The current debate about the future of UK radio is increasingly being shaped by questions of distribution, connected devices, audience behaviour and the relationship between DAB, IP and analogue broadcasting. A wide range of generally available industry forecasts and audience data point in broadly the same direction: radio remains widely used, digital listening continues to grow, DAB remains significant, and analogue listening is becoming progressively less important.
That should lead to a wider question: What kind of radio system should these technologies support?
This is not simply about whether existing radio services survive technological change. It is about diversification of supply, enhanced competition, lower costs, more efficient frequency management, reduced licence-banking and broader public-interest priorities.
These questions will be discussed at the next Decentered Media Exchange session and on the Better Media Forum. Evidence also needs to be assembled quickly if arguments about diversification are to influence the current policy debate before its terms become largely fixed by incumbent commercial and public-service institutions.
The Direction of Travel Is Already Visible
Recent audience and industry data shows that digital listening already accounts for the large majority of UK radio consumption, while DAB remains a major component of that digital listening. At the same time, analogue listening continues to decline. In-car listening has moved strongly towards DAB, while wider listening patterns show a continuing shift towards digital and IP-based access. Forecasts also suggest that DAB will remain firmly embedded in vehicles well into the 2030s.
Taken together, these trends suggest that the argument is no longer principally about whether digital radio will replace analogue radio. Much of that transition has already happened. The more useful question is what public benefit can now be secured from the greater flexibility of digital distribution.
Diversification Should Be Part of the Growth Discussion
Small-scale DAB was intended to lower barriers to digital broadcasting for local, community and specialist services. The expansion of SSDAB has substantially increased technical capacity. But technical expansion is not the same thing as diversification of supply:
- Where is the research mapping what kinds of stations and programmes have actually been introduced through SSDAB and local DAB?
- How many services represent genuinely new editorial propositions, ownership structures, communities of interest, cultural services or local providers?
- How many are extensions of existing brands?
And how many are effectively regurgitation stations: services that reproduce substantially the same music formats, speech formats or programming propositions already available through legacy analogue, national DAB or online platforms?
If the policy objective includes growth, then this distinction matters. Growth should not simply mean more services being listed on multiplexes. It should also mean more suppliers, more ownership models, more commissioning points and more genuinely different forms of radio.
More Channels Do Not Necessarily Mean More Plurality
Digital systems can increase the number of available services while ownership and editorial control remain concentrated. That is why a supply-side analysis is needed alongside technical measures of rollout. The questions should include who owns services, where programming decisions are made, how much content is locally originated, whether genuinely new entrants can survive economically, and whether digital capacity is supporting distinctive forms of speech, music and community programming.
This is particularly important after a sustained period of commercial-radio consolidation. The policy question should therefore not simply be how existing broadcasters migrate successfully between FM, DAB and IP. It should also ask whether the emerging distribution environment can sustain a larger and more diverse range of providers.
Lower Costs Should Mean Lower Barriers to Entry
The original attraction of SSDAB was partly economic. Smaller transmission footprints and software-defined systems made it possible to provide digital carriage at a scale that could be more accessible to smaller broadcasters. If this remains an important principle, then future radio policy should examine whether costs are actually falling sufficiently for new entrants.
That means looking beyond headline transmission charges. Licensing costs, connectivity, contribution feeds, regulatory administration, music licensing, studio infrastructure, technical support and platform visibility all affect whether an independent service can become viable. A market cannot be described as genuinely open simply because there is nominal multiplex capacity available.
Frequency Management Is Also Market Design
Spectrum planning is often discussed as though it were a purely technical matter. It is not. The way spectrum is divided, the size of licence areas, transmission requirements and the duration of licences all influence which organisations can realistically participate.
This creates an opportunity to look again at whether spectrum is being used in the way that produces the greatest public benefit. Could frequency planning become more responsive to local demand?
- Could smaller geographic areas make entry less expensive?
- Could unused or lightly used allocations be reassigned more quickly?
- Could frequency planning explicitly incorporate plurality and diversity rather than treating them as secondary consequences of engineering decisions?
Licence Banking Should Be Examined
Spectrum is a finite public resource. Where licences reserve access to that resource but do not result in meaningful services, there is an opportunity cost. There are legitimate reasons why services sometimes take time to launch. Finance, transmitter sites, planning, equipment procurement and technical coordination can all cause delays.
- But there is still a public-interest question about licence banking.
- How many licensed services or multiplex opportunities remain unused for long periods?
- How many services occupy capacity but provide minimal original programming?
- At what point should unused capacity become available to another applicant?
If the objective is diversification and growth, licensing should favour active use of spectrum rather than long-term reservation of capacity.
The Declining Importance of FM and AM Changes the Debate
Current listening trends demonstrate the declining importance of analogue radio to both commercial and public-service broadcasters. This should prompt a more serious discussion about the opportunity cost of maintaining some legacy analogue allocations.
BBC Radio 3 is an obvious example for discussion. Radio 3 remains available nationally through DAB and online as well as FM. Its continued occupation of a high-quality national FM network increasingly looks anomalous in a market where analogue listening has become a minority mode of reception. The precise number of Radio 3 listeners still using FM needs to be established from current platform data before making a firm quantitative case. But the policy question does not depend on a single number.
At what point does continuing to reserve valuable FM spectrum for an established service with comprehensive digital alternatives become an anachronism? And what alternative public uses might become possible if parts of that spectrum were eventually released?
Could Released Spectrum Support Diversification?
This should not be framed simply as an argument for analogue switch-off. Coverage, resilience, affordability, emergency communications and the needs of listeners using older receivers remain legitimate considerations. The more interesting question is whether declining analogue dependence creates opportunities for more imaginative frequency management.
- Could future FM capacity support local, community, civic or specialist broadcasters?
- Could it enable smaller coverage areas?
- Could it provide an affordable entry route for organisations that cannot yet sustain digital carriage?
- Could it provide temporary or experimental capacity for new services?
Analogue spectrum should not automatically be understood simply as a declining legacy asset. In some circumstances it may still provide a useful instrument for diversification.
Public Interest Should Not Mean Preserving Existing Market Structure
There is an important distinction between protecting radio and protecting the existing structure of the radio market. Established commercial broadcasters, the BBC, transmission operators and technology companies all have legitimate interests in the future system. But they should not be the only institutions setting the terms of the discussion.
Community broadcasters, independent operators, social enterprises, new programme services, SSDAB multiplex operators and organisations that have not yet entered the market also have an interest in how spectrum, licensing and distribution are organised.
If diversification is recognised as a route to growth, the policy objective should include enabling more organisations to enter, experiment and establish sustainable services. That means treating competition, plurality and lower barriers to entry as positive policy outcomes in themselves.
Evidence Is Needed Quickly
There is now a practical research task. We need a better map of the services carried on SSDAB and local DAB. That map should identify ownership, service type, programme format, local origination, community involvement, geographic coverage and whether each service is genuinely new or an extension of an existing analogue, national or online proposition.
We also need evidence about carriage costs, unused capacity, launch delays, licence utilisation and the barriers encountered by new entrants. Without that evidence, the future of radio risks being discussed principally in terms defined by established commercial and public-service institutions.
The available data already tells us a great deal about listening patterns, DAB adoption and digital transition. What is much less developed is an equivalent evidence base about diversification of supply.
A Discussion for the Media Exchange and Better Media Forum
The next Decentered Media Exchange session will provide an opportunity to examine these questions, and the Better Media Forum can be used to gather examples, evidence and counter-examples. The central discussion should be straightforward:
- Has the expansion of digital radio actually diversified UK radio?
- Has it increased meaningful competition?
- Has it lowered the cost of entry?
- Is spectrum being managed efficiently?
- Are licences being actively used?
And are public-interest objectives being considered broadly enough to include new entrants, community services and forms of radio that do not fit established commercial or public-service models? These questions need evidence behind them. The opportunity now is to assemble that evidence before the next phase of radio policy is determined.