Digital Radio in Africa – Opportunities and Challenges

By: Vaughan Taylor Pr.Tech Eng.

Transmission Specialist – LS of South Africa

Historical Overview

Present Challenges facing

broadcasters on the African

continent

The future promise of digital

considering the following;

• Applicable Standards

• The relevance of digital trials

for the industry, and

• Challenges for Digital

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Agenda

There are well over 100,000 radio

stations on air around the world

today.

FM Analogue broadcasting is

widely used throughout the African

continent – these stations are

either state (public) and

commercial/community operated

entities

There remains a handful of AM

and SW broadcast stations on the

air today.

FM stations are valuable

commodities

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Historical overview…

The FM band in most African major

radio markets is over-subscribed! This

is the single largest barrier-to-entry for

new radio stations in primary markets

Traditional broadcast mediums such

as AM and FM are generally inefficient

as they only permit one programme

per available ‘slot’

Whilst the most common ‘value-adds’

(being competent audio processing

and RDS) are known tools to enhance

a listeners experience, any radio

station today is being challenged by

the ability of any listener today to

freely download the music of their

choice onto a mobile device

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Present challenges facing African

Broadcasters

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The harsh reality of the FM band in several

radio markets today…

It is certain that FM radio will

continue its existence in Africa

and several parts of world, even

though there are countries where

FM analogue switch-off is planned

in this year.

For the most part – FM and some

AM/SW receivers are commonly

available. For the most part AM

audiences in South Africa for

example are by contrast smaller to

the FM markets.

For primary and developed

markets it stands to reason that

the time is ripe to consider

alternatives to supplement the

existing analogue mediums…..

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What does the promise of digital hold for

radio in Africa?.......(1)

DAB+ is one such digital radio

technology which is aimed for use across

several countries in Europe, Africa and

Asia Pacific.

The original technology was developed in

the mid 1980’s was launched as a trial by

the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

(NRK) in September 1995.

An upgraded version (known as DAB+)

was released in 2007 – offering several

enhancements above the original Eureka

147 version.

South Africa has launched a trial DAB+

service which is being done through

national signal distributor Sentech and

the National Association of Broadcasters.

The service was formally launched in

December 2014.

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The promise of Digital….? (2)

Applicable standards….

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Present DAB+ status of active/pilot

services…(3)

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) is a set

of digital audio broadcasting

technologies designed to work in the

medium and short-wave bands.

DRM is seen as the technology which

will certainly breathe new life into

traditional MW/SW analogue

broadcasting offering listeners with

much improved audio quality.

An initiative headed up by Radio Pulpit

has seen the launch of a DRM pilot

service on 1440kHz being broadcast

from a TX station on the eastern side

of Pretoria.

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The promise of Digital…..(4)

The relevance of digital radio trials are

indeed a positive development for

Africa by way of the following;

• DAB+ holds the promise to further

expand radio markets where

present FM capacity is diminished

and/or completely exhausted.

• DAB+ and DRM are mutually

inclusive technologies – a station

could technically exist on both

platforms allowing the receiver to

make the selection between the

services!

• DRM provides a means to

rejuvenate MW and SW

broadcasting bands through

offering improved audio quality and

programme associated data

features

LS telcom Presentation – Lichtenau, 27.02.2015 10 © 2015 LS telcom AG

The relevance and opportunities of Digital

trials for the industry…

The success of Digital Radio depends

ultimately on the availability of

receiving sets.

DAB+ offers the widest selection of

sets at this point with some of these

devices being offered around USD25.

There are fully-fledged services in

operation in 21 countries around the

world today.

As in the case of DRM – the world is

eagerly watching the largest

implementation of a complete network

of high power transmitters for All India

Radio in terms of further stimulating

the manufacture of affordable

receivers.

A South African DRM receiver initiative

is also being investigated…

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Challenges for Digital Broadcasting…

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Thank you very much for your attention!

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