Digital Radio – am I onto a losing thing?
The BBC reports today on the closure of two digital radio stations, The Jazz and Planet Rock from GCap Media. They state that “DAB Digital radio is being portrayed in some quarters as the 21st century’s version of Betamax, the video format that lost out to VHS in the 1970s.” Consumers seem to be turning more to the Internet for radio. However, you can’t connect to the internet from your car … but “only a minuscule number of cars in the UK have a DAB radio installed.”
My car is one of those with a DAB radio installed – it’s a SEAT Ibiza and it came with a DAB radio as its special feature. However, we can’t get digital radio inside our house (because we’re behind a ridge). So I have mixed feelings about whether DAB radio is worth it. But I certainly don’t want to be stuck with the radio equivalent of a Betamax video!