Germany decides to abandon investment in DAB - allegedly

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Germany has decided not to invest more money in Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). After ten years, DAB simply hasn’t caught on in Germany. Just 200,000 DAB receivers have been sold in a country with a population of 83 million. The Kommission zur Ermittlung des Finanzbedarfs der Rundfunkanstalten (KEF), which decides financial policy regarding broadcasting in Germany, has now decided that any further investment in DAB would be wasted.

The German organisation that promotes DAB, Initiative Marketing Digital Radio (IMDR), has reacted with dismay to the news. The only major broadcasting organisation that was fully behind DAB in Germany is ARD, which says it wants to persist with its plans to develop digital services “on the basis of the DAB system family”.

(Source: Emerce)

Update: It seems the story is somewhat more complicated than that. Nick Piggot is Head of Creative Technology at UK broadcaster GCap, and has published his own assessment of the situation in Germany (thanks to Mike Barraclough for the links):

* A German Melodrama (Part I)
* A German Melodrama (Part II)