The French broadcast network operator, TDF, has made public a study on the costs for broadcasters of using mobile networks for the delivery of digital radio. The study concludes that the bill for broadcasters could be as much as 74 million euros per year!
The listening behavior is evolving
Although listening to the radio has been traditionally in the car or at home in a radio device, there is a growing number of new platforms as computers, mobile phones, MP3 devices or TVs. The percentage of listening via those new platforms is still low, 4.2 % in France with an average age of the listeners of 13-24 years but remains a non negligible new world for broadcasters which deserve to be further studied.
Mobile networks: too costly for broadcasters
On the basis of an average radio listening in France of 179 minutes per day, the TDF study projects that 39 minutes of listening would be via mobile networks (3G or LTE).Taking into account that 80% of all French radio listening is to 20 big radios (Radio France, RTL, NRJ and Lagardère), the bill of broadcasting those 20 stations during 39 minutes per day over a mobile network would cost €74 million per year. This makes €3.7 million per station per year. For each additional minute, the study predicts a need of €260 per day per station, equivalent to €95 000 per station per year. From the bill broadcasters can see that broadcast networks are highly cost efficient compared to mobile networks.
Digital radio needs a dedicated broadcast network
But beyond the costs, a dedicated terrestrial network offers the possibility for broadcasters to guarantee a certain quality of service, to control the content, to deliver free-of-charge and not be controlled by gate keepers. For Public Service Broadcasters terrestrial networks remain, and will remain in the future, a unique way to guarantee universal access to radio (and TV) content for a wide range of different fixed, portable and mobile devices.