On Thursday (28th November), MP for East Worthing and Shoreham Tim Loughton , joined other back bench MPs in the House of Commons chamber to stand up for local radio stations across the country. Cheryl Gillan MP led the adjournment debate on digital radio switchover in anticipation of Government plans to announce a timetable for a switchover from FM and AM to DAB (digital radio) this month. Unlike the recent TV switchover, radio switchover does not form part of an internationally coordinated programme and will not unlock a taxpayer dividend from the sale of analogue spectrum.
A large number of radio stations, including Splash FM which serves Worthing in Tim’s constituency, have joined forces in opposition to the plans for the following reasons:
- Affordability and access for consumers- many listeners will not be able to afford upgrading to DAB and will therefore lose access to radio if AM and FM are replaced. There are 101m – 117m radio sets in the UK market, of which 83% are used at least weekly but just 15-19% are digital (Ofcom, September 2013).
- Threatens the provision of local radio in the UK.
- There will be no taxpayer dividend from the vacated AM and FM spectrum and therefore no policy rationale for intervention.
- It will increase licence fee costs as a result of public subsidies for local DAB coverage.
- There has been no independent cost benefit analysis or impact assessment of a switchover.
Instead, stations propose:
- Any transition to DAB should take place carefully, gradually and be consumer led.
- Broadcasters should be enabled to decide for themselves whether, and when, they wish to switch over their stations entirely to digital
- If the government were minded to proceed with a mandated switchover plan, it should provide a clear policy rationale, and set out pre-conditions for switchover that protect listeners
- That the government commission a considered and independent Cost Benefit Analysis of switchover viability and that government publish their previous assessments on switchover
In the debate Tim raised the fact that the strength of local radio stations is their strong relevance to local communities and strong following by local people. A station like SPLASH would have to spend a lot of extra money to switch over, which would mean broadcasting over a wider area. Thus, doing so on the Sussex coast would inevitably mean coverage extending across the sea, which is obviously of limited advantage.
Ed Vaizey, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Media Culture and Sport went some way to alleviating concerns by emphasising that any switchover DAB would have to be led and supported by the radio listener and the amount of people listening to DAB would have to increase significantly. He also clarified that if there was a switchover, it would not be compulsory for local commercial and community stations to go over to digital and that they could still maintain their presence on FM. The Minister mentioned that FM can work in tandem with DAB, as AM has with FM for many years. Many of the manufacturers of DAB radios have agreed a minimum specification, which includes FM.