The Government’s Digital Britain plan commits the country to switching off all analogue (ie AM and FM stations) once 50% of radio listening becomes digital and at least 9/10 homes can receive digital broadcasts.
Digital switchover is potentially good for commercial radio overall as it will have a natural 75% share of the frequencies, whereas the BBC has a legacy 50% share of analogue radio. However, Digital Britain remains contentious within the commercial radio sphere, the larger stations and groups welcoming it and the smaller players fearing for their future livelihoods.
There remains doubt that local DAB will achieve nationwide coverage due to last year's BBC licence fee settlement that made provision for national, but not local, DAB transmission. However, in April 2011, a provisional agreement to split the funding for the rollout of local DAB coverage three ways between the government, commercial radio and the BBC had been reached following high-level discussions that included Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt and BBC’s Director General, Mark Thompson.