Some interesting stuff about FM turn off.
>Apologies for not sending a newsletter for a
>long time, but as you'll no doubt have heard the
>BBC bullies are trying to force DAB upon us (the
>BBC lobbied the Government to set an early FM
>switch-off date, so the Government merely did
>what the BBC recommended, so the BBC is to
>blame, IMO), so I think now would be a good time
>to start sending newsletters again.
>
>
>*** Mark Thompson to appear on The Media Show on
>R4 tomorrow re FM switch-off ***
>
>BBC Director-General Mark Thompson is appearing
>on The Media Show tomorrow at 1.30pm where he
>will apparently be answering questions about FM
>switch off. So if you're not overly ecstatic
>about the decision to inflict low audio quality
>on the entire population via DAB, you can send
>your views to The Media Show via the following web contact form:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-media-show/contact/
>
>
>*** Radio 4 Feedback asking for listeners' comments on FM switch-off ***
>
>In the latest edition of Feedback on Radio 4,
>they also asked people to send their views about the plans to switch off FM.
>
>Feedback has continually ignored the fact that
>there's a problem with DAB's sound quality over
>the last few years, either because they don't
>realise that the poor audio quality is an
>entirely separate issue to that of having poor
>reception quality, or they've simply swallowed
>the BBC's dishonest spin on the subject. So now
>would be a good time to remind them that there is still a problem.
>
>You can send your messages to Feedback via this web form:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/feedback/contact/
>
>
>*** FM switch-off on You & Yours ***
>
>If you're not already peed off about FM being
>switched off, the following recording of an
>interview with the chief exec of the DRDB
>(Digital Radio Development Bureau) Tony Moretta,
>promoting DAB and justifying why it's fine to
>switch off FM in 2015, will likely do the trick.
>His interview starts 34 mins 40 seconds into the programme on the iPlayer:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l36gn/You_and_Yours_23_06_2009/
>
>The DRDB is co-funded by the BBC, and the BBC's
>Director of Radio Tim Davie is the Vice Chair of
>the DRDB, yet this bloke seems to think that's
>it's perfectly acceptable to lie on Radio 4 to
>millions of listeners. For example, he claims
>that DAB+ only offers "very, very slightly
>higher quality" than DAB. That is simply a bare
>faced lie. And when asked whether the UK is
>using a less advanced system than the rest of
>Europe, the first thing he says is that that's
>an "urban myth". Er, no, it seriously isn't an
>urban myth, it is a stone cold fact of life. It
>may be an uncomfortable truth for the DAB
>supporters, but that's no excuse to lie on Radio
>4, especially when the public are paying part of his wages.
>
>Happy listening.
>
>
>*** Save FM Campaign started ***
>
>I'd also like to draw your attention to the new "Save FM Campaign" website:
>
>http://www.savefm.org/
>
>It's only just launched, so it only consists of
>the home page at the moment, but more content will be added soon.
>
>The main aim of the campaign is to stop the BBC
>switching off its national FM stations, although
>it will also be campaigning for the BBC to
>switch from using DAB to DAB+ by the time FM is
>switched off if the BBC does intend to switch
>off its FM stations - by deinition the vast
>majority of digital radios would support DAB+ by
>then, so there is absolutely no justification to
>continue broadcasting using a 20-year old system
>- which would be around 30 years old by the time
>FM could be switched off (I don't think FM could
>be switched off until around 2020).
>
>There is justifiably a lot of anger about the
>plans to switch off FM, mainly because the vast
>majority of people simply don't want it to
>happen as they're perfectly happy with FM, plus
>for a whole host of other reasons as well,
>obviously including the fact that DAB provides
>low audio quality. A few hundred people managed
>to stop the BBC switching off its Radio 4 Long
>Wave station, so given the number of listeners
>who would be opposed to the BBC switching off
>its national FM stations, hopefully it will be
>possible to convince the BBC to leave its national FM stations broadcasting.
>
>The FM stations only cost around £10 million per
>annum to transmit, which is a small fraction of
>what it will cost to broadcast DAB nationally,
>and it's only 22 pence per adult per year, or
>0.28% of the BBC's £3,600m annual revenue from
>the licence-fee. £10m per annum may be a big
>number when taken on its own, but it's peanuts to the BBC.
>
>
>*** BBC's live Internet radio streams at higher quality than DAB & DAB+ ***
>
>And finally, some good news. The BBC has finally
>launched its live AAC Internet radio streams,
>and it using 192 kbps AAC for Radio 3 and 128
>kbps AAC for the other stereo streams. The same
>bit rates are being used for on-demand streams as for the live streams.
>
>It's also possible to say that these streams are
>at higher quality than the BBC could ever
>deliver via DAB+, because of the simple fact
>that at the bit rates they're using the BBC
>stations wouldn't all be able to fit into the BBC's natinoal DAB multiplex!
Owner of the bwfc yahoogroup and Co-Moderator
of MiniDisc and amithlonopen yahoo groups.
