DAB Day on the way... but when?

Ford Ennals is not the name of a new car but the CEO of Digital Radio UK. That's the umbrella organisation overseeing the switchover to DAB. There’s no firm date for when the old analogue network will be turned off, but he’s been tasked with preparing for it to happen in 2015. What it means is that the vast majority of in-car radios will stop working overnight. I’ve just been chatting to him for a piece I’m writing for Metro, the free commuter newspaper that you see in London and other UK cities. There are certain criteria that we, the listening public, have to meet before switchover can take place. Ennals confirmed what I suspected: that we’re not on target for 2015 unless there’s accelerated take-up of DAB both in-car and at home. If we carry on at the current rate of growth it will be 2017. Good news for drivers, then? A stay of execution? Yes, but motorists are only delaying the inevitable. I think they're doing it with good reason. I have a theory that most will put it off as long as possible, because the price of the technology will come down, just as it did with TV digiboxes. The other thing is drivers rightly believe they won’t have the same car in 2017 – or even 2015 – as they do now. Why pay for a DAB system today when you might have to do it again in a couple of years?