51-506: Amazing Radio is an international radio station first broadcast originally on digital radio in the United Kingdom . The station plays new music from a number of music genres including pop , rock , indie , hip hop , electronica and jazz . The station originally broadcast on the Digital One ensemble which replaced the temporary Birdsong test transmission which had been running for
102-535: A royalty payment . Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM – not to be confused with Digital Rights Management ) was being considered by Ofcom for introduction in Britain in 2012, on the present MW (medium wave) band. In the present day, transmissions are limited to a small number of broadcasts by the BBC and other international broadcasters. In 2005, tests of DRM on shortwave radio from European transmitters broadcasting into
153-466: A DAB radio to avoid disappointment. On 24 November 2010, a number of commercial radio operators refused to run an advertisement promoting DAB, one operator stating that it would be "fundamentally immoral and dishonest" until DAB coverage matches that of FM. Commercial radio executives have argued that the BBC should pick up the majority of the cost of expanding the DAB network across the United Kingdom. DAB+
204-579: A licence to rebroadcast DAB signals within their stores to demonstrate DAB radio sets. The United Kingdom consumer charity, Which? warned that consumers who could not get an adequate DAB signal could be misled by the in-store sets. The Digital Radio Development Bureau replied to the Which? report stating that stores contain a steel structure which produce a Faraday cage effect where DAB signals are blocked out. The DRDB recommended that consumers should check DAB coverage online with their postcode before purchasing
255-461: A nine-month trial, extended to March 2020 by Ofcom at the request of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. In March 2020, the trial licences were extended again until December 2021. The trial multiplexes have mostly been replaced by permanent licences as awarded by Ofcom. By 6 October 2023 more than 230 areas had been identified for SSDAB licenses across six licensing rounds. Digital radio on
306-462: A number of stations can cover the same area as a number of VHF frequencies which would be required to cover the same area for one station. The BBC carried out successful tests of a single-frequency network in London before launching its national DAB ensemble. DAB audibly, in some cases, provides worse audio quality than FM – perhaps due to greed of Multiplex Operators wishing to create more services within
357-556: A number of stations have launched on DAB+ or switched from DAB to DAB+. As of September 2016, there were over 30 DAB+ stations being broadcast in the UK. In March 2017 the Brighton multiplex became the UK's first to only broadcast DAB+. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport published minimum specifications for digital radio receivers in the UK in February 2013 which states that a receiver sold in
408-404: A number of transmitter sites across the country. The BBC's national multiplex carries only BBC national radio stations . Local BBC radio stations are carried on the relevant local DAB ensemble where commercial DAB licences are operating. There are a number of commercial DAB multiplexes operators in the UK who run 48 local and regional DAB multiplexes across the United Kingdom. operators include
459-409: A number of uses, including terrestrial digital radio. On 16 May 2008, Ofcom declared that Qualcomm UK Spectrum Ltd had won the auction of L band frequencies in the UK. The BBC's national DAB ensemble broadcasts on frequency block 12B (225.648 MHz ) across the United Kingdom, with coverage currently at 96.4% of UK households. The multiplex is owned and operated by the BBC and is transmitted from
510-600: A period of one month. In March 2014, the BBC announced that it would undertake a trial of DAB+ in the UK later in the year and on 1 September 2014, Folder Media began a four-month trial of DAB+ on the North East Wales and West Cheshire ensemble. In early 2016, two new stations launched DAB+ services on the Portsmouth trial multiplex. Sound Digital, operators of one of the national multiplexes, launched three full-time broadcasting DAB+ services on 29 February 2016. Since then
561-441: A year and a half beforehand. The station discontinued its DAB presence in 2012 to become an Internet-only radio station, but later returned to DAB in London and Dublin. The station subsequently decided it was not worth paying to be on DAB when so much radio listening is now online. The station originally took its music from its sister website amazingtunes.com and encourages its listeners to have their say as to which songs should make
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#1732869552113612-399: Is a major upgrade to DAB. It is not backwards compatible. The main difference is the use of the more efficient HE-AAC which doubles the number of stations up to about 20 in one bouquet. Most European countries quickly adopted DAB+ between 2015 and 2019. Only a small number of DAB-only receivers had been sold before which became worthless. In the UK, with the early success of DAB, the situation
663-700: Is being delivered through a specially adapted BBC Sounds smartphone application to trialists. The BBC announced in May 2019 that it would extend the 5G broadcasting trial in Orkney until the end of September 2019. In 2006, the Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) announced that it would charge additional royalty fees on UK Internet radio stations if they broadcast outside the UK. Radio stations which stream online including GCap Media and GMG Radio , have implemented IP blocking to prevent listeners outside
714-399: Is different. In 2020, about half of the stations use DAB+, mostly new services, while the BBC and the big commercial stations continue to use the old DAB standard. DAB+ was first tested in the United Kingdom in 2013 before regular services were launched in 2016. The United Kingdom Government had previously ruled out any transition from DAB to DAB+ for the foreseeable future, a decision backed by
765-425: Is easier to use, and is resistant to the interference which other broadcast media are susceptible to. On the other hand, critics say that coverage is not yet sufficient and the quality can be less than that of FM. In the UK, 65.8% of all radio listening hours by the third quarter of 2021 were through digital platforms, with DAB making up the majority of digital radio listening (65.3% of digital radio listening). In
816-410: Is no space for them on a local DAB multiplex, or because they cannot afford the high transmission costs of DAB that the multiplex operators are charging. Ofcom announced in 2005 that it regarded Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) as an option for local stations unable to secure carriage or unable to pay the high transmission costs of DAB. On 24 January 2009, Ofcom allowed electrical retailers to be granted
867-501: Is trialling 5G broadcast radio in the Orkney Islands with the view to provide a digital radio platform across the United Kingdom and in particular, areas which will be unlikely or never covered by DAB via the existing radio and forthcoming 5G transmission infrastructure with Internet Protocol broadcasting being seen as the long term replacement for DAB. The BBC's national services and the local BBC radio service, BBC Radio Orkney ,
918-703: The BBC in 1990 followed by a public launch in September 1995. The UK currently has one of the world's biggest digital radio networks, with about 500 transmitters, three national DAB ensembles , one regional DAB ensemble, 48 local DAB ensembles and an increasing number of small-scale DAB ensembles broadcasting over 250 commercial and 34 BBC radio stations across the UK. In London there are already more than 100 different digital stations available. In addition to DAB and DAB+, radio stations are also broadcast on digital television platform as well as internet radio in
969-629: The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are co-ordinated and administered by the United Kingdom's media regulator Ofcom. The Isle of Man ensemble is granted a broadcasting licence from the Communications and Utilities Regulatory Authority . Under a Maastricht plan in 2002, the UK also has L band allocations for local terrestrial DAB, though there are no plans to broadcast any digital radio stations on L band. Ofcom auctioned spectrum in L band in 2008 for
1020-571: The Eutelsat 28A satellite at 28.5° east. Radio stations broadcast free-to-air via the Sky Digital , Freesat from Sky platforms and any DVB-S compliant set-top box . The Freesat platform has all the BBC's national and regional digital radio stations as well as BBC London 94.9 from the launch on 6 May 2008 on the EPG . WorldSpace was planning a subscription based digital radio satellite service on
1071-461: The Wi-Fi signal from a router to stream Internet radio stations within range of a Wi-Fi router. From the latter half of the 2010s, smart speakers have increased in popularity as a device for listening to live and on demand digital radio services. RAJAR reported that in the period October 2016 to February 2017, 6% of BBC radio and 8% of commercial radio is listened to online and through apps. The BBC
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#17328695521131122-645: The BBC broadcasts the BBC World Service using DRM for one hour a day from the Woofferton transmitting station in Shropshire. The BBC undertook a trial of the digital radio mondiale (DRM) technology, which allowed them to explore digital radio using medium-wave frequencies. The trial broadcast BBC Radio Devon using the new technology in the Plymouth area from April 2007 and closed down on 31 October 2008. In May 2009,
1173-552: The BBC released a report on the trial in Devon. The report gave a number of conclusions about DRM from the trial: In 2006, National Grid Wireless carried out a technical trial of T-DMB and DAB-IP on the Stoke & Stafford (formerly UTV-EMAP/Bauer Stoke) ensemble. The trial assessed the reception qualities of both technologies in urban and rural areas as well as the mobile television and radio services which could be delivered. There
1224-481: The UK are streaming online. In 2011, the BBC and commercial radio operators launched RadioPlayer which allows over 400 radio stations to be listened to through its website and apps. In addition various radio stations and third parties allow streaming of internet radio stations through their own websites and apps. A number of British firms, including BT Group , Reciva, Pure Digital , Roberts Radio and Acoustic Energy have brought out Internet radio devices which use
1275-413: The UK from listening to their radio stations and therefore avoided the increased fees. In September 2020, TuneIn lost a court case brought by Sony Music and Warner Music Group in the UK's High Court of Justice . As a result of the case, radio stations not licensed by Ofcom in the UK can no longer legally be displayed on an " audio guide service ", listened or tuned into by a listener without paying
1326-452: The UK must be capable of decoding a DAB+ stream of up to 144 capacity units. Radios must support DAB+ to receive the digital tick mark. However this is not mandatory and many retailers continue to sell DAB receivers that do not support DAB+. DAB radio stations in the United Kingdom are broadcast on a number of frequency blocks on VHF Band III . The original plan devised in Wiesbaden for
1377-462: The UK. Digital radio ensemble operators and stations need a broadcasting licence from the UK's media regulator Ofcom to broadcast. In the long term there will be a switchover from analogue to digital radio when the AM and FM services will cease. The government has set criteria on the coverage and proportion of digital listening before this occurs. In 2018 the criteria of over 50% of digital radio listening
1428-648: The United Kingdom were performed by Virgin Radio , Classic Gold , Premier Christian Radio , Virgin Radio Classic Rock , Asian Sound and CVC. The British Broadcasting Corporation started broadcasting the BBC World Service on shortwave and mediumwave radio for a few hours a day across Europe from Orford Ness in Suffolk and Kvitsøy in Norway, the latter being receivable across England, Wales and Southern Scotland. Today,
1479-439: The audio spectrum that cannot be heard by humans are discarded, meaning less data needs to be sent over the air. This, as well as multiplexing technology, allows a number of channels to be broadcast together on one frequency as opposed to one channel for analogue radio broadcasts. National, local and regional DAB ensembles use the same frequency for the area they cover. Using a single-frequency network , an ensemble broadcasting
1530-612: The criteria. In 2010 the government created a digital action plan which was delivered in November 2013. On 16 December 2013 they announced that "now is not the time to commit to a switchover". An updated report was released in January 2014. Since 2010 Ofcom has produced annual reports on the take-up of digital radio. Subsequently, in 2018 the BBC stated it would keep some FM radio for the foreseeable future. Crystal Palace transmitting station Too Many Requests If you report this error to
1581-586: The digital terrestrial platform has 28 radio stations broadcasting nationally from broadcasters including the BBC, Bauer Radio, Global Radio , and Wireless Group , as well as numerous BBC local stations. Unlike North America, the UK does not have a commercial satellite radio service. There are radio stations broadcasting via Satellite to the United Kingdom, however these are aimed at home users for playback through their televisions since these same satellites are also used for television broadcast and usually use SES ' Astra series of satellites at 28.2° east or
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1632-866: The digital terrestrial platform started on 30 October 2002 with the launch of the BBC's digital only radio services, BBC 1Xtra , BBC Five Live Sports Extra , BBC 6 Music , BBC 7 and the BBC Asian Network , as well as existing stations BBC Radio Five Live and the BBC World Service . All the stations broadcast on the BBC's multiplex B. On the same day EMAP Radio (now owned by Bauer Radio ) launched three radio stations, Smash Hits , Kerrang! and Kiss . Two other commercial radio stations also launched, oneword and Jazz FM . The BBC later launched BBC Radio 1 , Radio 2 , Radio 3 and Radio 4 FM on multiplex A on 14 February 2003. These channels later moved to Multiplex 1 on 3 October 2007. As of May 2022,
1683-518: The first quarter of 2020, 66.7% of UK people aged 15+ claimed to have access to a DAB radio set at home. Experimental transmissions of the DAB Eureka 147 standard from the Crystal Palace transmitting station by the BBC started in 1990 with permanent transmissions covering London in September 1995. With the expansion of its single-frequency network in the spring of 1998, the BBC national ensemble
1734-562: The framework of DAB in Europe was to allocate frequency blocks 11B to 12D for UK DAB broadcasting. However, as part of its Review of Radio, Ofcom has expanded the frequency allocations for DAB and has advertised local and a national ensemble licence on blocks outside the original Wiesbaden plan on 10B to 10D and 11A. Block 5A has also been reserved for the launch of local ensembles. In 2015, additional blocks were opened up for small scale DAB trials for an initial period of nine months. Ofcom reiterated
1785-490: The future which cannot decode and therefore access DAB+ stations. Independent radio analyst Grant Goddard also stated that there was an economic decision not to adopt DAB+ for both the industry and consumers. Despite opposition aired to the government regarding the introduction of DAB+ in the United Kingdom by the industry and experts, Ofcom began testing DAB+ on the Brighton Experimental ensemble in January 2013 for
1836-560: The problems of interference that are more noticeable through analogue radio. DAB radios also come with features such as station lists, so listeners do not need to retune their receivers, as well as scrolling text, providing information such as breaking news, travel information or the latest track information. DAB has also been marketed as having two major advantages over analogue radio broadcasting in that using MPEG-1 Audio Layer II lossy audio compression technology and more recently DAB+ using High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding , parts of
1887-534: The radio industry and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The chief executive of the DRDB, Tony Moretta, mirrored the calls by the radio industry and experts not to adopt DAB+ in the UK. In an interview with the TechRadar website in 2009, he claimed that DAB+ was a "red herring" and may not be introduced in the UK for the foreseeable future due to the growing number of digital radio sets currently being sold and used in
1938-540: The same bandwidth; by using very low bitrates. In 2020, most commercial stations use only 32–64 kbps (DAB+ with HE-AAC codec) while those stations maintaining the old DAB standard (MP2) have switched to mono with 64–80 kbps. A bit rate of 256 kbps (MP2) has been judged to provide a high quality stereo broadcast signal. The bit rates used by the radio stations on cable and satellite are usually higher. Many internet radio streams also use low bitrates but with MP3 rather than MP2 – providing better audio quality at
1989-409: The same reduced bandwidth (bit rate). On the other hand, an Ofcom survey, which was undertaken due to many consultation responses citing poor DAB quality, found that 94% of DAB listeners thought DAB was at least as good as FM. In 2006, Ofcom estimated that even after extra spectrum has been allocated to DAB, around 90 local radio stations will be unable to transmit on DAB, either because there
2040-412: The station's playlist. Artists to have been played extensively by the station since their earliest recordings include Bastille , Nine Lies , Tom Odell , Haim , The 1975 , Chvrches and London Grammar . Since 2010, the station has broadcast a weekly chart on Sunday afternoons. The first chart-topper was 'Spider' by Tom And The Tides (an early recording by Tom Odell ). In 2020, a separate service
2091-551: The suggestion that DAB would be the future direction of digital radio in the United Kingdom. It states that only when the following conditions are met, a migration from FM to DAB would begin: The original Interim Report of the Digital Radio Working Group published in 2008 specified that the 50% threshold for listening figures should be based on those for DAB. This was subsequently watered down to incorporate listening via any digital platform so as to make it easier to meet
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2142-513: The two national operators, Digital One and Sound Digital as well as local multiplex operators including NOW Digital, Bauer Media Group , Wireless Group , Switch Digital and MuxCo . Local and regional ensembles cover 77.8% of UK households. An increasing number of small scale DAB multiplexes broadcast in a number of areas across the UK. From what began with ten trial multiplexes (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Portsmouth, Norwich, Brighton, Cambridge and Aldershot) with initially
2193-633: The upper frequencies of the L band, however, Qualcomm beat WorldSpace in 2008, securing the L band frequencies in the Ofcom auction process. A number of digital radio stations also broadcast through digital cable platforms, including Virgin Media and WightFibre . In the United Kingdom, over 350 of the UK's radio stations also stream their stations online, not including Restricted Service Licensed radio stations, Hospital radio stations and stations who solely broadcast online. In total, about 2600 stations from
2244-636: The uptake of DAB has increased since the launch of the BBC national DAB ensemble in 1995. Lower prices, new radio stations and marketing have increased the uptake of DAB radio in the UK. Digital radios were first sold as car radios in 1997, priced around £800, with hi-fi tuners costing up to £2,000 being released two years later. In 2001, Digital One invested in Frontier Silicon to produce a new processing chip which would allow cheaper portable radios to be produced. Roberts Radio , Goodmans and in 2002, Pure Digital 's award-winning Evoke series of radios broke
2295-422: The use of a number of frequency blocks between 7D and 9C for any future roll-out of small scale DAB multiplexes in its final report regarding the small scale DAB multiplexes published in September 2016. The first permanent Small Scale DAB licensed were advertised during 2021 with the trial licenses being awarded to the trial licensees. sub-band The frequency plan and usage of DAB for the crown dependencies of
2346-558: The £100 price barrier, and DAB take up has increased since. The BBC and other DAB broadcasters have been encouraging DAB take up by promoting a number of features which are either new or improve upon former technology in their sales literature. The benefit of DAB is that due to the use of multiplexing technology and encoding technology, broadcasters including the BBC and EMAP have been able to launch exclusive digital radio stations alongside their existing analogue radio stations. Broadcasters also state that DAB offers better reception, without
2397-488: Was an ongoing experimental DMB multiplex broadcast in London on L-Band and Cambridge on VHF Band III, used for video, audio and data applications which have since ceased. The Digital Economy Act 2010 has a requirement stating that the United Kingdom must prepare for digital switchover. On 29 January 2009 the UK Government's interim report into digital communication for the future by Lord Carter , Digital Britain , made
2448-466: Was available to 65% of the UK population by 2001, 85% by 2004 and 96.4% by 2015. DAB+ full-time broadcasts began in 2016. The Broadcasting Act of 1996 allowed the introduction of national, regional and local commercial ensembles in the United Kingdom. The first national ensemble licence for DAB from the Radio Authority was advertised in 1998 and one applicant applied for the licence. The licence
2499-469: Was awarded to the GWR Group and NTL Broadcast, who since the launch were renamed Arqiva . The two companies formed the Digital One ensemble, which began broadcasting on 15 November 1999. The Digital One ensemble has grown and is currently available to over 90% of the UK population although an Ofcom report into Digital Radio in 2015 puts robust household coverage at 89.8% of the UK. In the United Kingdom,
2550-610: Was launched, aimed at listeners in the USA, with different presenters. Previous notable presenters have included Simon Raymonde and Kathryn Tickell . 54°57′58″N 1°36′13″W / 54.966038°N 1.603667°W / 54.966038; -1.603667 Digital radio in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom , the roll-out of digital radio has been proceeding since engineering test transmissions were started by
2601-400: Was met which will now require the UK Government to review digital radio in view of a potential switchover. In the same year, the BBC stated it would keep some FM radio for the foreseeable future. Digital radio in the United Kingdom is being promoted by radio stations and the broadcasting industry on the premise that it provides superior quality sound over AM, a wider choice of radio stations,
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