Remember Worldspace? TRAI plans to float paper to bring digital radio back

Search for Worldspace on Google and one gets to read lovely soppy and nostalgic stories about the romance some people had struck with the digital radio service company. The US company, which relied on the subscription model and counted India as its largest market, folded in 2009.

Worldspace Radio brought to India a 24X7 ‘you asked for it, you got it’ music service, be it jazz, western classical, Hindustani classical, carnatic music, ghazals, bhajans, reggae, pop and what have you.

While reams have been written about the causes behind the premature demise of the company, the broadcasting regulator has a plan to reinvigorate the digital radio service in India as a whole.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, also a regulator for the broadcast sector, is working on a consultation paper that will seek to lay out a broad framework so that the sector, currently relying solely on FM radio, has another avenue to grow in the form of a digital service.  The paper is expected to be floated in two to three months for seeking views of the stakeholders.

High cost of receiver and a subscription model in a market used to getting free FM radio channels were blamed for the service remaining a niche one in India.

As opposed to the analogue FM radio service, digital radio needs less space in form of frequency and has more clarity. Besides exploring these aspects, the TRAI paper will also deal with issues of licensing and spectrum allocation.