The law of unintended consequences has a habit of appearing in unusual places. The Digital Switch has largely been handled smoothly. The arrival of digital TV has, for the most part, resulted in viewers having a better signal with greater choice of channels. But the government’s decision to sell off the frequencies opened up by the switch may be about to cause quite an unintended consequence.
Traditional television took up a huge amount of bandwidth on the radio spectrum. The broadcasters controlled large swathes of airwaves, not all of which were necessarily used for the TV programmes. They were able to use some of the spare capacity for different forms of communication, especially the use of radio microphones at outside broadcasts in particular.
Digital television works like a rifle compared to the analogue version’s blunderbuss. The signal used is tiny in comparison. That means that (say) the BBC can manage to run four TV and a host of radio channels on Freeview; you can also watch Channel 4 or Dave as they’re broadcast or an hour later in Channel 4+1 or Dave ja Vue.
The Treasury almost certainly rubbed its hands with glee with it realised that all of the newly freed-up airwaves could be sold off to the highest bidder. There were, and still are, lots of organisations wanting to use these frequencies, the mobile phone operators for instance. The unintended consequence is that the frequencies used by radio microphones are part of the sale.
That is something that has major implications well beyond the bounds of Pacific Quay or Television Centre. Large numbers of other organisations use such equipment for their communications. Radio mics are used in theatres and churches, at business conferences and trade fairs, in schools and colleges. They’re even a vital part of political party conferences!
It’s now beginning to dawn on the people who’ve bought such equipment that very soon it could turn into useless junk. It won’t happen immediately. But at some point shortly after next year’s Olympics in London, OFCOM will withdraw any licences for any kit that uses these frequencies which will then be handed over to their new owner.
From then on, all current radio microphones which use these channels will not only become impossible to use, they’ll also become illegal. The only option will be to replace or convert them. If a theatre or business has bought a budget system from one of the electronics supermarket, all they’ll be able to do is write it off as it’ll be far too expensive to convert, if it even can be converted.
It’s concerned the MD of a specialist audio visual company in Glasgow enough to warn that audio communications at the Commonwealth Games in 2014 could be affected by the changes. As Stuart McArthur of WS Steele explained, “At present, users can use one dedicated channel - channel 69 – but that is being cleared in 2012 for the provision of mobile phone services.
“The decision to sell off Channel 69 has caused turmoil in the radio microphone industry with existing systems becoming obsolete from 2012. We’ve been working flat out with our customers and suppliers to ensure people are compliant by the time of the switchover.
“Next year's switchover is being seen by our industry as controversial because certain microphones will require licensed frequencies and users must upgrade, even if on just one system. With events like the Commonwealth Games coming up, I’m very concerned the smooth running of (the) event will be affected by the changes.”
The international broadcast consultant Alan Downie has been warning about this for some time and says “this is a real problem which affects the UK and Europe and is being addressed at international level. With the introduction of digital TV, it had been necessary to move other services including radio mics to other places in the UHF spectrum.
“One solution would be to introduce digital radio mics but unfortunately all digital systems introduce delay and delay in radio mics is unacceptable particularly for live events. In the short term, radio mic users would appear to be losers. There is a problem looming over Glasgow 2014 and, whilst broadcasters might well cope ok, other ancillary users may well have a serious problem.”
The government, when it decided to move from analogue to digital television, focused on the benefits to the consumer of the new technologies. What it failed to address was the unintended consequence which could leave theatres and concert halls facing huge bills to replace obsolete equipment.
It could also save the future blushes of certain politicians who forgot that they were wearing radio microphones when being rather too candid about their colleagues. Former Scots politicians like Henry McLeish and Helen Liddell were seriously embarrassed in this way when commenting on Dr John Reid. They may now wish this change had come earlier.
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