Why Your Radio Sucks

by Amanda Aronchick

"There will soon be a precocious new kid on the block in the Canadian broadcasting industry. His name is digital radio, he comes from Europe and he will soon become a part of the Canadian mosaic."1

Radio is about to change forever. Rip out your car stereo, give away your home tuner and turn the dial off permanently because they won't be of any use to you during the impending radio revolution. Digital Audio Broadcasting DAB is the radio of the future. The question remains, however, do we need or want a technology that will fundamentally change radio and the way we listen to it? While the advantages of DAB are undeniable, people in the industry who will be implementing and regulating digital radio seem to be ignoring the negative implications of this new technology.

Little has changed in audio broadcasting technology since the inception of radio. Transmission is based on old principles: sound creates electromagnetic waves that are mirrored and beamed through the air on a carrier wave. Your home tuner picks up the signals, the amplifier then magnifies them and the sounds are emitted through the loudspeaker. Whereas, digital technology breaks down the information into simple binary expressions, the language of computers, composed of zeros and ones. What makes digital more enticing then analog, is not that it is inherently more accurate, but that it is able to correct itself. Flaws in a recording or transmission that create distortion or "noise" are inevitable, but with a digital signal data is either a one or a zero. Given only two possibilities, your home receiver can accurately decode the information without unintentional "noise". This will result in radio having the same clear sound quality of a compact disc.

While the quality of the transmission is the biggest advantage to DAB, there are also other benefits. There is limited room on what is known as the radio spectrum, the bandwidth that transmits radio signals at a certain frequency, given in terms of Hertz (Hz) or usually, MegaHertz (MHz). There is only so much "space" on the airwaves to transmit signals. Different signals require different amounts of bandwidth. For example, stations that transmit on the FM signal require 0.25 MHz of bandwidth, whereas AM only needs 0.01 MHz per station. DAB, on the other hand, with the use of data compression, allows for a more efficient use of the radio spectrum and will be able to broadcast six different signals from one transmitter over less bandwidth. This also decreases the transmitting costs for each individual station by one sixth.

DAB will also make the need to tune in a station obsolete. There is reliable reception for all: by simply pushing a button designated to the call numbers of a station, the signal will be picked up accurately. As well, signal gaps, created by mountains or tall buildings, will disappear. Digital can transcend any landscape. "Imagine radio that sounds as good as a CD - no hisses, no pops, no signal or interference, none of the horrors music lovers associate with radio reception."2

The question remains, however, who actually wants this new technology? I have yet to hear someone state that the reason they don't listen to their radio is because it doesn't sound as clean as their CDs. "As Brecht said of radio, it finds a market, and then it looks for a reason to exist."3 In the case of DAB, the market is the Canadian government, anxious to remain at the forefront of a flagging medium for which Canada has a "heroic history" of successes.4

"The future will be just as exciting," the Task Force on the Introduction of Digital Radio promises us. "That is because we, as Canadians, are at the front line of change..."5 The truth of the matter is, radio has been losing money for years and DAB is the government's attempt to bring back listeners and consequently, bring back advertisers. Michel Tremblay, executive vice president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) told Marketing magazine, "The advertising base has been declining, and digital is meant to help radio thrive as a business. We look at it as a means to reposition the medium and expand its revenue base."6 Listeners are not asking for DAB, but broadcasters and people in the radio industry are hoping it will save radio from the outdated-technology black hole. Hence the enthusiastic media response, touting the new radio revolution.

I agree it is a "radio revolution" but it is certainly not a revolution by the people, for the people. DAB cannot be picked up by your home tuner, and every home will be required to purchase a new radio that will only pick up Canadian stations. Canada plans to broadcast on the globally accepted radio spectrum known as the "L-band" (1452-1492 MHz), which the United States military uses. In the beginning of 1992, the World Administrative Radio Conference in Spain agreed upon the L-band as the carrier of DAB signals. The U.S. has fought against the use of the L-band, and plans to fill already crowded AM and FM bands with digital radio on what they call In-Band, On-Channel (IBOC) broadcasting. The U.S. has recognized that the inception of DAB on the L-band will mean that 500 million radios will instantly become obsolete. This different use of frequencies means that Canadians will need to purchase yet another radio if they want to hear American stations. And what if you enjoy bringing your radio to the beach or listening to it while you jog? "A portable DAB receiver running off batteries is still unheard of, awaiting another generation, at least, of chip development."7

Canadians are adapting the same technology as the Europeans, who are presently working to manufacture a receiver for DAB. At present the radio, called Eureka 147, costs several thousand dollars. It is speculated that this price will drop once it is mass produced, but it still remains an unwanted cost being forced upon consumers as FM and AM radio are slowly phased out, being replaced by digital radio. According to the Canandian Association of Broadcasters, 1995 will be the year for the first Canadian station to broadcast digital signals. With all these technical problems, however, it seems highly unlikely that the projected date will be met.

They tell us that the future is promising though, and the fundamental qualities of digital transmission permit a whole new range of so-called "interactive" options. It is already possible for some station's to display written information on your home receiver or even your car stereo. It is called the radio data system (RDS) and your liquid crystal display (LCD) shows information about the artist, the song and even the advertisers. "What better way to take broadcasting into the twenty first century than by replacing the human DJ with a hand-held remote?"8 Why not remove all human aspects from radio entirely? Advertisers foresee a day when an RDS will come with a small printer and when an ad comes on the radio that interests you, simply push a button, and a coupon for that company will print out. Imagine it - junk mail for your stereo!

What makes radio radio is also being eliminated. Tuning in a station will be unnecessary, and the static and distortion that creates distance between listener and announcer will all disappear into oblivion with the inception of DAB. Radio's spatial determinants are gone, and your local DJ will sound so good, he or she may as well be in your bedroom with you. "Imagine radio without radio, the definition of radio without the physicality of radio... Digital radio will collapse our present notion of radiospace."9

With even greater commercialisation of radio, what will happen to community radio? Will campus radio be able to afford the switch from analog to digital? Will remote local stations, unable to find five stations with which to share a transmitter, disappear completely? The answer, according to broadcaster Norman McLeod, is unfortunately affirmative. "This is going to make the prospects for developing identifiably local DAB services to locations outside the big metropolitan areas very bleak."10 McLuhan's "global village" may draw us closer to communities and information half way across the globe, but will our next door neighbours remain strangers? Community, local, indigenous and other non-commercial radio, with its already small listenership, has reason to fear the inevitable switch to digital. These types of "narrowcast" ( opposed to broadcast ) radio is a unique way of transmiting information about and to a small community. DAB could decrease radio's small listener base even more. Presently radio in Canada is highly subsidized by the government, and if DAB will supposedly change the need for government aid, will stations unable to bring in a profit disappear off the dial? During all the excitement over CD quality radio, the needs of alternative radio broadcasters and radio listeners are largely being ignored.

So what's a community radio station to do? As your favourite commercial stations make the leap into cyberair, more and more deserted spaces will open on the FM band. FM could potentially become a playground for pirate and community broadcasters, free of CRTC regulations and constrictions.11 We'll all own our own low watt transmitters and broadcast freely to each other on our own pirate band - radio anarchy will prevail. Alternative, non-commercial media will not only broadcast on FM, they will dominate the medium of analog radio, and commercial radio can go play in the digital sandbox by themselves.

2 Reporter from le Devoir commenting on Eureka 147 DAB prototype in Broadcast & Technology 1990.

3 Jody Berland. "Angels Dancing: Cultural Technologies and the Production of Space." Cultural Studies Then & Now Eds. L. Grossberg et al. (New York: Routledge, 1992) pg.43.

4 Ibid, pg.52.

5 Task Force. Digital Radio, pg.27.

6 Gerald Levitch. "The Realities of Digital Radio Remain Shrouded in Mystery." Marketing (March 8 1993) pg.18.

7 Norman McLeod. Excerpt from internet discussion list. amarc.radiotec. Sent November 23 1993, pg.5.

8 Byron Poole. "Digital Radio: Linking the Global Airwaves." Omni August 1993: pg.25.

9 Christof Migone. Performance text. "Radio Immaculates: the good, the bad & the digital." (On the Air October 1993) pg.2.

10 Norman McLeod amarc.radiotec. pg.3.

11 Christof Migone, personal interview, 3 December 1993.