Small-scale DAB for Wales – a revolution in local broadcasting?

Ha! Spain, Ireland and other countries have given up on the white elephant that is DAB radio. Millions of pounds have poured into DAB radio leaving behind a string of bankrupt stations. Only so much quality radio, radio four, radio three type programming can be afforded in the U.K. In Eire it is a struggle to maintain four quality national stations plus national commercial talk stations. In Wales we need national English language news and talk stations the Welsh Government and local councils need to be held to account. It can only be done through re-jigging the FM band.. Dab is old hat being replaced by DAB + and on line radio. There are a number of so called community stations in Wales run by unpaid people who have not the time or desire to do investigative journalism into what is going on in the county councils and Cardiff Bay. There is plenty of room in the FM band for decent local or regional radio stations, with twenty percent speech content so they report on and reflect local communities. Ofcom Wales is a joke. It should be replaced by a Welsh National Media Authority. Such an organisation could close down Hart and other London based monopolies and use their FM frequencies for Welsh national or regional stations.

I recognise that there are many issues with DAB, some of them quite technical - I didn't want to get into too much detail as this isn't really the platform for that. With respect, I think the small scale DAB strategy is very different. It allows for many more stations to exist on a fraction of the cost. If you look across the 10 trial minimuxes, you see lots of small, sometimes quite experimental 'boutique' stations - sometimes offering format choices we've never really seen on the UK scene. That's why it is so exciting to me. Whilst I think it would be unrealistic to expect a new generation of tiny Radio 4's or indeed Radio Wales to spring up, there are lots of exciting opportunities for music stations that ofter opportunities to local, unsigned or underground music genres. It could be a real boon for Welsh language music for instance. To be clear, many of these minimux stations are not broadcasting original content all day, something like 20% original speech content would be difficult to achieve. That is a difficult pill for some to swallow but you are better off thinking of these minimux stations more like the outer reaches of your freeview EPG, although hopefully with far less home shopping! If you look at stations like InRadio - the internet radio station about the radio industry, it is essentially a live selection of the best podcasts about radio broadcasting from across the world. If these small boutique stations operating in local areas can share content across the country, that opens up some really interesting opportunities. In defence of community radio, these stations are exceptionally difficult to run - there are so many licensing requirements and they are run through the pure blood, sweat and tears of some every dedicated people working on a shoestring budget. Their purpose is certainly not to do 'investigative journalism' - however I think there are opportunities already for a network of small stations, working with for example, a journalism department of a university to produce a syndicated show which could do some of those things. I agree with you about Ofcom and share a similar frustration with their priorities. I shall be writing another article soon about the case for devolution of media regulation to Wales.