I just was reading this article on John Peel
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-1334478,00.html
and came across this
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The Culture Secretary is considering switching off analogue radio. Driven
by the same fiscal imperatives that have persuaded it to promote gambling,
the Government wants to convert Britain to exclusively digital listening
This should not be perceived, as manufacturers of radio sets want it to be,
as a laudable commitment to modernity. Nor should the excellent sound
quality and enhanced range of stations made available by digital audio
broadcasting persuade us that the future of radio must be entirely digital.
As long wave survived the arrival of medium wave and medium wave lived
through the birth of FM, analogue radio must continue alongside digital. If
it does not, 150 million analogue sets will be rendered useless. The cheap
technology that allows us to have a separate set in each room and to avoid
retuning by keeping a dedicated receiver for each of our favourite channels
will be made obsolete.
Digital radios will become less costly, but they will never be as cheap as
basic trannies. Digital sets are too complex and expensive for traditional
early adopters. There will not be digital radios in every room. It will be
reduced to the ?appointment to view? status that renders television less
popular than radio.
Switching off analogue radio would be like murdering a friend. The average
of 22 hours listening a week by British adults would fall and advertising
revenues with it. Let digital radio thrive, Secretary of State, but not by
assassinating analogue. That will deprive us of new John Peels and provoke
fury throughout the land
