Guglielmo Marconi would be rubbing his eyes in disbelief. More than a hundred years after he sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic, the medium he discovered is making a strong comeback.
In 2001, the numbers listening to radio exceeded those watching television for first time in seven years. Now it is experiencing a new renaissance as digital radios fall in price and, against early pessimistic predictions, are fast becoming must-have items.
Leading the charge is Imagination Technologies which sold 40,000 of its attractive retro £99 Evoke-1 radio over Christmas. It is forecast that digital radio ownership could reach 500,000 by the end of the year and, as prices continue to fall, a million a year later.
Since Imagination, in addition to manufacturing these radios, claims an 80% market share of DAB (digital audio broadcasting) processors, it could easily become another UK success story like ARM of Cambridge which designs the chip of choice for mobile phones.
Interestingly, both of these have a link with the BBC. ARM traces its ancestry back to Acorn, which made its mark from manufacturing the BBC's range of computers, while digital radio has taken off mainly as a result of BBC investment.
The Evoke-1 (which will be joined in May by a portable model costing £170) is a typically global product. Designed in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, the chip is manufactured in Taiwan, after which it is sent to Wales to be packaged into a ceramic chip case before journey ing on to Austria, where the digital radio module is added. It is then dispatched to China for final assembly.
Imagination has not got the field to itself as a number of companies are planning to cash in on the digital boom. Digital radio (not to be confused with internet radio), provides clear reliable signals and is a market where Britain has already established an early world lead.
There are more than 300 services available and still rising with around half exclusive to digital. But the fascinating possibiity is what will happen when tiny DAB radio chips are bundled into mobile phones in a year or two.
Unlike the FM radio chips in some current models, they will feature a multiplicity of channels sending voice, data or even pictures and, most interestingly, will include a "return path" from the phone to provide interactivity.
Where all this is leading is anyone's guess. People don't currently take radios with them in the hope they might have a spare moment. But if they come as a standard part of a lightweight phone, maybe with a Bluetooth short distance wireless earpiece, it could be different. It could easily turn out to be the biggest boost for broadcasting since radios were installed in cars.
And the cost - under £100m so far - pales into insignificance beside the £22.5bn down payment made by the telecom companies for their 3G licences. Digital radio could usher in a new golden age - on a shoestring.
· Comments to online.feedback@theguardian.com
