Norway to shut down all analog FM radio
Norway is making an historic move into a new radio era, being the first country in the world to decide upon an analog switch-off for all major radio channels. Several countries in Europe and Southeast Asia are in similar processes, choosing DAB-technology as the backbone of future radio distribution. Norway began the transition to DAB back in 1995. The DAB-coverage in Norway now exceeds FM-coverage. DAB provides Norway with 22 national channels, as opposed to five channels transmitting nationwide on FM."We can finally complete the work that has been on-going for many years. This is the best solution for all listeners throughout Norway, as they now have a better radio." 56 per cent of radio listeners use digital radio every day. 55 per cent of households have at least one DAB radio. While 44 % of listeners only use FM radio daily, according to Digitalradio survey by TNS Gallup. Switch-off starts in Nordland county 11th January 2017 and ends with the northernmost counties Troms and Finnmark 13th December 2017.
What Africans ARE listening to is FM on their feature phones or smartphones. As a shortwave fan, this is hugely disappointing to me.
I've been on the mailing list of the DRM group for ages now - unfortunate acronym, it actually stands for Digital Radio Mondiale and I wish they'd change it. And it's been really interesting to watch them progress. Dig Radio replaces your radio with what's basically a small computer that processes the digital signal at relatively low expense. This was unheard of a decade ago when all we had were Pentium IIs, but modern systems on a chip make it possible and not that expensive, either computationally or economically. Dig Radio promises the propogation qualities of shortwave with the audio quality of FM. That's really huge, when you think about it.
By the way, I think this has implications for democratic promotion and the like. Despite jamming wars, it was possible at one time to beam a broadcast into a nation, where people could essentially listen to it without being tracked. TCP/IP as we all no know too well doesn't offer that same anonymity.
Will this new tech get coopted by the likes of ClearChannel and their buddies? Maybe, but Dig Radio offers huge promise, I think. The BBC and some other stations are experimenting with it; this move by the Scandinavians is promising. Maybe teh USA will wise up and give it a try too (maybe not).
At any rate, this is good news.