Here's an article for you. Bottomline, digital radio still a...

Here's an article for you. Bottomline, digital radio still a million years away......

Coonan announces digital radio decisions at CRA conference
15 Oct 2005
Communications Minister Helen Coonan has announced the government’s decision to officially introduce Digital Radio to Australia at the Commercial Radio Australia conference in Sydney.
In her speech Senator Coonan revealed that the government will mandate use of the Eureka 147 system and will give high power broadcasters 128 kilo bits per second of bandwidth, half the recommended amount for Eureka. While the 128 Kb bit rate came as a surprise to most broadcasters, because the Eureka codecs do not currently handle this rate with maximum efficiency, there is some thought that the bit rate decision may be flexible. Broadcasters are planning to have further discussions on this point privately with the minister.

Roll out will be in the most populace and lucrative capital city markets first, followed by regional areas, where DRM may be considered as an alternative transmission technology.

The government is aware that community and national broadcasters will need extra funds for transmission and Coonan says she is willing to consider requests form these sectors as digital roll out progresses.

Low power community stations, open narrowcasters and Section 40 off-band licencees will miss out on space in the first round of allocations, which will be planned by ACMA.

VHF spectrum will be the preferred carrier medium, with L Band being considered for in-fill transmission and other future uses. Spectrum planning will begin immediately, but the Minister expects that legislation and a staggered technical roll out will mean that consumers may still have to wait up to 2 years before they will be able to enjoy a full range of digital radio services.

In a departure from the government’s policy on digital tv, there is no immediate switch-off date being considered for analog radio. In her speech Coonan confirmed there will be a firm switch off date for analog tv despite lobbying against that decision from the tv industry, whereas digital radio will be considered a supplementary technology to analog radio for the foreseeable future.

Coonan mentioned CRA’s ground breaking ‘picture radio’ set on display at the conference, which will display pictures and text on a screen of better quality than anything yet produced by receiver manufacturers.

“Today I am announcing the policy settings so that we can get things rolling in the long march towards digital radio,” Coonan told the conference.

“Today’s decisions will provide public policy benefits for consumers and give maximum flexibility to the industry… we are keen to support the industry to make this a success.”

In a win for the commercial sector, Australia will not adopt a transmission licencee model as there is in the UK. Broadcasters will have first option to consider forming joint venture companies to operate their own transmission multiplex. Joint Venture operators will be monitored by ACMA and the ACCC to ensure there is no anti-competitive or discriminatory behaviour to lock out any particular station.

ABC and SBS will be given the opportunity to contract out their own transmission as they do now, giving Broadcast Australia the opportunity to tender to deliver this new service if the ABC and the government want it to.



Coonan thanked the industry for working with the government to achieve this historic outcome. At the press conference after the announcement Coonan said she hopes receivers will be available to consumers soon within a $100 – 200 price range.

CRA Chief Executive Joan Warner told the conference “this is a red letter day” and thanked the Minister for delivering certainty for the industry.