BBC World Service has always had a sizeable audience in India as well as satellite television channels not subject to censorship. Commercial stations, certainly as first, had a music format and weren't allowed to broadcast news.
Radio reach went up quite rapidly as more commercial radio stations were licenced but they are not interested in DRM.
There have never been widely available DRM home receivers, there were a limited number issued when the first DRM receiver for the Indian market was announced most of which were bought by the state broadcasters engineers.
The automobile industry then started to place them in some higher priced cars. This was first promoted on YouTube by an official DRM consortium video lasting just over a minute of DRM Chairman Rujendra Obreja in her stationary car listening to a high quality DRM signal which then dropped out when the car moved forwards. To increase the robustness of a DRM signal to avoid dropouts you have to decrease the audio quality.
DRM has been described as the "hidden medium" in Indian cars, no one knows what it's for, the commercial stations don't use it so they just press the AM and FM buttons as they always have done. More here.
https://www.team-bhp.com/news/digital-radio-mondiale-drm-radio-indian-cars
It has been referred to by some in the industry as "Doesn't really matter"
DRM on FM in my opinion has more potential but needs receiver development. IIRC they initially though that it could be transmitted in gaps in the existing FM band but tests on that weren't completely successful.
Around 20 years ago, I saw an exhibit at a trade show (probably IBC) which was promoting the 'Digital Radio' (DR) brand. The idea was to encourage manufacturers to produce combined DRM / DAB receivers and they had a couple of prototypes bearing the 'DR' logo. The DRM consortium were involved and I think the BBC (or at least BBC R&D) were among the broadcasters pushing the concept.
They also had a live SW DRM demo running and I remember being impressed by the sound quality, this being the first time I'd actually heard DRM in action.
I can't help but think that, India notwithstanding, the opportunity for large scale DRM implementation has long since passed. Never say never of course, but if the 'DR' initiative had been successful things might have turned out differently.
It is an uphill battle the DRM lobby have Simon, for mainly commercial reasons. Not do much a question of which horse will win the race, more that there seem to be several different races and some are trying to cover all bases and enter them in all.
the Indians have been pumping out 20 and 40 kW MW signals of DRM for about ten years now. The biggest problem seems to be that the people who own the patent on the receiver circuitry were demanding high royalties. In Bombay, there are three differently badged receivers on the market but only one is a 'kosher' licensed one.
That is always going to be the key to the success of any platform - how easily can Joe Public tune in. If its expensive or a battle of any kind, even unfair competition, then it will fail. Worst fo all, unless the programme is in demand, there is no hope for success.
The key is, as ever, to have a popular programme that the public WANT to hear. Make it easily available (including cheap!) and only then. will a new platform be successful.
DRM quality is (or perhaps "can be") very good, better than DAB, and that may be the way forward for MW, with the band reorganised to give wider channels - 20kHz spacing would be perfect.
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