You may have noticed over the last few months services have left our Portsmouth DAB multiplex and have not been replaced. Angel Radio, the organisation behind Solent Wireless, recently applied to Ofcom for a long-term DAB multiplex licence for Portsmouth. If successful, it will mean we can move off our temporary(!) trial licence on to a new licence which will potentially last up to 12 years.
One of the requirements is that we have to reserve a fixed amount of capacity for community radio services. We currently broadcast a number of not-for-profit services, however going forward we will have less available capacity for commercial services.
Because our current trial licence expires on 31st December 2023, and because we will have less capacity available on the multiplex we have decided to not replace services that have chosen to leave the multiplex for the time being. This will ensure that we have sufficient capacity to accommodate all broadcasting services should be awarded a long-term licence.
We are still broadcasting 24 services, which we think is pretty impressive considering we were awarded our trial licence on the basis of providing 6 services!