The standardization of DAB+ in Spain: difficulties, challenges and challenges

Juan Nadales, president of the AMSC Group, defends the relevance of the DAB+ system in the Spanish radio scene compared to the traditional transmission model.

Gentlemen, it is evident that the DAB+ It is a technology that is creating new opportunities for growth in a technically saturated medium such as FM. However, the difficulties that the deployment of this technology is having are undeniable and there are various reasons that point to the slowdown of digitization in Spanish digital radio.

Spain cannot be left behind in Europe and both AMSC, Digi-Can, Techworld Sur Broadcast and other broadcasters have begun to offer content in the DAB+ system, even though we are very aware of the enormous economic losses that this generates for us. There are several operators who are already offering the possibility in various areas outside the current 20% coverage of Collserola and Torrespaña.

We ask the administration to promote this technology again. Spain must adopt precise measures to migrate all FM operators to band III; legislate after forty years of pending third sector radio stations and give them the opportunity to have a specific multiplex for them, coexist with commercial and public stations under the legal framework that regulates them.

Difficulties in accessing DAB+

On the one hand, the practically zero number of DAB receivers and their high price (not to mention that, being pioneers of this technology in Europe, we are not able to carry out an informative promotional campaign to publicize this medium), has meant that digital radio has been born, in our humble opinion, with very little force in the field of regulation.

Many mistakes have been made, such as, for example, thinking that digital radio was a complement to analog radio; It would have been much better if there had been a decisive response of total conversion or analogue blackout by a certain date, as has happened in other countries. However, digital radio still does not have complete, quality programming. Likewise, digital radio presents a big question: What happens with the advance of online radio on the Internet, which is taking over DAB+?

The digital model has been attempted to be implemented in a hasty manner. It takes time for the appropriate conditions to be created and the difficulties are more commercial than technological.