What HiFi: The controversy over digital radio rumbles on. After the Lords communications committee called for an analogue radio scrappage scheme, now comes news that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an ad claiming that digital radio doesn’t suffer from signal interruptions, unlike analogue sets.

The radio campaign, by the Digital Radio Development Bureau, had a voiceover that was intermittently interrupted with interference. The voiceover said that interference was an issue when listening to “conventional analogue” radio.  Read more…

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Cnet UK:  Two thousand pounds might sound a mindboggling amount of money to spend on an audio device, but when you tot up what goes into a NaimUniti, it starts to make a wee bit more sense. There’s nothing quite like this on the market anywhere, at any price. First and foremost, the Uniti will take your audio, amplify it and pump it out of some speakers — which you have to provide too.

It also grabs hold of radio from virtually any source, be it FM, DAB or even Internet radio stations. Radio stations that have a listen again feature, such as those from Absolute Radio and the BBC, can simply be selected from the audio menu, meaning you no longer have to actually hear shows live to enjoy them. While this isn’t a brand-new feature, it’s still fabulous to have access to all that content at any time and trust us — it will change the way you use radio. Read more…

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Telegraph: UK households will have to replace their analogue radio sets by 2020, according to proposals in a government-commissioned report that sets out a timetable for switching to digital broadcasting.

In a process similar to television switchover, which completes in 2012 and is taking five years, the FM signal would go dark, making the 100m analogue radio sets in use today largely redundant.

Instead, stations would begin transmitting in Digital Audio Broadcast, which can only be picked up by new digital radio sets.

The government appointed Digital Radio Working Group, whose members include the BBC, commercial broadcasters, car manufacturers and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, today suggested switching off the FM signal for all but the very smallest local stations by 2020.

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Tech Digest: Traditional analogue radio stations could eventually be shut down, under proposals from Ofcom.As if analogue TV turnoff by 2012 isn’t enough, Ofcom would like to review AM stations in 2009, and FM stations in 2012. However, if digital radio use exceeds 50% sooner than this, the review could be brought forward.

Ofcom claim that the analogue bandwidth used by radio could be better used for mobile TV, more digital and community radio, and other new technologies. (…)

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Red Herring: Regulators in the United Kingdom are considering the end of AM and FM radio on the grounds that they have both outlived their usefulness, and digital services could make better use of the spectrum occupied by both bands.

Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator, published a statement that said many of the AM and FM licenses are up for renewal and an automatic renewal could tie up very valuable slices of spectrum for 24 years, so the time is right for a long-term decision.

By making a decision on the future of analog commercial radio now, the U.K regulator argues, it will have more flexibility in the use of the VHF Band II spectrum currently occupied by FM radio.

Ofcom believes that the spectrum would be put to better use if it were allotted to emerging services such as mobile TV and more digital radio and data services.

FM radio re-uses a limited number of frequencies in a patchwork across the U.K. to deliver around 300 local BBC and commercial services and five UK-wide networks,” said the Ofcom statement.

“Any alternative uses for those frequencies would require large chunks of that spectrum to be freed-up simultaneously—something a rolling re-licensing process does not allow for,” the statement continued.

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