Progress to digital listening stalls

The Government has announced that it will not make a decision on when to switch over to digital radio until the share of radio listening from digital devices exceeds 50%, so the quarterly RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) figures are watched with interest. The figures for the first quarter of 2012 are released today.

The industry – in the form of RAJAR itself and Digital Radio UK – always tries to put the best gloss on the latest figures and there are some bright spots, such as a record 200 million hours for the volume of digital radio listening. But, in terms of the Government’s timetable for switchover, there is only one figure that matters: the proportion of all listening which is digital.

Here the news is disappointing. The latest figure is 29.2%, virtually the same as the previous quarter (29.1%). Of course, year on the year – which is the usual measure – the figure looks better: an increase of 10.2%. But this is down from the equivalent figure last quarter which was 17.3%.

Of course, one should not read too much into any one quarter’s figures but look for the underlying trend. Here the situation is clear: taking either the last two or the last three years, the trend has been an annual growth rate of 13.2%. This is some way below the 15-16% growth rate that the industry is aiming for.

At this rate of 13%, it will be the middle of 2016 before we reach the magical 50% of all listening. Since no decision on a switchover timetable can be announced until that figure has been reached and since broadcasters have to be given a minimum of two years advance notice of switchover, that means that – on current trends – switchover cannot start until the summer of 2018.

Meanwhile we are still awaiting the Memorandum of Understanding on funding of the transmitter roll-out  required for switchover  and the DCMS cost-benefit analysis of the case for switchover.

Still problems with broadband speeds information

Mystery shopping to check compliance with Ofcom’s Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds has revealed that information provided to consumers by internet service providers (ISPs) has improved but has also identified areas where further work is needed.

The research has highlighted particular areas where ISPs need to improve. For example, some sales agents had to be prompted by mystery shoppers to provide speed estimates, despite the Code requiring that this information should be volunteered as early as possible in the sales process.

Overall, speed estimates were provided without prompting from the mystery shoppers in 59 per cent of all calls.

Providers who were most likely to give callers an estimated speed without prompting were Karoo (76 per cent of cases), Sky (72 per cent) and Plusnet (67 per cent).

TalkTalk (47 per cent of cases) and BT Total Broadband (48 per cent) were significantly less likely to provide a speed estimate without prompting from the caller.

Following discussions with Ofcom, both BT and TalkTalk have agreed to address this issue by amending their staff training and sales processes.

Green Paper? What Green Paper?

Last summer, DCMS Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt launched a Communications Review which is intended to lead to a new Communications Act by 2015. The review started with an open letter from Mr Hunt posing 13 questions. The letter was published on 16 May 2011 and invited submissions of no more than four or five pages by 30 June 2011 – a tough task and a tight timetable. On 7 December 2011, the Department finally published the 168 non-confidential submissions to the review.

At the time, this is what the DCMS web site said about the review timetable:

“Work undertaken throughout 2011 will result in the publication of a Green Paper toward the end of 2011 setting out options for a regulatory framework to support the communications sector.

A consultation about the proposals in the Green Paper will inform a White Paper, and a draft bill which will be completed by mid-2013.

We intend to have the legislation in place by the end of this Parliament.”

Since Christmas we have waited and waited for this Green Paper and I have blogged regularly about the delay and suggested a new time period for its publication – but still nothing.

If there is still to be a Green Paper, it is not going to be published any time soon, but in fact I now understand that there may not even be a Green Paper. Instead DCMS will probably use the summer to issue some think pieces on particular issues and have a series of discussions with stakeholders around these. Further submissions wil be invited and and then it likely that Government  will move straight to a White Paper in early 2013. This would allow the Department to cover the issues raised by the Leveson inquiry which is due to report in the summer.

Expect an announcement soon. Of course, even this timetable could be impacted by Ministerial changes.

Broadband speeds 42% slower than advertised

A “Guardian” investigation suggests that broadband users are paying for speeds over 40% less than they might well expect. Obviously different companies provide rather different experiences as quoted here:

“The survey, part of the Guardian’s Britain’s Broadband Vision campaign for better online infrastructure, found that TalkTalk and Sky customers reported a 60% shortfall, the widest gap between median advertised and actual services.

TalkTalk subscribers had been promised an average speed of 8Mbps, but were receiving 5Mbps, and Sky customers were promised an average 12Mbps and received 4.8Mbps.

Virgin customers reported a 41% shortfall – they were promised 30Mbps but received 17.7Mbps. BT’s customers fared best, paying for 8Mbps and receiving a quarter less at 6Mbps. The gap was 27% for BT’s budget service, Plusnet.”

The Government’s Digital Advisory Board

I’ve only just caught with this. You can check out the membership here.

Can DAB coverage be made equivalent to that of FM?

The Government has clearly stated that it will not announce a timetable for switchover to digital radio until two conditions are met.

1. The proportion of radio listening on digital devices – mainly radios but also digital television and computers – must be at least 50%. The latest figure from RAJAR was 29.1%. New figures will be out next week but, on current trends, the 50% figure will not be reached until late 2015 or so.
2. Coverage of the new digital transmission technology (DAB) must be equivalent to that of the older, analogue transmission technology (FM). Ofcom is charged with explaining how this could be done technically. It published reports in June and December 2011 and this month it has published its most detailed technical feasibility study.

If you would like to read the 60-page report plus its six technical annexes, you can access them here. Alternatively you can take my assurance that Ofcom is satisfied that it has worked out how to ensure DAB equivalence to FM although it points out that, if Government decides to proceed with digital radio switchover, a more detailed planning exercise will be needed.

The starting point for the Ofcom analysis is an explanation that comparing FM and DAB is difficult because:

“For FM the quality of the audio output progressively degrades with decreasing signal strength and greater interference, whilst the quality of DAB remains constant and then disappears abruptly. Therefore, comparing FM and DAB coverage requires some qualitative judgement to be exercised over when the level of user experience for FM and DAB is broadly equivalent.”

So Ofcom assures stakeholders that:

“We have used a conservative DAB planning approach to provide a high level of certainty that FM listeners can enjoy access to DAB services. This includes:

• Using variable quality mono reception as opposed to high quality stereo as the benchmark for defining the extent of FM coverage to be matched by DAB;
• Using a lower target of reception being available at 50% of locations during normal propagation conditions for defining FM coverage, as opposed to 99% of locations for 99% of the time for DAB coverage.”

So technically FM equivalence can be delivered – but it requires investment in more transmitters and that has to be paid for. Since last Autumn, I have been assured that the Memorandum of Understanding on such investment will be signed in the next couple of weeks – but it has still not happened.

My understanding is that prolonged discussions have settled on an equal three-way split of the £21M costs between the BBC, the commercial sector and Government. We await the announcement …

Can Britain really have the best broadband in Europe?

In this article, the “Guardian” has kicked off a debate about the Government’s plans to ensure that Britain has the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

The starting point does not look promising: the UK’s average download speed is ranked 16th in Europe, according to IT company Akamai. But TalkTalk points out rightly that access to ever faster speeds is not the only issue – take-up of the Net by all homes is just as important. In my view,  75% of the population using 100 Mbps a second while 25% make no use of the Net at all is not a success story or an acceptable outcome.

There is a case for having usage targets as well but these might be more difficult to construct. Such targets might be % who have used a national government web site and local government web site respectively in the last week/month/year. Maybe the ‘digital by default’ agenda should be implemented in stages when key take-up and usage targets are met and effective Digital Assist programmes are in place.

Does the Government have adequate funding for its broadband plans?

According to a report from the London School of Economics, there is a funding gap of some £1.1 billion. More information here.

Do we need a cap on media ownership?

The recent experience of News Corporation almost managing to buy up the remainder of BSkyB has led many to revisit the need to limit the scale of media ownership in Britain. Jeremy Hunt has asked Ofcom – the body the Conservatives wanted to keep out of policy – to advise on the matter. Today a sensible contribution to the debate comes from Claire Enders and Chris Goodall who argue in this article:

“UK media businesses, including computer games and book publishers as well as TV, radio and press, have revenues of about £32bn a year. The enlarged News Corp would have had about 20% of this total, roughly twice as much as the BBC, its nearest rival. The simplest way to ensure plurality in the UK would be a clear limit on the share of all media revenues held by one company – 15% seems reasonable, but an open debate is needed.”

The challenge of digital inclusion remains

As Race Online 2012 gives way to Go On UK, Britain still has a digital inclusion problem with 20-25% of homes not connected to the Net at any speed. This is why I have written about the issue in my latest Internet column which you can read here.