On Monday one man watched his ambition become a reality. Since
1991, Quentin Howard, chief executive of Digital One, the national
multiplex for digital commercial radio, has brandished a placard
announcing that the advent of digital radio is nigh. Until quite
recently, his calls have gone largely unheard.
Howard has at times found his task a solitary preoccupation. ’It’s been
bloody lonely out there. Maybe others would have given up, but I’ve
never believed in something as strongly as this.’ But this week, with
the launch of the new channels, Core and Planet Rock, alongside digital
versions of Classic FM, Virgin and Talk Radio, his efforts have been
rewarded.
’It will be an historic day for me,’ reflects Howard. ’Personally, I
will be the happiest man in Britain because it’s something I have been
working on and had a vision of for a long time.’
Howard’s efforts to get digital radio - which will have better sound and
tuning, a wider choice of stations and the ability to generate text and
pictures alongside radio broadcasts - to households is still going to be
a long haul. Core and Planet Rock (developed by Digital One’s majority
stakeholder, GWR Group, through its subsidiary, GWR Digital Services)
will also be launched via Sky Digital and the internet, but with only
around 3,000 digital radio sets in the UK, not many people will be able
to experience them.
Digital radio will be a very quiet revolution but Howard is confident
that, over time, take-up will reach commercially viable levels. Digital
One has to strike a balance in waking listeners up to digital radio’s
presence, while not generating too much expectation. ’Our job is to
cajole and persuade. We have the ability to generate demand with the
consumer, which we started doing from 15 November through advertising on
Virgin, Talk and Classic. But it’s also important not to create such a
demand that the consumer goes into Curry’s to find either that digital
radio sets are too expensive, or aren’t being sold.’
Howard is confident that one barrier to entry - price - will come down
from around pounds 800 to pounds 200 in the next 18 months to two years.
But the key to the proliferation of digital radio is its integration
into other electronic goods. ’If people see digital radio as a
standalone, and a like-for-like replacement for a transistor that sits
on their fridge, it won’t get anywhere.
If manufacturers build radios into other devices, such as Walkmans, PCs,
car stereos and mobile phones, it makes digital radio ubiquitous.’
Another factor in the take-up of radio will be the Government’s
switch-off date for analogue, although for now that seems some way
off.
Howard’s personal quest to bring digital radio to the commercial sector
may seem offbeat, but it is in keeping with his training as a broadcast
engineer.
Sally Oldham, managing director of Capital Group, who worked with Howard
at GWR, says: ’Quentin’s background is in those broadcast engineering
days of tools, spanners and screwdrivers. He was probably the first to
break the mould and start to look at how technology could be more than a
piece of kit in the studio, but a means to an end.’
Broadcast engineering is a million miles away from Howard’s first
calling as a ballet dancer at the Ballet Rambert. He decided he was too
small and began to study engineering, a field where size was no barrier
to talent. As Ralph Bernard, chief executive of GWR, testifies: ’He
makes up for his lack of height in brain power.’
Fifteen years ago Howard rigged up the first live broadcast from water
skis and has launched a number of stations, including Wiltshire Radio,
which was to become GWR, and the original studios for Classic FM.
Howard has faced an uphill struggle in getting a foothold for digital in
the commercial radio market, but his challenge now will be to convert
advertisers, suppliers and consumers into followers of the medium.
One of Oldham’s few quibbles is whether Howard is the right person to
drive that message forward. ’It requires a different character from
someone who pioneers something. Quentin is good when facing a sea of
resistance, but he now has to create an operation which is team-based,
not just at Digital One, but with programme producers and with the
industry.’
Howard, who is happy for people to describe him as an evangelist,
promises that as far as the future of radio goes: ’You ain’t seen
nothing yet.’
THE HOWARD FILE
1979: Severn Sound, chief engineer
1981: Wiltshire Radio, consultant, becoming chief engineer and on-air
presenter
1985: GWR, chief engineer
1991: GWR, programme director
1995: GWR International, director of central European broadcasting
1998: GWR Digital Radio, managing director
1998: Digital One, chief executive.
