Radio World reports that Switzerland’s FM radio broadcasts are due to end by the end of 2024, according to a release from the country’s Federal Office of Communications. OFCOM says at the end of July only 17% of people in that country listen to FM exclusively.

I am a bit chagrined that this story flew under my radar until now. Back in December 2014 the Digital Migration working group formulated a plan to switch entirely over to digital DAB+ broadcasting, and in 2015 “more than 80 percent of private radio stations agreed to this decision,” according to OFCOM. So this has been in the works for several years.

DAB+ is a digital radio standard used through much of Europe, including the U.K. and Norway, the latter of which turned off national FM broadcasts in 2017 – many local FM stations are still on the air. OFCOM reports that 65% of Swiss listen to the service, while only 35% use analog FM.

In addition to commercial and state-supported public broadcasters, Switzerland has about 15 community radio stations. According to a 2018 article in Swiss Review, OFCOM will subsidize 80% of DAB+ broadcast costs for non-commercial stations, and is offering financial support for the installation of digital studios. Presumably, community stations would qualify for these grants. Searching around some stations’ websites indicates that quite a few already simulcast on DAB+.

Subsidizing a station’s DAB+ transmission is not quite the same as building it a brand new transmitter, as it would be with FM or HD Radio. A single DAB+ transmitter can accommodate multiple stations’ signals as a multiplex. Thus, in most countries with DAB+, like the U.K., Norway and Switzerland, each station actually leases space, rather than owning its own transmitter. In that way DAB+ is more efficient than FM.

One trade-off of DAB+ is that a centralized infrastructure makes the system inherently more vulnerable in times of natural disaster, or just run-of-the-mill calamity, like a power outage. It also leaves stations less independent. In Switzerland the DAB+ infrastructure is owned and operated by the for-profit company Digris.

While Digris is investing to grow its infrastructure – like building transmitters in mountainous roadway tunnels – DAB+ listening is still mostly in motor vehicles, rather than homes. This is not unlike HD Radio in the U.S., where it’s difficult to even find a digital-capable home tuner.

What this means is that most home listening in Switzerland may simply move to internet radio in 2024. No doubt it’s likely much home and office listening already is online, and those who want to hear DAB+ outside the car have plenty of receivers to choose from, though reception might be challenging outside of urban areas.

From what I can see now, the path to an FM turnoff in Switzerland seems even clearer than it was in Norway, where public opinion hasn’t been altogether favorable, and many stations remain analog. In part this is likely due to relative consensus amongst Swiss broadcasters in general, not just major national broadcasters. A significant government subsidy, combined with overall strong support for public broadcasting also help.

Because of these factors, magnified by the country’s small geographic size and high per capita income, Switzerland is an outlier – just like Norway before it. Although the idea of a full digital transition has been floated in other European countries that have DAB+ broadcasting, both large and small, it hasn’t gained traction, often owing to the cost and complexity of sunsetting an established, proven and reliable technology that exhibits few downsides. Moreover, it’s easier to transition a relatively affluent population of 8.4 million to digital radio, than the larger, more economically diverse 66 million of the U.K. or 82 million of Germany.

No, this is not a bellwether of analog radio’s demise, nor an indicator of a digital transition here in the U.S. I suspect as 2024 draws closer we may hear more critical voices in Switzerland, when Swiss citizens realize that millions of their radios will become obsolete – at least for listening to radio from their native land.

Folks in Geneva and other cities and towns along the border will still be able to tune in stations from France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Liechtenstein. That’s something less accessible to Norwegians, who are much more geographically distant from other FM broadcasting countries.

In the meantime, keep an enormous grain of salt on hand for when you see the torrent of clickbaity “Is this the end of FM radio” stories, if and when this news hits the feed of a tech writer on a quota.

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Norway will turn off national FM broadcasts on January 11. However, about 200 local FM stations will continue to broadcast for at least another five years, as we reported last year when the story first hit the international press. That crucial detail was missing from international coverage then, and it continues to be overlooked now.

In fact, only three broadcasters will be shutting down their FM signals: NRK, P4 and Radio Norge. NRK is the the Norwegian government broadcaster, P4 is the nation’s largest commercial station group, and Radio Norge is another national commercial music station. What these broadcasters have in common is that they’re all national in scope, with centralized broadcast facilities strategically located throughout the country of 5 million people. Both P4 and Radio Norge lobbied hard for the FM transition, primarily because transitioning to digital DAB broadcasts represents savings for them.

65% of Norwegians oppose the FM shutdown, according a survey conducted last summer by the Dagbladet newspaper. Given that listeners would prefer to hang on to their FM receivers, local broadcasters are optimistic that will turn into an advantage for them, since they’ll still be heard on good old fashioned analog radio. According to the Norwegian Local Radio Federation, the group’s chairman said that local radio will see a “new renaissance” in 2017.

The national stations’ shutdown will happen region-by-region beginning with Nordland on January 11, with other regions following over the course of the year.

Besides the simple loss of broadcasts on FM, one of the biggest concerns with the shutoff is that citizens will lose access to important emergency information. This is particularly relevant for motorists, who may not be able to tap into other media while on the road. There are an estimated 2 million cars in Norway that do not have DAB radios, and a DAB adapter for a car radio costs the equivalent of about $175 US, an added expense not every motorist is ready to make.

Countries with relatively established digital radio broadcast systems, like the UK, certainly will be watching Norway’s experiment, since many of their national FM broadcasting systems resemble Norway’s. However, as I observed last year, it will still be difficult to generalize from Norway’s experience because the country is an outlier due to the relatively small size and consolidated structure of its national FM broadcast facilities.

In particular, Norway, with fewer than 300 stations, is difficult to compare to the U.S., which has more than 7,000. Moreover, even though ownership of commercial radio in the States is quite consolidated, broadcast facilities are not combined on the scale that they are in Norway. Plus, the U.S. does not have a well-developed digital radio service, like Norway’s DAB, which has sufficient penetration of receivers such that it could plausibly replace FM. The difference between the two countries is truly night and day.

So, yes, Norway is turning off a segment of its FM broadcasts in favor of digital broadcasting. But don’t get suckered by the digital triumphalist argument that this is the first nail in the coffin for analog radio. Even in Norway a complete nationwide shutdown is years away, and is not yet guaranteed. Everywhere else in the world analog FM broadcasts continue, with billions of people tuning in every day, while even older services like AM and longwave solider on. When push comes to shove listeners aren’t ready to give up their radios, and so far no company or broadcaster has offered that one killer technology that gives them any incentive to do so.

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Back in April of last year news headlines across tech and news sites screamed that Norway was about to turn off all FM transmitters. The reality, of course, is a bit more complex–only 23 stations in the three biggest cities will turn off their analog signals in 2017, while some 200 FM stations outside this area have a longer lease on life. At the same time there were rumblings that Sweden was also mulling its own analog to digital transition.

However, it looks like the Swedes are going to wait and watch how it goes with its Nordic neighbor’s FM switch-off before moving forward with any plan of its own. Earlier this month the Swedish parliament officially ended any digital radio transition, following the recommendation of the Auditor General. Note that breathless headlines (in English) have not followed that bit of news.

The plan in Norway is eventually to move all FM broadcasters to what is known as DAB, a digital radio broadcast system that uses a different set of frequencies than analog radio. DAB broadcasts have been available in 30 countries beginning in 2001, with Europe home to the most stations. Still, Norway likely will remain an outlier when it begins its digital transition next year. Several other countries, including Germany, France and the UK, have entertained proposals to transition fully from FM to DAB, but these plans are also up in the air.

Nevertheless, this hesitancy to sunset analog radio doesn’t mean that DAB digital radio is dead on arrival. As John Anderson reports, digital radio adoption in Europe continues to grow, according to the European Broadcasting Union. Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and the UK lead the way.

While these top countries are just cresting a 50% adoption rate amongst radio listeners, this far outpaces digital radio in the US, where we are saddled with the very different HD Radio system that squeezes digital signals onto the analog dial. As a result a Norwegian-style analog radio turn-off appears far away. Exhibit A is that last fall the FCC chose not to implement proposals to “revitalize” the AM dial by authorizing all-digital broadcasts in that band. Chance missed.

I have no particular grudge against digital radio, though I do wish the US had implemented the technically superior DAB system instead of HD Radio. But I continue to be an advocate of analog broadcasting because it is simple, robust, proven and has yet to be actually surpassed by digital in terms of quality or reach. There may come a day when digital broadcast or mobile internet technologies are ready to offer the kind of nearly infallible service–especially in times of emergency or disaster–that analog radio has for nearly 100 years. But until then, I vote for analog.

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Here are the first ten licensees (courtesy of Ofcom’s press release):

• Angel Radio, bringing Angel Xtra, Express FM, JAMM Radio, Mango Vibe, The Flash and Triple Hits to Portsmouth.
• BFBS Aldershot, bringing BFBS Aldershot, BFBS Radio, BFBS Gurkha, Radio Frimley Park, Radio Woking and The Breeze to Aldershot.
• Brighton & Hove Radio, bringing Juice 107.2, Radio Reverb, Smile Sussex, Totallyradio, Resonance and Brighton City Student Radio to Brighton & Hove.
• Celador Radio , bringing Hub Radio, BFBS Gurkha, Ujima Radio, BSR 103.4fm, BCfm 93.2, Somer Valley Radio, The Breeze and BFBS Radio to Bristol.
• Future Digital Norfolk, bringing Future Radio, Norwich 99.9, The Music Machine, Solar Radio, Jazz FM, Totallyradio and Future Plus to Norfolk.
• Niocast Digital, bringing Panjab Radio, Revolution 96.2, Manchester Business Radio, The Steve Penk Wind-Up Channel, Chris Country and Gaydio to Manchester.
• Switch Radio, bringing Switch Radio, Scratch Radio, Gaydio, Oak FM and Touch FM to Birmingham.
• Scrimshaws Information Directories, bringing Your Radio, Celtic Music Radio, Pulse FM and Go Radio to Glasgow.
• U.DAB, bringing Resonance, London Greek Radio, Rinse FM, NuSound Radio, Reprezent, Solar Radio and Crackers Radio to London.
• UKRD, bringing Star Radio, Gaydio, Chris Country, Core Radio and Cambridge 105 to Cambridge.

All told, 60 applicants will win access to these trials. These ten winners above will receive license windows lasting nine months. They’ve got 12 weeks from the date of the award to hook up to the small scale DAB system and show their stuff.

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The news from Norway is that the country plans to dump FM and go all digital by 2017. The United Kingdom isn’t quite ready to do the same, but over fifty radio outlets have responded to the UK’s invitation to apply for a digital experiment for smaller broadcasters. Ofcom, Britain’s broadcast regulator, has announced trials to help smaller, local and community based radio stations access the UK’s digital audio broadcasting (DAB) system. The agency is working with an approach that it thinks will be more affordable to indie operations because it takes advantage of free software from opendigitalradio.org. The method is called “small scale DAB.” It targets smaller scale geographic areas, “ideal for community and local radio stations,” Ofcom says.

Among the 51 applicants: Dover Community Radio, Oldham Community Radio, Radio Scarborough, Seaside Radio East Kent, Bradford Asian Radio, Bright & Hove Radio, Chorely FM, Coventry and Warwickshire Media, University Radio York, Elastic FM of Derbyshire, and Riviera FM. There’s also Radiowey, which runs a radio service for the patients at Ashford and St. Peters Hospitals and Garrison.FM, “your online army station.”

Less conventional applicants include a broadcasting software company called P-Squared and Ringtone.net, which owns the SevernFM online radio network. Some applicants are already broadcasting on DAB contours, but presumably want to see if they can get in on smaller, more affordable DAB deals.

Ofcom has ten trials planned, each of which will run for nine months. “Each trial will allow new digital radio services to broadcast to a local area and will help explore how groups of radio stations can work together,” an announcement for the project disclosed. “The trials will also inform Ofcom’s work on identifying suitable frequencies for broadcasting smaller digital stations and help understand how these services could be licensed.”

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See our most recent update to this story: FM in Norway Isn’t Dead, Says Norwegian Local Radio Association

Last Thursday Norway’s Ministry of Culture announced the national transition from analog FM to digital DAB radio beginning on January 11, 2017. This move, akin to the digital television transition the US made in 2009, has been years in the making. At least one major reason for the switch is the stated savings of over 200 million Krones a year by the state NRK broadcaster, equivalent to about US $25 million. That money is planned to be invested in programming.

The Ministry first published a report calling for the end of analog radio in 2011. One of conditions stated in that report was being able to reach more than 90% of the population with a digital signal, equalling the coverage of the national NRK P1 station on FM. Additionally, at least half of all listeners had to listen to a digital station daily by this past January 1. Both of these conditions were met.

There is less analog radio in Norway than in many other European countries, and significantly less than in the US. Many press reports have repeated the Ministry of Culture’s statement that there are only five nationwide FM stations. Because DAB offers capacity for 42 national channels–22 are in use now–the Ministry says there will be more nationwide service.

However, mostly gone unmentioned is that there are dozens of additional local FM stations, many of which are part of the NRK public radio service, that will have to transition. Norway has no medium wave (AM) stations since NRK P1 ended broadcasts on that band in 2006.

Over the last decade other European countries, including the U.K., Germany and France, have entertained proposals to phase out FM, though none has followed through. The U.K. has the most well developed DAB system, with 36.8% of listening hours dedicated to 34 BBC channels and over 200 commercial stations. At the same time, it should be noted that many listeners complain about relatively low sound quality, due to the aging circa–1990 MP2 compression used by DAB. The newer DAB+ standard–used by many Norwegian stations–offers higher fidelity by using the more modern AAC codec.

Norway, therefore, should be considered an outlier in making an all-digital transition, even amongst countries that rolled out digital radio around the same time–some two decades ago. Moreover, this long gestation period for DAB in Norway means the country is not a bellwether for the US, where at best 2 – 3% of listeners tune in a digital radio signal.

Certainly, Norway’s comparatively centralized broadcasting infrastructure, combined with a population 1.5% that of the US, contribute to the ability to make a digital transition. While Norway has to transition maybe a few dozen stations, in the US 15,542 would have to adopt digital–only about 1,900 broadcast HD digital signals now. (In 2009 only about 2,200 US TV stations had to go digital, and they had 13 years advance warning).

Another significant factor is that DAB is a very different standard than HD Radio. DAB uses separate spectrum from FM, and is more efficient to broadcast. In most countries adopting DAB, the incentive to upgrade to DAB receivers was to access new, digital-only stations.

By contrast, HD Radio is broadcast alongside its partner analog FM broadcast, with identical programming as on the main digital channel. While HD offers fidelity-limited HD2 and HD3 channels not necessarily available in analog, most broadcasters in the US have invested little in these digital-only signals, giving listeners very little incentive to go HD. Nearly all the growth in HD receivers is due to automakers integrating the technology into car radios. In Norway and other countries DAB radio receivers of all kinds are widely available, beginning at around US $50. Good luck finding a non-automotive HD receiver in the US that’s not integrated in a thousand dollar A/V receiver.

While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently asked in blog post if the top end of the AM band, 1605 – 1705 KHz, could be carved out for digital-only stations, this is the closest the US is likely to come to digital radio transition plan. Also note that this was just one of several ideas he proposed for utilizing that section of bandwidth. He promises we’ll see a concrete proposal soon.

It will be informative to watch how the digital radio transition unfolds in Norway, especially as listeners make the inevitable mad rush to buy DAB receivers at the close of 2016. Whether broadcasters in any other country–including the US–actually learn anything is another matter.

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The United Kingdom’s broadcast regulator has announced trials to help smaller, community based radio stations access the UK’s digital audio broadcasting (DAB) system. According to Ofcom, nearly half of adults in the UK (48.9 percent) say they own a DAB radio set. But getting access to a DAB “digital multiplex” service area is expensive; most smaller radio stations can’t afford the price of admission.

Now Ofcom is experimenting with a new approach that it thinks will be cheaper, because it accesses free software from opendigitalradio.org. The method is called “small scale DAB.” It targets small geographic areas, “ideal for community and local radio stations,” Ofcom says.

Ofcom has ten trials planned, each of which will run for nine months. “Each trial will allow new digital radio services to broadcast to a local area and will help explore how groups of radio stations can work together,” the announcement continues. “The trials will also inform Ofcom’s work on identifying suitable frequencies for broadcasting smaller digital stations and help understand how these services could be licensed.”

The deadline for applying for one of the tryouts is April 7.

Meanwhile Ofcom has announced bids for a second national, commercial DAB multiplex. The first is operated by Digital One. The hope is to launch number two in 2016. The agency says it has received applications from Listen2Digital and Sound Digital.

I have to admit that I’m liking the 18 stations proposed by Listen2Digital, which include a Sabras Asian contemporary channel and a Wireless oldies channel (of course I’m not making this call; it’s all up to the Brits and their duly appointed representatives; I’m just saying . . . ).

The post UK to community radio: sign up for a digital experiment appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The United Kingdom’s broadcast regulator Ofcom is considering letting “re-advertised” analog radio station licenses extend for twelve years, the maximum possible license length. The current policy is to set licenses approaching their expiration date at seven, but “market and regulatory developments” since 2010 suggest a reconsideration, a Ofcom consultation concludes:

” . . . we have not identified any further factors which might justify a shorter licence period than the statutory maximum. As a longer licence period would provide greater commercial certainty for operators, we are proposing a new policy that licence durations will be set at 12 years.”

The consultation also indicates that the government thinks that its transition to DAB digital broadcasting is succeeding:

“DAB is a significantly more widely adopted technology now, with greater availability of a greater number of services; more DAB sets in homes and cars; and more listening to DAB in terms of both reach and share. The trends since 2010 and going back further, plus the recent policy announcements by Government, suggest that there will be sustained growth and development of the DAB radio platform.

We consider that these developments will reduce the need for flexibility for Government, Parliament and Ofcom in introducing new licensing regimes or spectrum planning for the FM band, since it now seems that these would not be necessary, post-switchover.”

Here in the United States, broadcast radio station licenses extend to eight years. Ofcom is soliciting feedback on its proposal through May 6.

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Radio World and Radio.NL report that the government of the Netherlands is considering sunsetting that country’s FM band and transitioning to digital radio broadcasting. This would mean DAB+. The decision rests on the pace at which Dutch consumers adopt the standard via DAB+ receiver purchases. An economic minister says radio receiver buyers will trigger the deliberation once the market penetration rate exceeds fifty percent. But that doesn’t mean the move is a done deal. Conundrums remain about how to get local radio stations up to speed.

Given this interesting development, I thought it would be fun to hop over to the WorldDAB.org site and check out its assessment of the state of DAB/DAB+ around the globe.

WorldDAB.org’s status map of DAB/DAB+ around the globe [WorldDAB.org]

WorldDAB has a nifty global map that shows which countries have or are in the processing of adopting DAB/DAB+. There are 21 nations with “regular” DAB/DAB+ service. Most of them are in Europe. They include the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, but also South Korea, China, Australia, and Ghana.

According to WorldDAB, about eight percent of China’s population can access DAB. Much of that availability centers around Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Hong Kong started running DAB+ in the summer of 2011. The government granted commercial licenses to three companies, including the Digital Broadcasting HongKong Ltd., formerly known as Wave Media, which has a popular talk radio operation in that city.

Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland have particularly extensive DAB coverage: above 90 percent according to WorldDAB.

Then there are the countries with “trials and/or regulation.” These include Vietnam, Israel, South Africa, and Indonesia. Operators in Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta have been running DAB trials since 2006. The latest in Vietnam took place in July on the Voice of Vietnam network. There have been DAB+ demonstrations in Bangkok, Thailand this year. Hungary has selected DAB+ for its digital standard and is testing radio programs in Budapest.

Finally there are countries “with interest,” which means they’re mucking around with DAB/DAB+ but it is all sort of tentative. WorldDAB lists Canada, Estonia, Greece, India, Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates in that category.

The United States isn’t on the WorldDAB map at all. The country is committed to Ibiquity’s HD Radio standard. How is that going? Check out our HD radio coverage for updates.

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