Rumours of digital radio's death have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, there was the closure of Capital Disney. And One Word. And Core. And perhaps Planet Rock and the Jazz. Yes, there's to be no Virgin Radio Viva or Sky Radio News, writes Paul Smith.
Yes, the man responsible for spearheading commercial digital broadcasting is no longer around. And yes, there is a second national commercial digital radio multiplex due to launch this year despite the first multiplex being half empty.
It's all absolutely true. It's hardly in rude health but digital radio - that is digital audio broadcasting, or DAB - is alive, abeilt on crutches or with a nasty case of the squits after a family holiday in Salou.
Digital radio promised niche services and it's delivered, more or less. One of the most successful is the spoken word service BBC7 which attracts a weekly audience of 853,000. Comedy, drama, science fiction plus programmes for children, too. That's pretty niche. BBC 6Music pulls in 493,000 listeners. George Lamb is pretty niche. Meh.
Licence fee money has afforded these services the time needed to establish themselves, a luxury not enjoyed by the commercial sector. Yet Bauer's Kiss 100 broadcasts across the country on more than 30 regional and local multiplexes, in many areas where a dance format isn't available on broadcast on analogue radio. Both Xfm - for the time being - and The Arrow rock cities across the UK on DAB.
In London, digital radio stations not found on FM are finding an audience. Microscopic in some cases, quietly modest in others. And Channel 4 has yet to get in on the action with its bouquet of Beeb-busting stations.
The digital revolution hasn't been confined to the national broadcasters or those based in London. Managed by former GCap Media execs, MuxCo is a consortium of businesses that have won five local and regional DAB multiplex licenses and are bidding for four more.
As well as relaying services already available on FM, MuxCo will also broadcast solus digital services such as Shuffle, an interactive music station where playlists are chosen through users responding to scrolling text messages. On their North Yorkshire multiplex, MuxCo will offer a channel broadcasting podcasts from the likes of ITN, Channelfly and Itchy Media.
MuxCo's Matt Deegan is adamant in markets where analogue choice is limited, local DAB stations can flourish. He believes podcasts could make far more money than the traditional radio model and a service such as Shuffle could generate revenue instantly through text and interactive voice recognition revenues.
So on reflection, is now the time to be conducting DAB's post-mortem? What has happened in recent months has happened to in other media sectors including newspapers and digital TV time and time again: natural selection. It was inevitable that some players would fall by the wayside.
Even if DRM - Digital Radio Mondiale - or some other alternative delivery method to DAB becomes successful, it won't be a surprise or a hindrance. Radio manufacturers have already built new sets that incorporate both technologies. And society, for all its faults, has managed to master FM/AM radio tuners without taking up pitchforks and burning torches.
A successful business is usually one that fails quickly, so it can learn by its mistakes and improve. Perhaps because of the BBC's deep pockets and Ralph Bernard's determination in the past, digital radio didn't fail fast enough. Now it has, is the future for DAB really all that grim?
