News

Norway has become the first country in the world to announce a closure of FM for national broadcasters. Like the UK, Norway also had a number of criteria to hit to achieve before government would consider switching off. Here are Norway's criteria (from Gunnar Garfors's blog), and how the UK would compare.

It has been confirmed today that Norway will switch off FM radio in 2017, the first country in the world to shut off analogue for all major radio stations. The switchover will take place over a 12 month period starting in January 2017. Norway was the first country in the world to fully switchover to digital TV in 2009.

51 applications to run one of 10 local DAB multiplexes on a nine-month trial have been received by Ofcom.

And it is official. Norway will switch off FM in 2017, as the first country in the world. The government, represented by the Minister of Culture, announced today. That makes today a day of celebration for the broadcasters that have long been working with listeners, the government, retailers, the car industry and each other to achieve five demands set up by the government in 2011.

On 16 April, the Ministry of Culture announced a national FM-switch off, to complete the transition to digital radio. The switchover will begin in the North on 11 January 2017 and will be implemented region by region, concluding 13 December 2017.

Is digital radio in Australia dead? Not according to recent figures, in fact far from it. Digital radio is going strong and getting stronger. The recent news that Digital radio is now reaching 3.2 million listeners in Australia, according to GfK figures released by Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), shows growth of 24% in the past year. If that growth rate continues, digital radio listeners would exceed 10 million in Australia by 2020.

Pure confirmed their investment into the Norwegian receiver market at a press launch this week. "We see the transition to digital radio in Norway as a good opportunity to kick start in Norway. We are going to have more people in the various regions in the future. But cooperation on car radios is the biggest driver." says Jasper Wybrants, Country Manager for Pure in Norway.

Staffan Rosell, president of Discovery SBS Radio is the largest player in the commercial radio market, is very surprised at the Swedish National Audit conclusions. "The National Audit takes the side of digital opponents... One gets the feeling that they only received information from one side of the debate" he said to Dagens Media.

From 30 April, Radio Mauma.fm Germany will be broadcasted on DAB+.

The National Audit Office's report is partially deficient, and did not favour debate on Swedish radio's future, writes Per G. Porvoo, Teracom AB. The National Audit review has been carried out especially from an economic perspective. It is a distinction that raises more questions than it provides answers. It gives unfortunately only space to answer some of the erroneous descriptions in the report.