Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Record shops are under threat from the new technology of digital audio
broadcasting, which could replace them with an ‘armchair record store’ (ARS).
Instead of going out to buy a record, people will stay at home with a device
which picks up broadcasts of the latest albums from satellites and stores
them in a digital recorder. The listener will be billed automatically.

‘We may well see an audio Rupert Murdoch,’ said Michael Tyler, vice-president
of Booz, Allen and Hamilton, a firm of business consultants, at a meeting
of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in London last
week. ‘What I am really saying is that the record companies should get into
the cable and satellite delivery business,’ he told delegates representing
a thousand record companies in 65 countries.

Unlike previous proposals for electronic home delivery, which rely on
technology not yet available, the scheme which BAH has been developing for
anonymous clients in the electronics and broadcast industry relies on existing
know-how.

European researchers have already developed a working system for digital
audio broadcasting, or DAB (‘Radio sans frontieres’, New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ, 20 July
1991). Sound is converted into digital code, the code is compressed by removing
redundant data and the compressed code is shared between a large number
of narrow radio channels, which makes the signal very robust and compact.
Twenty such DAB programmes take up the same space on the frequency spectrum
as a single terrestrial TV channel.

BAH is proposing to broadcast a large number of DAB programmes simultaneously,
by acquiring unused channels on cable TV or satellite broadcasting systems.
One TV transponder on the Astra satellite, which transmits BSkyB, could
carry 30 or 40 stereo DAB programmes. Astra has failed to sell all its 32
channels for TV use, and is already committed to the launch of two more
satellites.

Tyler warned that the armchair record store will fundamentally change
the record industry. ‘If you put your heads in the sand you will regret
it because whatever you do, your conventional retail channels will be eroded.’
When DAB starts up, people are bound to record what is broadcast, he said.
ARS lets them do it legally. ‘You still have a chance to mould the DAB concept,
and turn disadvantages into opportunities.’

Jay Berman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America,
says he agrees with Tyler’s prediction that DAB will undermine the fundamental
structure of today’s recording industry.

An ARS system will devote several DAB programme channels to the most
popular new albums, which will be broadcast one after another. All these
channels will play the same music but they will be staggered so that listeners
need only wait around half an hour for their choice to come round on one
or other of them.

The listener at home will have a receiving device which will incorporate
a digital recorder. This could be one of several that will soon be on the
market, such as recordable CDs, Sony’s minidisc, or Philips’s digital compact
cassette. The music signal will be scrambled to reduce its quality while
listeners sample the material on offer.

When they press the ‘buy’ button, full quality recording begins. Less
popular music would be broadcast on other channels, but less frequently;
listeners might have to wait up to 24 hours for an album to come up. Other
channels will be reserved for ‘electronic browsing’, playing an ever-changing
choice of music.

They will operate in pairs, both carrying the same material, but with
one half a minute behind the other. This will give customers the chance
to listen, and then purchase music on impulse. Channels could be interactive,
with customers able to phone up and suggest music for broadcast.

Customers pay for their recordings either through an automatic phone
connection to a bank, or by debiting a prepaid card.