Players polls apart on digital radio
RTE Radio boss Clare Duignan says the absence of commercial stations on RTE's digital service is a 'big issue'
Thursday August 27 2009
LESS than a year after RTE began going it alone with digital radio, the national broadcaster is extending the hand of friendship to the commercial players.
RTE Radio boss Clare Duignan, who took the top job after the commercials had already left the digital playing field, says the absence of commercial stations on RTE's digital service is a "big issue".
"We've begun to talk to the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI) and we're very much hopeful that over the next couple of months we'll be able to work something out," she says.
"DAB (digital radio) is one of those areas where we really need to work together as an industry."
But while Duignan is enthusiastic about the immediate prospects of commercials returning to RTE's DAB platform, IBI boss Willie O'Reilly, who also runs Today FM, seems less enthused.
The commercials wouldn't be interested in rejoining DAB "at the moment", he says, because "the return on investment looks poor".
Elsewhere in the commercials, UTV head of Irish radio Ronan McManamy says DAB can't really evolve until some parameters are laid down by the broadcasting regulator. "Until that time, we should all hold our horses to a certain extent," he says, adding that DAB is "not a priority" for UTV in the "current market place". Meanwhile, Dusty Rhodes' Digital Radio Ltd is continuing to push ahead with its own commercial DAB trial, bypassing the RTE infrastructure.
The former DJ says he has four commercial stations signed up and has a transmitter ready to go after getting a licence for the trial from Comreg. The only missing piece of the puzzle is a licence from the Broadcasting Commission for some of Rhodes' own DAB-only stations that he wants to launch on the platform.
"We want to advance the platform further than RTE has," he says. "We want to test it to its limit for 12 months, so that when DAB is fully launched, we'll be launching the right DAB".
