DAB stands for Don’t Actually Bother
It doesn’t really, it stands for Digital Audio Broadcasting or digital radio to you and me. But after buying a digital radio and discovering it won’t work in my house and that I live in part of the 14% of the country that is not currently served by digital radio I feel justified in saying it’s a total bloody waste of time. The nice people from John Lewis have today sent a man to take the useless machine away from me. Shame, coz I really liked the little screeny bit and shiny newness of it all.
Digital radio is such a white elephant that just about nobody, apart from the BBC, is doing anything about it. Digital radio is meant to mean better quality and more stations, just as it does with digital telly, but the reality is that you can listen to digital radio stations online and via digital TV so why buy an actual digital radio? Why, indeed, when the arsing thing doesn’t work and you’re all excited on Christmas day and looking forward to peeling potatoes to the new and exciting tunes of 6Music or whatever.
We are told that digital radios remain popular and that a third of all households now have one. But that still means two thirds don’t. Most importantly, DAB radios aren’t readily available for cars and a hell of a lot of radio listening happens in cars.
My hunch now, and clearly I’m biased, is that DAB will become a thing of the past pretty soon with radio owners from the BBC to commercial groups including Global and Bauer doing their own thing online and thus being “digital” in the process. And good riddance. I hate acronyms.
TTFN
January 5th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The wife is furious we can’t get Heart on our new DAB Radio even though our house is 5 minutes walk from their studios! Grrr
January 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Bloody ridiculous. Like I say, just don’t bother. Spread the word. x