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His comments were made in a letter to The Guardian's technology supplement today (8 October).

Responding to an Ofcom study that found 91% of radio listeners were satisfied with their current choice in radio, Taylor compared FM with analogue mobile phones, paper Filofaxes and Walkmans.

He said the UK's FM networks would need to be replaced and this would cost "hundreds of millions of pounds". He maintained the choice was between spending money on FM, which had reached the limits of its possibilities, or in digital radio, which had "potential".

GMG Radio is owned by Guardian Media Group and owns the Smooth and Real Radio networks and Rock Radio. The national sales for the group are handled by Global Radio.

Read Taylor's letter in full:

Tempting as it is to base industrial policy on narrow technological debates (The radio industry's digital plans need radical retuning, Jack Schofield, Guardian 30 Sep), the UK radio industry is instead taking a slightly wider perspective, upgrading to digital radio because it will benefit consumers with more choice, interactivity and better sound quality (more than three quarters of consumers agree that digital radio sounds as good as or better than FM); create a more competitive UK radio industry better able to invest in content; and support the wider economy from design studios to retail outlets.

But there's another key reason to upgrade to digital.  The UK's national FM networks are aging and need to be replaced at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds.  So we are faced with a simple choice: invest in FM which is full and has reached the limits of its possibilities, or in digital radio, which has room to grow and exciting potential.  

It may be true that "FM already works pretty well", but so did analogue mobile phones.  And if we hadn't moved to digital phones there would be no Blackberries, no email, no messenger, no Facebook on your phone.  We had faxes before the internet, five TV channels before satellite, filofax before PDAs and walkmans before iPods.  So to suggest that the real debate is between DAB and DAB+ is simply a red herring.

We agree that more people (and their cars) need digital radios, and that coverage and the consumer proposition need to be improved.  If they didn't, we could make the move today.  But we're not planning to upgrade to digital for at least six years and we've created Digital Radio UK to make sure that everything's in place in good time.  That includes a plan for the 46m (source: Ofcom) analogue radios in regular use (not the 100m which Schofield irresponsibly quotes); which will still receive small local stations, or will be upgraded with a plug-in converter or, in some cases, will need recycling.

The UK radio industry is united in boldly facing up to the challenges of achieving digital radio upgrade, because we know that the only thing greater than the benefits of doing so, are the consequences of not.

Stuart Taylor
Chief Executive, GMG Radio, on behalf of Digital Radio UK
GMG Radio