Digital Spy reports that a Rajar announcement at the end of last week puts DAB’s share of the radio listening audience in the UK at 10%, up from 8.5% in the previous quarter.

That’s a significant leap and when put next to the sales figures for DAB radio in the run up to Christmas – 500K, compared to total DAB sales so far of 6.5 million – would seem to indicate that enthusiasm is growing nicely.

But those figures mask significant problems for DAB. Two days before the Rajar figures were announced, media and telecoms analyst, Enders Analysis reported that “slow growth in revenue had combined to undermine confidence in the new medium and led to the closure of a string of national digital stations.” Two of those stations, GCap’s Core and UBC’s OneWord closed this year. Virgin’s Radio Groove has also closed while the company has scaled back plans for new station Radio Viva. All this just months before the second national multiplex, headed by Channel 4, is launched.

Comparisons have been made with the demises of Betamax, AM radio, and ITV Digital, and while these maye be overly dramatic, there’s undoubtedly reason for concern.

A rise in the share of the listening audience of nearly 18% sounds impressive, as does a rise in sales of 17% but look at the figures more closely. 6.5 million radios sold means that one in every four household in the UK has a DAB radio (assuming one per household), and 15 million people have access to one. If DAB has only 10% share of the radio listening audience, that means that an awful lot of DAB radios are lying unused.

So, where did it all go wrong? Ten years ago DAB promised CD-like quality, LCD screens carrying detailed data on the program being listened to, and an end to mushy AM transmission and crackly FM broadcasts. The BBC and Ofcom threw their collective weight behind the platform, with the BBC launching several new stations only available digitally and providing digital versions of its entire radio network.

Had the promises been fulfilled, DAB would be in a much healthier position than it is today. Instead, listeners complain of poor reception and disappointing sound quality and DAB radios remain prohibitively expensive for many would be listeners.

All of these problems are soluble, but require commitment and investment from commercial broadcasters and radio manufacturers as well as Ofcom and the BBC. And at the moment, committing to DAB is about the last thing most commercial radio companies want to do.

There would seem to be little reason for maintaining the relatively high price of DAB radios. For consumers who can buy a Freeview box or DVD player for £20, paying £40 for a radio seems ridiculous. Improving sound quality wouldn’t be that difficult either. Many DAB stations are broadcast at as little as 80kbps, well below the quality of MP3 downloads and far, far away from the promised CD quality. That may mean a reduction in the number of stations that can be broadcast on each multiplex, but with so many stations closing, that wouldn’t seem to be an issue. Reception too could be improved, by boosting the power output of transmitters.

All is not lost yet for DAB, but with competition from Freeview, Internet radio and podcasts it’s future is far from assured.

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