All Change On DAB In Central Scotland

It could get worse.

Global may choose not to keep X-FM and/or Real XS and may either sell them off, close them down or just take them off the Central Scotland MUX. Why keep a tiny classic rock service and a tiny modern rock service when other (larger) classic rock and modern rock services are available to most of the UK? We may see yet more change there.

Heart and Capital are exceedingly likely to vacate the Central Scotland MUX.

If/when Real becomes Heart, Real will vacate the MUX.

If Smooth is kept and becomes Gold, it too will come off the Central Scotland MUX and replace the Smooth services on the Edinburgh and Glasgow MUX’s.

That just leaves the Central Scotland MUX with Kerrang and the BBC gaelic service.

More speculation. If Bauer do buy Absolute Radio, it could become Planet Rock, which would leave space for Kerrang to go national on D1 using Absolute’s secondary 80’s and 90’s services or an existing channel between Absolute / Planet Rock.

Even after all that change, both the Glasgow and Edinburgh MUX’s still have space to accomodate the BBC Gaelic service, putting it in tandem with all other LOCAL MUX’s in Scotland that carry it.

Farewell to the Central Scotland MUX then?

Eklipse Sports Radio, a new station set up by Spencer Pryor will launch on Switch Central Scotland in July according to Radio Today.

As for Capital moving to the local muxes, it could be so that DAB listeners receive the same split advertising currently offered on FM between the West and East.

Spencer Pryor – OMG! He’s still alive!

Spencer was one of the contenders for the Lanarkshire sally licence, to broadcast to East Kilbride, with the station that was to be called EKlipse FM.

Oh well, good luck to him. It would be nice for Scotland not to have a Rangers This & Celtic That channel (whilst other football teams and sports might get a brief mention at the end of the show).

And now that I’ve mentioned a few things, if Bauer did buy Absolute and it became Classic Rock, 240K would be available on the D1 MUX, which could happily accomodate their non-local brands of The Hits, Smash Hits and Kerrang – all broadcasting at 80K (as they do now) and all available to most of the UK on the same MUX.

That would be a DAB radio industry that has grown-up and evolved.

It could also potentally free up the capacities on the local MUX’s for smaller stations or community services/community-of-interest services.

I still feel that a trick is being missed with the Central Scotland MUX ... in that it’s the CENTRAL Scotland MUX. What if it did a channel swap with D1 (who occupy the same frequency for England, Wales and soon-to-be Northern Ireland – but not in Scotland because it’s being occupied by the Central Scotland MUX) and therefore the channel used by Switch Digital in Scotland would be one of the proper regional frequencies? There could be potential for this to become a Scotland-wide MUX, which could happily accomodate the BBC’s gealic service (taking it off the local MUX’s). The BBC could use some of the capacity of that channel to split it into two mono services during sports programming when it does the AM/FM split (which currently leaves large swathes of Scotland without sports coverage because they don’t get a good quality medium wave signal, especially at night). The Scotland-wide MUX could also be used for specialist services that would benefit from being available to the whole of Scotland, rather than a (much smaller) part of it. Some community-of-interest stations are only available on a 5 mile radius or so, broadcasting to their niche, when they really ought to be serving the whole country.

Pulling stations off of Central Scotland to go on Edinburgh/Glasgow does make sense to me. The local muxes are going to have their coverage extended, whilst nothing is planned for Central Scotland, the sole remaining regional multiplex. Plus, it allows the potential to split advertising between Glasgow and Edinburgh in the future, if that’s what Global want to do.

Furthermore, in the old days, most DAB contracts lasted as long as the initial multiplex licence term. For Central Scotland, the initial licence term ends this month. It appears Global have decided to go with Bauer rather than recontract with Switch Digital Scotland.

whilst nothing is planned for Central Scotland, the sole remaining regional multiplex.

Surely the three London multiplexes which are also not closing down should be considered regional muxes considering the TSA’s and population size of the three muxes?

You may consider them regional, but the three London muxes are being treated the same as the rest of the local DAB multiplexes in terms of coverage enhancements, plus the Ofcom/Radio Authority call(ed) them local, so that’s good enough for me to call the London multiplexes local.

According to the latest Ofcom Radio Broadcast Update Heart, Capital, LBC and Gold are leaving the regional mux.

With Gold merging with Smooth probably at some point, this appears to be a temporary issue, My guess is the Heart slot in Glasgow will eventually replace Real Scotland, allowing Global to air local advertising.

Is the removal of XFM an indication of Global’s intentions with that station? XFM has been removed from other local multiplexes.

Gold being removed is probably temporary and could either replace Smooth eventually, depending on what happens with Smooth or we could see it on he D1 MUX, which would also make sense. Smooth 70’s is a bit vulnerable, being a secondary service.

Gold being removed is probably temporary and could either replace Smooth eventually, depending on what happens with Smooth or we could see it on he D1 MUX, which would also make sense.

I think Global will keep a Scottish variant of the Smooth/Gold service whatever happens with D1.

Slightly OT, if Smooth is franchised or sold to another group/consortium and Gold replaces Smooth in the FM TSA’s where they can keep the licences, the 70s slot on D1 could be kept for Gold.