How is HD Radio doing in Canada? Let’s take a look.
[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC]
Back in 1999, a man in a van pulled up. “Wanna hear something cool?” Inside was a Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) receiver, demonstrating the fidelity of digital signals from an experimental transmitter in Toronto, including programming from my station, 102.1 the Edge/Toronto. It sounded great. Better than great, in fact.
Born out of a European research project in 1995, DAB promised static-free, CD-quality, better-than-FM audio. And it did. The new technology was also far more efficient, cramming more radio signals into the same bandwidth, something that was appealing to markets with AM and FM dials at maximum capacity. Its successor, DAB+, uses substantially less electricity than power-hungry AM and FM transmitters. The prediction was that it was just a matter of time before DAB replaced analogue AM and FM broadcasts. “Soon,” we were told. And then … nothing. At least in North America.
Much of the rest of the world — 55 countries, at last count, including Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Italy, and Poland — have enacted DAB broadcasting, offering programming on more than 2,100 stations available. Norway went 100 per cent DAB in 2023, shutting off all other transmitters. In Switzerland and the U.K., it’s the most popular of all radio bands. And all cars sold in the EU have been required to have DAB radios since 2021.
Us? Nope.
Oh, we tried with DAB services in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa. The CRTC thought DAB would replace AM and FM by 1996. By 2008, there were over 70 broadcasters trying it out. But Canadians — both radio broadcasters and the general public — balked.
