The long, slow birth of DAB radio

A push is underway to get listeners to switch from analogue to DAB digital radio, but the technology is almost 30 years old. Why did it take so long to reach the airwaves?

It has been heralded as the medium of future, the means by which we will listen to the Terry Wogans and Chris Moyleses of tomorrow.

Communications minister Ed Vaizey has launched an action plan to get listeners to switch from AM and FM to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio, promising that the public will adopt "multi-channel national radio in exactly the same way that television viewers have seen such benefits".

But although the format is not projected to win over a majority of Britons for several years to come, its genesis stretches back further than you may imagine.

One curious feature of the DAB story is that it was an invention not of the naughties, nor even the nineties - but was first pioneered as far back as 1981.

The technology began development at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik in Munich and throughout the decade was the focus of the Europe-wide Eureka 147 research project.

But the first commercial DAB receivers were not available in the UK until 1999 - begging the question: what took them so long?

The format is, after all, only now beginning to catch on in the UK - more than a decade after its public launch.

Read the full BBC News article - The long, slow birth of DAB radio at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/10569231.stm