Objective:
- To stop the BBC switching off its national FM radio stations.
Why Save FM?
- People simply don't want FM to be switched off --
whenever it's mentioned there's a huge amount of opposition to
the idea
- People don't want to replace so much audio
equipment that work perfectly well -- the public shouldn't be
forced to spend billions of pounds replacing the 120 - 150 million
devices currently in-use that can receive FM perfectly well, especially
when this is only happening to bail out the commercial radio
broadcasters, and so that the BBC can avoid losing listeners to Internet
radio. The public doesn't want this to happen, and DAB actually provides
lower quality than FM, so the vast majority of people would actually
receive a worse service on DAB than on FM.
- Ofcom's market research has shown that over 90% of
people are "very satisfied" with what they're receiving on FM, so they
shouldn't even be considering switching off FM
- DAB is unpopular with consumers, and it would
have failed completely in the next few years without Government
assistance -- annual sales are 50% below the industry's targets and
year-on-year sales growth plummeted and have never recovered -- proof that the
public doesn't want it, so why is such an incredibly unpopular system
being forced upon us? There was a
case for switching off analogue TV, because the vast majority of people
wanted more choice than just five analogue TV channels, but people
typically receive far more than five FM radio stations -- and as Ofcom's
research showed, people are happy with the amount of choice on FM.
- DAB provides far lower audio quality than FM --
why should we have to accept such blatant Luddism?
- DAB is an outdated and inefficient system that was
designed in the 1980s -- why should we accept this diabolical
replacement in the first place when far superior systems such as DAB+
and in particular Internet radio exist? The speed of mobile broadband
systems are about to be transformed in a similar fashion to the change
from dial-up to broadband over the next few years. Why pick the worst
possible time imaginable to push ahead with the Diabolical Audio
Broadcasting system?
- FM radios are far greener than DAB radios could ever be -- DAB
radios consume several times as much energy as FM radios do, and DAB will
never approach the energy efficiency of FM radios.
- Internet radio provides far higher audio quality than DAB --
virtually everyone from outside the radio industry thinks it's a crazy
idea to use DAB
- DAB has notoriously bad reception quality -- and FM "degrades
gracefully" when the signal isn't strong, whereas DAB produces
incredibly annoying "bubbling mud" type sounds
- The public has never been asked whether it wants FM
to be switched off, and it is simply being forced upon us by the
Government which is once again showing that it bends over backwards to
help big business but consumers have to suffer the consequences.
- The BBC has never consulted with the public
about whether it wants DAB to replace FM, or whether the public wants
the audio quality on DAB to be worse than on FM. When the BBC held a public consultation for its
five new digital-only radio stations it deliberately omitted to mention
that the launch of these new stations would result in the audio quality
of the existing stations being drastically reduced. The public should be consulted
on whether they consider it to be acceptable that DAB replaces FM even though DAB provides lower audio quality.
- FM isn't even being switched off anyway, because
the Digital Britain report says that the FM band would carry
"ultra-local" stations after the bigger FM stations have been switched
off, so people should be allowed to continue listening to at least the
BBC's stations via FM if they want to without being forced to spend
several hundred up to potentially thousands of pounds replacing existing
audio equipment that works perfectly well
- The plan to speed up switching off FM stations is
simply being done to bail out the commercial radio broadcasters who don't
want to pay to transmit on both analogue and digital because it costs them too much money -- pass me the tissues, I'm going to cry.
There needs to be a far
better reason to make 120 - 150 million radios obsolete than that lame excuse of a reason!
- Transmitting FM only costs £10 million per annum
-- just 17 pence per person per year, and just 0.27% of the £3,600
million the BBC receives each year -- The Digital Britain report said
that FM only needed £200m to be spent on it to keep it going for the
next 20 years. FM is superb value-for-money.
- The BBC likes DAB because it's the platform on which its stations face the least amount of competition.
The BBC should not take decisions that are against the interests of
licence fee payers just so that the BBC can avoid losing radio
listeners!
Can FM be saved?
A few hundred people managed to stop the BBC switching
off the Radio 4 Long Wave station, so if a few hundred people can do that
for what is at the end of the day a radio station with a small audience,
then you would have thought that it would be quite doable to stop the BBC
switching off its four main FM stations, which have an enormous number of
listeners between them.
How to Save FM?
Electronic civil disobedience -- essentially throwing virtual purple
flour at the BBC and the Government of the day. The grey suits at Ofcom
are better suited to having some cold virtual gruel thrown in their faces
a la Peter Mandelson and his soup episode. And Stephen Carter, who
authored the Backward Britain Digital Britain report,
should have virtual snake oil poured over him from head to toe.
We will be seeking advice from the legal community
regarding our Human Right to keep FM on the air and stop the BBC trampling
those rights like the bully that it is.
Opposition to FM switch-off in the press:
Radio revolution will leave listeners in silence
Don't force digital radio on us
Put the boot into DAB, and try to Save FM
Radio: Turn on, tune in, drop out
Radio Times Letter of the week:
Guess what the prize was for Letter of the week? Read on...
Stay tuned!
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