[Hampshire] Fwd: BBC Director of Radio misled listeners abou…

More BBC FUD ......


>As suggested in the newsletter from a few days
>ago, DAB was discussed on Feedback at the
>weekened, with the BBC's Director of Radio Tim
>Davie answering questions about the subject.
>
>For anyone who hasn't heard it, you can listen
>to the interview via the iPlayer - the piece starts 12:30 into the programme:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l63vl/b00l632g/Feedback_26_06_2009/
>
>I've written an article containing a transcript
>of what was said in the interview, along with my commentary on what was said:
>
>http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/2009/06/bbc_and_drdb_misled_listeners_about_dab.php
>
>Unfortunately, when Tim Davie was asked about
>DAB's poor audio quality, he gave the following answer:
>
>"it's really straightforward that the quality of
>your audio is related to how close you are to a
>transmitter. So DAB currently has less
>transmitters, so those people who are farther
>away from a transmitter aren't getting as good sound."
>
>That answer is completely wrong. His answer is
>actually about reception quality and not about
>audio quality, but when Roger Bolton pointed
>this out to him Tim Davie simply repeated what
>he'd said the first time about the audio quality
>supposedly being dependent on the distance someone is from a transmitter.
>
>In reality, as I'm sure all of you reading this
>will be aware, DAB's poor audio quality is
>caused by the BBC using low bit rate levels for
>its stations, which in turn is due to the BBC
>cramming too many stations onto its national DAB
>multiplex back in 2002. The distance to the
>transmitter has no effect on the audio quality
>whatsoever so long as the listener has good DAB
>reception quality, which should be the case for
>the vast majority of the population because the
>BBC's national DAB multiplex already covers around 85 - 90% of the population.
>
>And the distance to the transmitter doesn't even
>affect the reception quality anyway so long as
>the signal strength is above a minimum threshold
>that's required to provide good reception
>quality. So people living 2 or 10 miles away
>from the transmitter would receive identical
>audio quality so long as the signal strength
>they're receiving is above that minimum
>threshold level. This further disproves Tim Davie's claim.
>
>Basically, what Tim Davie said couldn't be more
>wrong, and given that he's Cambridge-educated
>and he earns £400,000+ a year, you would expect
>him to understand such a simple concept as
>higher bit rates lead to higher quality and vice
>versa by now. And if he does already understand
>that it's the bit rate levels that causes DAB's
>poor audio quality, then there is only one
>conclusion, which I'll let you draw for yourself.
>
>So, once again a BBC representative has misled
>hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of
>Radio 4 listeners when asked about DAB's poor
>audio quality -- I think that's happened every
>single time that DAB has been discussed on a
>Radio 4 programme up to now, and DAB has been
>discussed on many occasions over the last 7 years.
>
>For anyone who's unhappy about the BBC
>misleading licence-fee payers about DAB's audio
>quality problems, you can either contact
>Feedback, or complain directly to the BBC. At
>the end of the day, if they're going to force
>DAB upon the nation then they should be forced
>to tell the truth about this issue, because we
>pay for the BBC, and we shouldn't be fobbed off
>with crap about DAB's audio quality being
>somehow "related to how close you are to a transmitter".
>
>The contact details are as follows:
>
>Feedback:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/feedback/contact/
>
>BBC Complaints:
>
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
>
>Another thing that you could consider
>complaining about, which I certainly intend to
>complain to the BBC about, was the DRDB's
>(Digital Radio Development Bureau) chief exec
>Tony Moretta lying about DAB+ not being more
>advanced than DAB and that DAB+ only delivers
>"very, very slightly higher quality" than DAB
>when he appeared on You & Yours. The DRDB is
>co-funded by licence-fee money, so the BBC needs
>to reign in this dishonest organisation it's
>co-funding with our money. I say a bit more
>about this in the article I've written.
>
>Steve

Owner of the bwfc yahoogroup and Co-Moderator
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