Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of DAB radio reception across Wales; what information his Department holds on which areas in Wales have poor DAB reception; what steps his Department has taken to improve poor reception in such areas; and if he will make a statement.

The Government is working with the radio industry to improve digital radio coverage for listeners across the UK. DCMS is providing up to £7.75m of capital funding to support investment made by commercial radio and supported by the BBC to expand the coverage local DAB network across the UK towards commercial FM equivalence. The programme will see a total of 182 new digital transmitters built across Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and technical modifications and frequency changes at a further 49 existing transmitter sites across the UK by the end of September 2016. Wales,will receive around 9% of the total DCMS capital funding to improve the coverage of local DAB including BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru.

Ofcom, the independent communications regulator has worked closely with the radio industry to develop a coverage plan for the local DAB network expansion to determine the most technically efficient way of matching DAB coverage levels to FM. Ofcom has published detailed maps outlining the improvements to local DAB network coverage for each of the local digital radio multiplex areas in Wales – i.e. Swansea, South East Wales, Mid & West Wales, North East Wales and West Cheshire and North West Wales - as a result of the local DAB expansion programme. These maps are available at the following web address http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/radio/coverage/dab-coverage-plans/

Ofcom’s analysis of local DAB coverage of households (percentage) in Wales is summarised in the following table.

For comparison current figures for BBC national and commercial radio FM household coverage (percentage) in Wales are in the following table. These are not directly comparable to the DAB coverage figures, mainly because although it is possible to receive FM reception (albeit poor quality) with low signal strength, DAB reception is either good or completely absent.