{"id":994,"date":"2008-03-20T16:44:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T16:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briangreene.com\/bhg\/?p=994"},"modified":"2008-03-20T16:44:14","modified_gmt":"2008-03-20T16:44:14","slug":"anger-as-rte-digital-kills-the-analogue-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/2008\/anger-as-rte-digital-kills-the-analogue-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger as RT\u00c9 digital kills the analogue star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trackback<\/a> [20.03.2008 first posted on silicon republic<\/a>]
\nA huge portion of Ireland\u2019s emigrant population\u00a0 not to mention 600,000 listeners in the greater Belfast area\u00a0 will be disenfranchised when RT\u00c9 switches off its analogue medium-wave services without making a clear, determined switch to digital.<\/p>\n

Despite last year\u2019s broadcasting legislation allowing for licence money to be spent on radio broadcasting for the Irish abroad, RT\u00c9 is moving ahead with plans to switch off its medium wave but keep its long-wave signal open until it introduces digital.
\nHowever, prominent podcaster Brian Greene and the Emigrants Advice Network<\/a> (EAN) have held meetings with the Department of Communications arguing the folly of shutting down the medium-wave service.
\n\u201cThe shutdown is a reversal of recent trends in which Ireland has acknowledged its debt to the Irish abroad, and the need for maintaining strong links. Medium wave and long wave are complementary solutions for the Irish abroad\u00a0 long wave on its own is inadequate and presents problems for the future. The move is premature it will make the transition to digital more difficult,?? EAN said in a letter to the Irish Emigrant newspaper.
\nIt argues that RTE should be working to improve access to its services for the Irish abroad, particularly the most vulnerable who will experience the most difficulty in making the transition from medium wave to any other format.
\nIt says that while most people in London cannot get medium wave, there are large parts of big cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester that can and they should be allowed to listen to a service that has existed for decades.
\n\u201cOn 24 March, after 80 years of service and with just five weeks\u2019 notice, RT\u00c9 will shut down its medium-wave service,?? said Greene. \u201cThey will be turning off an important service to the Irish abroad, as well as an analogue signal that will act as an important stepping stone to digital.??
\nGreene described RT\u00c9\u2019s decision as \u201cillogical?? and said a staged report is required. \u201cTheir approach is flawed from the start. There are stages at which they should approach a digital switch-off and they should do both the analogue shutdown and digital switch-on in parallel. This would encourage people to listen to digital and then turn off analogue.??
\nAccording to Greene, RT\u00c9 says that less than 10pc of its listeners listen through medium wave. But the national broadcaster is not taking into account the emigrant listenership.
\nHe says that while RT\u00c9 is planning to move to DAB (digital audio broadcasting), this is now an old standard and the national broadcaster should be focusing on world digital radio standards like Digital Radio Mondiale or DAB-plus.
\n\u201cThe French have withdrawn funding for DAB. RT\u00c9 need to be moving to DAB-plus rather than an old standard like DAB,?? Greene argued.<\/p>\n

To listen to a Brian Greene podcast about the looming shutdown of the 567Khz medium wave service go to: http:\/\/www.briangreene.com\/wxtc31.mp3<\/a>
\nBy John Kennedy<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.briangreene.com\/wxtc31.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trackback [20.03.2008 first posted on silicon republic] A huge portion of Ireland\u2019s emigrant population\u00a0 not to mention 600,000 listeners in the greater Belfast area\u00a0 will be disenfranchised when RT\u00c9 switches off its analogue medium-wave services without making a clear, determined switch to digital. Despite last year\u2019s broadcasting legislation allowing for licence money to be spent… Continue reading Anger as RT\u00c9 digital kills the analogue star<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}