"People will queue in the cold for digital radios at the right price". This is a quotation from The Guardian of 7 March. There is a great deal of activity in the programming field and it is becoming clearer now that DAB (digital audio broadcasting) contains features which make it much more versatile than conventional radio systems. The BBC has launched its first national music radio station in 32 years, called 6 Music. But you cannot listen to it unless you have a DAB radio. Have you seen one for sale yet? Those that are out there are mostly in new cars.
Digital One, the national digital radio service launched in 1999, carried out a marketing research exercise last year in conjunction with manufacturer VideoLogic in which they made available at £99 a very heavily subsidised one-off digital radio sold from eight shops around the country and via a website. Only 300 were produced. They sold out within an hour! The exercise was to show that realistically priced DAB radios would sell well, and to encourage manufacturers to put some on the market. I think it made its point.
There are still none available 'at the right price', but it seems that there are some on the way. The Guardian article tells us that the prototype of a pocket DAB radio appeared last year, the world's first. A production version cannot be far away. Manufacturer Goodmans has announced that it will put no less than six DAB receivers in the shops in the second half of this year, ranging in price from £99 to £199.
I think Libby Smith's article on page 7 may spur some people into revealing their battles with such 'services'. We may be uncovering a major problem. There are some scary statements that Libby has
obtained. ICSTIS says that they 'allow' a help line provider to charge someone seeking help up to £30 for the call. Is it really true that if your expensive piece of equipment is faulty it can cost you £30 (or more if you are cut off) just to explain to someone what the problem is, quite apart from the consideration that you may not get satisfaction? The practice of cutting callers off is also scandalous. Is it perhaps to persuade the unsuspecting person with a complaint to start another £30 call? The whole concept of making it difficult and very expensive to obtain help about a faulty item purchased, if intentional, seems dishonest in the extreme. The Call and Contact Centres Association says "Eighty percent of business is service-based, and most of that is through call centres. How on earth can you regulate? Call centres are part of all sorts of industries and services." Is that right? Is most of the service that a purchaser can expect to obtain from business only available through a call centre? Is personal service only available from 20% of businesses now? I hope the reality is different, but we must find out.
I suggest that NCF takes up this matter of service via call centres as a major investigation.
CASH (see page 13) agrees that cereals can form part of a healthy balanced diet, but says that the salt content of many top selling brands of breakfast cereals is far too high for them to be claimed as healthy and to do so is trying to mislead the public. It is interesting, however, that the advice and advertising of which CASH is complaining is mainly in Trade magazines and on the firm's website. This means that few consumers will be subjected to direct persuasion until we all surf the web before going out to, buy our groceries. Nevertheless it is a timely warning not to take 'healthy' claims too seriously.
I am sometimes asked to attend meetings about which I know little. One such is a meeting to launch the Meat Hygiene Policy Forum. I shall go because Stella Walsh, who was invited as organiser of our Food Network, cannot get away from her duties as a University Lecturer and it is important that NCF should have a presence at FSA occasions. Other people also are asked to do this and say "oh no, I cannot go because I know nothing about the subject". My experience is that, while. it helps a lot if you are familiar with the subject and can contribute, the fact that you do not should not put you off. Invariably your presence is greatly appreciated because consumers are not always properly represented.
You can hold forth on matters which the organisers had not considered at all. A good example was the meeting called by POSTCOMM (see cover feature), which was scheduled so that anyone from outside London would have to make a very early start to get there on time and would not be able to take advantage of any cheap or concessionary train fares.
The end endwords -Your contributions to Consumer News are most welcome. Thanks to those who have helped fill this issue. Illustrations are welcome, we are always short of these. If you are writing about an organisation, send an example of the logo to:
John Brown, 6 Priory Gardens, Dartford, Kent. DA1 2BE. Fax and phone 01322 280673. I have discovered, rather to my surprise, that I have a new e-mail address editor@ncf.info.
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