A new community interest company (CIC) has been formed to bid for a new type of DAB (Digital radio) licence covering the Isle of Wight.
Standard DAB has been operating on the Island for over ten years, with some areas getting it before others, for example, it arrived in Ventnor in 2014.
This is a new type of DAB licence – its name, smaller scale DAB, gives away its difference – has been rolling out across different parts of the country, with the original Round One occurring in 2020.
IW licence
Ofcom are handling these new licences and advertised their Round Six on 19th April 2024 that included the Isle of Wight, among other parts of the country.
Vectis Radio and Isle of Wight Radio both wanted to broadcast on this new channel to the Island, so, rather than both putting in their own separate bids to Ofcom, saw there was more sense in bidding together as a single body – Wight Digital Radio CIC.
The CIC currently has two shares: Kelvin Currie from Vectis Radio and Allan Moulds from Isle of Wight Radio’s owner, Total Sense Media.
20+ stations
With the new licence, there’s a capacity to carry more than 20 different radio stations, so not only will it carry the channel (or channels) of Isle of Wight Radio and Vectis Radio, there’ll be space for other radio stations to operate over it.
Wight Digital Radio CIC predicts that any new services are likely to be on-air in 2025.
Why the shift to DAB
Radio waves are valuable and a way for the Government to raise income, as the £2Bn+ 4G licence auctions saw in 2013 (Back when £2Bn seemed like a massive amount of money). FM radio is analogue and a relatively inefficient use of the radio spectrum vs DAB. The Government will, eventually, turn off FM – they’re currently saying it won’t be before 2030, so they’re doing all they can to encourage people to DAB.
