Disastrous Low DAB Radio Listening in Norway

Local radio on FM biggest threat to transition scheme

The transition from FM to DAB in 2018 for national radio presented a well expanded choice of channels by the three actors; public broadcaster NRK and commercial companies Swedish NENT and German Bauer. But radio listening did not increase, instead the audience was fragmented and advertising revenue decreased. In the national DAB bouquet of radio channels, 70% have less than 2% listening some have so few listeners, hardly possible to measure. The parliament now will decide to protect the two commercial companies from local competition on FM in the four big cities (Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim).

Finland: Radio Industry Wants FM as Standard in Cars

EU directive on car radio challenged

In 2020, an EU requirement is that car radio receivers in new passenger cars should be able to receive and reproduce radio services provided via digital terrestrial radio broadcast. In Finland, which has opted out of DAB already 2007, the radio industry wants a requirement for FM receivers. In a joint statement, public service company Yle, the commercial radio organization Radiomedia and the media organization Medialiitto write that the EU directive must be supplemented when it is implemented as a law in Finland