The idea
By discontinuing AM and FM radio transmission, the Government is committing the UK to several billion in unnecessary expenditure.
My four radios will cost over £500 to replace with digital radios and equivalent facilities. If that is repeated across 15 million households the cost to the country would be at least £7 billion. A digital car radio will cost at least £300. There are 20 million vehicles in the UK so the cost to replace all those radios could be in excess of £6 billion.
The total cost to the economy will be at least £10 billion and probably nearer £15 billion. And the reason cited is that it will free up more channels. If this is likely and is needed by the emergency services, then it makes more sense to
a] reduce the number of broadcasters,
b] rationalise the frequencies and
c] dedicate more sections of the bandwidth to emergency services
rather than committing the UK to wasting billions on not-very-good "new" facilities.
There is no need for several hundred [or thousand?] broadcasters of pop music. This is just an ego-trip for most DJs and wastefully crowds the airwaves with the same or very similar material.
Furthermore, most digital users seem to think their new radios give no better service than FM and the coverage in remote areas of the country is reputedly rubbish! Just because digital is the in-thing and is new doesn't make it a priori better.
Please reverse the decision.
Ray7033
Why is it important?
It commits the British public to around £10-15 billion of nugatory cost for what is currently a worse service. A compromise approach would be feasible and, in terms of saving expense, far better and easier.
In these days of austerity, tightening the belt, etc, such waste is profligate and should be very high on the coalition government's list of priorities
Ray7033