Unique Broadcasting, the content production arm of UBC Media, is poised to launch the Digizone, the first multi-media channel delivered over digital radio.
According to UBC chief executive Simon Cole, the Digizone 'is to radio what (SkyDigital's) Open is to TV'.
From next week, digital radio users who have a device such as the Psion Wavefinder, which delivers digital radio through a PC, will be able to receive data such as games and news, in addition to the usual audio, around the clock.
Cole refused to name the content providers partnering UBC, but promised they were 'big names, both existing radio players and media players not currently in radio'.
The launch will be a beta-test, supplying entirely free data, with no advertising. But from next year, UBC said it will develop a business model that includes 'relatively revolutionary thoughts about how to earn money out of it'.
Cole said he hoped the Digizone would encourage take-up of digital radio listening by offering a fuller service. 'Currently, consumer expectations are not matched against the cost of the hardware,' he said. 'I believe most of those digital boxes will end up in skips in the next two years.'
But Cole said devices like the Wavefinder, which enable data delivery, will advance digital radio. According to Psion Infomedia, demand for the Wavefinder has beaten supply since they went on the market ten weeks ago.
Psion's commercial director Geoff Kell said take-up had been so good that the number of receivers in the market had doubled since the Wavefinder had become available.
UBC is investing pounds 3m in the digital radio data service in the next few years, and marketing the service with the strapline, 'It's radio, Jim, but not as we know it.'
Score Digital is also testing data transmission with an electronic programme guide on its Glasgow and Edinburgh services. Coincidentally, it uses the same strapline as UBC.
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
