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Australia was supposed to get digital radio years ago. When communications minister Richard Alston released the policy about digital TV in March 1998, a plan for digital radio was announced as well. The two were treated like urgent, overdue twins as the Dot Com boom approached its zenith. All media were going digital. TV and radio would have to be part of it.
Existing broadcasters would get extra spectrum to introduce new digital services alongside their continuing analogue services. They also got a guarantee of no more commercial competitors for several years. At some point in the future, the analogue services would be shut down. The spectrum would be handed back and reallocated for new kinds of service, although that expectation was much more clearly stated for TV than for radio.
Free-to-air digital TV services started on time in the major Australian cities in 2001. Digital radio dropped off the agenda. Commercial stations couldn't see where the extra revenue was going to come from to pay for the transmission infrastructure. The ABC couldn't imagine a hostile government giving it more money for anything. Non-profit community radio stations were flat out paying for the technology they already had.
