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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord de Mauley, for his brevity. It is not as if I am not paying attention, or giving this less than its due, but we have already travelled over some of this terrain. However, I shall endeavour to reiterate the assurances. For small, local commercial and community stations, both the coverage area of a digital multiplex and the cost of its carriage are too great at present. That is one reason why we believe that those stations are best served by continuing to broadcast on FM. We have also committed to retaining FM for radio after the digital radio switchover. Of course, the Government will not stop any station that wants to and can move to digital, but we will reserve capacity on FM for those which have no obvious route there. I want to address a couple of the concerns that the right reverend Prelate expressed. How will we support those stations which remain on FM? In order to ensure that stations on FM can operate and compete with services on digital after switchover, the Government have already said that we are committed to establishing a combined electronic programme guide for radio. That will allow listeners to access stations via the station name, irrespective of the platform carrying the service. Listeners will therefore move seamlessly between bands, selecting stations simply by name; that is currently not the case when listening to FM and AM stations on an analogue radio receiver. We are working with the industry on that issue and encouraging its development.