BBC technology programme 'discovers' DRM

The website of Click, which describes itself as the BBC’s flagship technology programme, says “A new form of digital broadcasting, David Reid discovered, has the potential to re-draw the global radio map.”

In fact, the article is about Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), and is largely based on interviews with Ruxandra Obreja, chair of the DRM Consortium and controller of business development for the BBC World Service, and Tim Ayris of VT Communications.

But the article seems to confuse the domestic and international uses of DRM. 

It says “The standard is designed to broadcast sharper digital audio and limit breaks in transmission,” which seems to refer to the greater range of DRM on mediumwave compared to FM.

It then goes on to say that “DRM does not suffer blackouts, because like shortwave, its reach comes from bouncing around the globe.” It continues that “the long reach of DRM might [sic] mean that it enables broadcasts to travel across borders where local media and Internet is censored.”

And a small map is annotated with the comment that “Africa and Asia already have AM equipment that converts to DRM.” This presumably refers to some of the newest shortwave transmitters broadcasting to those regions.

Nowhere in the article is there any information about how to actually listen to DRM transmissions. The word “receiver” is not mentioned.

If the DRM Consortium wants to create the impression of an organisation that knows what it is doing, articles like this are not helpful. At least the BBC should have given the assignment to someone who actually understands what DRM is, rather than taking a few quotes at random and mixing them up.

Digital radio ‘without frontiers’

Andy Sennitt
Media Network
Radio Netherlands Worldwide