Friday 7 June 2019

The Inconvenient Truth About DAB. Does the Norwegian Government Know?

Radio organization demands objective facts on the table.
Did the Norwegian government, and in particular its Ministry of Culture, take into account the market-related and technical deficiencies with the DAB system before a political decision was made, the radio organisation Kringskastingslaget (the Broadcasting Team) asks in a letter to the government. From where in Norway and abroad have independent facts been obtained besides what has been provided the DAB stakeholders NRK, Norkring, Bauer, MTG and Digitalradio Norge as well as the European lobby organization WorldDAB.

Kringlastingslaget writes that the introduction of the DAB system as a main radio platform for Norwegian radio has proved to be not the success that was promised to the parliament (Stortinget). It has also been clarified that the Norwegian local radio sector wants to continue broadcasting on FM.

Norway is still the only country in the world to carry out the drastic step of switching off national FM radio. There is a negative opinion in Norway and internationally about the future sustainability of the DAB system. It is surprising that the criticism rarely or never has been answered by the DAB stakeholders.

Kringkastingslaget assumes that the Ministry of Culture is able to present a well-prepared plan that also contains important facts from other sources than the DAB stakeholders. However, it is still unclear whether this has been done to any extent - and - what independent competence in Norway and abroad The Ministry of Culture has used an independent basis for the decision on the state's measures on the matter, including the decision to close national FM and at the same time ban commercial local  FM radio in four major cities - in the so-called switch-off areas.

Kringkastingslaget refers in the letter to the recently published independent Nordic report on all market-related and technical deficiencies with DAB/DAB + as a broadcasting platform.

Kringkastingslaget is a non-profit organization that is known for producing the podcast series Hvem slukket lyset på FM? (Who Turned Off the Light for FM?) in 49 episodes, which has been downloaded 102,000 times in three months. Read more about Kringkastingslaget

Download the report

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