…”

“…DAB+ is a digital standard used for the terrestrial distribution of radio signals and is supposed to replace the analogue frequency modulation (FM) standard. A full overview of the presumed advantages of DAB+ goes beyond the scope of this article, but literature describes how DAB+ emerged as a technologically superior successor of FM (see Hoeg and Lauterbach, 2009; Lax, 2017; O’Neill, 2009). In brief, DAB+ is said to offer prospects of wider choice of radio stations, improved reception and sound quality for listeners, lower distribution costs for radio broadcasters and lower energy consumption for multiplex operators.…”

Radyoda Dijitalleşme: Sektör İçin Yarını Anlamak

“…İnternetin etkinliğini artırmasına paralel şekilde ilerleyen bu tartışmalar ana ekseni oluştururken DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) olarak adlandırılan ve konvansiyonel hava yayıncılığından kaynaklı sorunlara -enterferans, ses kalitesi, kısıtlı frekans kullanımı vsbir çözüm olarak düşünülen sayısal karasal radyo yayıncılığı, sektörün geleceğine dair bir başka sorunlu alanı temsil etmektedir. Birçok Avrupa ülkesi başta olmak üzere dünyanın farklı lokasyonlarında FM yayıncılığında yaşanan çıkmazlara karşı hevesle başlanan sayısal radyo yayıncılığının geçen onlarca yılsonunda istenilen noktaya ulaşmaması (Lax, 2017) bir yandan FM üzerinden sürdürülen yayınların geleceğini sağlamlaştırırken bir yandan bu yayınların internet ile mücadelesinde de soru işaretlerinin oluşmasına neden olmaktadır.…”