It is my honor to post this e-Interview with Patrick Hannon, the President of WorldDMB.  There are many examples of digital radio transitions all over the world. Some are great success whereas some are total fail. I think there is not a one-right-path to follow. What do you recommend us, I mean Turkey, with all those experiences? Digital radio is established in a growing number of markets.  The earliest markets -  UK, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland - have been followed by successful launches in Australia (2009), Germany (2011), Netherlands (2013) and Italy (2014). Recently, Norway became the first country in the world to announce a firm date of Digital Switchover (2017) and Switzerland plans for DSO in 2020-24.  In all of these countries, DAB / DAB+ is the chosen standard.   Whilst every country is different, there are a number of common factors, which underpin success: A consumer proposition which is superior to FM – e.g. greatly im...

As you may well know in Turkey, there is no digital terrestrial television & digital radio network yet. The DTT network will be build with DVB-T2 standard. This lateness may be a window of opportunity. I have met Kenneth Wenzel in 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia. He has a proposal for digital radio over DVB-T2. There are different profiles for DVB-T2, one of which is DVB-T2 Lite. This low profile is designed for mobile DTT, Wenzel claims that it is also suitable for digital radio.  His presentation is as follows: http://www.slideshare.net/KennethWenzel/open-channel-ukpresentationt2litebroadcast20150206sverigesradio?related=1 The only problem with DVB-T2 Lite radio is the receiver side. There are some receivers on the market and I believe many will be if more DVB-T2 Lite radios implemented.  

People are curious about Turkish tv market. They are trying to learn what is going to happen in DTT progress. Before writing about DTT, let me first share three graphs showing the current PayTV market of Turkey. There are appr. 20M houses in Turkey.  First graph shows PayTV versus FTA: As you can see PayTV is just %30, which is not that high. Next graph is satellite / cable share: Cable is %20, satellite is %80. Turkey is a satellite country.  The last graph shows the share of PayTV among companies. Digitürk, DSmart & Filbox are DTH platforms. Turkcell TV & Tivibu are IPTV platforms and Kablo TV is a cable tv solution. As you can see from this graph, satellite is the market leader.

It was February 2014 when I first met with Mr. Patrick Hannon. Beside his professional carrier as a VP at Frontier Silicon , he is also the President of WorldDMB , the non-profit organization  is the global forum for digital radio, facilitating the adoption and implementation of digital broadcast radio based on DAB, DAB+. We have met in Paris, at the French Radio Days event.  I am honored to announce that Mr. Hannon accepted my e-interview offer. I will send him questions and post his answers. As you may well know, nowadays there is a digital transition in radio market. It is not as fast as television, but it progress. In some countries it is faster than others. Norway announced 2017 for the date of FM Switch Off. UK was the first to start DAB. Germany is an example of unsuccessful DAB and also restart of digital radio with DAB+. To put in a nutshell, there are different trials all over Europe.  Turkey, is an other example. Many do not know but in Turkey...

It has been quite a while since my last post. Unfortunately reason for this is not me. After three major election in two years time, I hope that some progress will happen. The only news to announce is that some changes have been made in the Act of RTUK. With these changes RTUK has the right to organise a new tender for DTT frequencies. In the digital radio side things are more complicated. FM frequencies have not tendered yet. FM broadcasters are waiting for a FM frequency tender, which will cause new problems. There are more than 100, yes hundred, FM radio stations in İstanbul. After a tender nearly half of these will loose their frequency. DAB/DRM battle is continuing in which DAB seems to be more lucky.

I had to chance to attend the Digital TV CEE Event in Krakow last year. It was a three day event, one of which was dedicated to Over The Top TV (OTT TV). This year, event will be on 24-26 of June in Budapest.  Reviewing the draft agenda, which you can also download through the web site of the event , I figured out that, it will be the right place to update yourself with the latest developments in TV sector. Again this year Digital TV CEE will be a three day event, first of which dedicated to OTT.  Is it a nightmare for IPTV / Cable operators or is it a opportunity to expand their network?  This question is the hot topic of recent years. There will be speakers from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina  and Czech Republic. By these speakers, I think that whole region is covered except Turkey. I hope that, like last year, I would also find chance to attend the event.  Second and third days of the event will be focu...

It has been a long time, since my last post on DTT. After the workshop organised by DigiTAG, I attended a local workshop organised by Chamber of Electrical Engineers in Ankara, on 21 of December 2013. I was one of the speakers of the session, on behalf of Chamber of Electrical Engineers. Workshop had two sessions, one of which was focused to the technical and the other to the economical & political issues of DTT.  You can find the video streams of the sessions from the following link, but they are in Turkish as you may think.  http://www.emo.org.tr/genel/bizden_detay.php?kod=100708&tipi=43&sube=0 http://www.emo.org.tr/genel/bizden_detay.php?kod=100709&tipi=43&sube=0 I will try to summaries the discussions in a few paragraphs. By doing that I hope to keep my readers updated with the latest information on DTT in Turkey, which my blog is all about: Whole process of DTT in Turkey is suspended because of the problems in tenders for DTT li...