I may be the only contributer Philip, however, here goes.

What you are saying is generally true, but (a big but)I suspect that the radio market is just about at saturation as far as listeners are concerned. Low power FM narrowcasting does not work well in the mobile environment due to the very short useful range and the necessity to acquire another station after a comparatively short time/distance.

From the home environment, we are approaching the provision of all manner of entertainment via broadband internet, at a setup cost which will be far cheaper than the cost of setting up ant kind of radio transmitter, so at the end of the day, your thesis is merely academic

Congratulations Philip on an incisive and revealing analysis of the state of this underutilised resource. The reason for hoarding of unused licences must be surely economic; awaiting for a change in the regualtions that makes the low initial investment in the licences bestow a windfall gain on a rule change. That certainly was the battle between Commercial Radio and the World Audio Radio 2 operators, as they waited to be included in an overall conversion of licences from analogue to digital. On a smaller scale this strategy appears to underly the level of hoarding.

Despite the difficulty in enough sets being able to receive extended AM, your paper highlighted the diversity opportunities that are not being realised.

I look forward to more of your thoughts in time.

Mark Newstead
MediaMARK
mark@mediamark.com.au

I suggest that you read
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5907
to get a better idea of where it is all going.

I can only agree with everything VK3AUU has said, and am unable to see any future for digital radio.

I listen to many radio programs using podcasts, and value them principally because I can escape the control of a media editor who thinks he knows best as to what I should hear and when I should hear it.

It is obvious that television will go the same way, but it concerns me that the public have not got their collective head around the fact that such a service will inherently be incapable of censorship (although the politicians will do the usual job of pretending that they can). Snuff movies from South America, here we come!

The mainstream media in Australia is in deep crisis, as evidenced by the current round of redundancies at SMH. If they are to survive, they will have to completely re-invent themselves.

The most interesting technical battle at the moment is the attempt by Hollywood to use DRM and other copyright protection techniques to control access to their material. As the latest information from blogs is that both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats have been cracked, it does not seem that they will be any more successful than they were with conventional DVDs. Perhaps they will give up disk storage systems and rely on digital streaming, which permits greater control. Still, when you remember the saying that anything the mind of man can conceive can also be circumvented, it looks like being an interesting battle.

Narrowcasting is fine if you are competent

Anyone? know about the ACMA narrowcast opinion
for

Unique Radio
Flowerdale, Victoria ONC Limited location Live music and local
information

Is this narrowcast LPON on the air Wombat?

If the opinion was ok it means services like justins
and others are "fine;"

No details on the acma site means the opinion is privy
to the person seeking the opinion?.

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD//pc=PC_100061

It is important and you know why

This obviously failed

Classic Hits FM Pty Ltd Sunshine Coast, Qld Commercial radio
service Service intended to appeal to the general public

This is more relevent to the narrowcast bottom line
even with 1 watt,

If this was fixed the question becomes

What's wrong with the radio narrowcasting
operators in Australia and how to fix it

keitha