Local radio listeners increasingly abandoning DAB and returning to FM.
FM seems to be experiencing a renaissance in Norway. Fewer and fewer people are now using DAB to listen to local radio, while more are listening to FM radio, according to recent figures compiled by Kantar Media for the Norwegian Local Radio Association. Kantar asks not only which channel is listened to, but also which platform they use to listen to local radio. The figures do not apply to national channels that only broadcast digitally. - In the fourth quarter of 2024, 53.0% of those surveyed said that they use FM to listen to local radio on a daily basis, while 45.5% said that they listen to local radio on DAB. In the second quarter of 2024, 51.5% listened to local radio on FM and 47.7% on DAB. So it is no longer just a coincidence, it may seem that the trend has actually reversed.
"Everyone" thought that DAB would overtake FM. Now the trend has reversed, for no apparent reason. At the same time, relatively speaking, there have never been more people listening to local radio via the internet. 10.7% of those surveyed used some form of online radio to listen to their local channel in the fourth quarter of 2024. This is an increase from 8.8% in the second quarter of 2024, according to figures from Kantar.
3.7% do not know which platform they listen to local radio on and 2.0% listen to local radio in ways other than DAB, FM and the internet. This is not defined in more detail but can, for example, be done via TV.
According to Kantar Media, the decline in radio listening in Norway continues. Today, only 52.7% of the population listens daily to linear radio (FM DAB and the Internet) via national radio, local radio and other. The transition to DAB for national radio has proven unable to slow the decline for radio listening. As in neighboring Sweden, things are not going as badly for the public service (NRK) as for the two commercial actors.
Will this twilight for radio broadcasting signal the end of DAB?
In Norway, local radio includes commercial local radio and as welll as non-profit community radio. The opposition in Norway replacing FM radio with DAB was most intense in the local radio community, which feared its rapid demise. After Norway closed its national FM network in 2017, the politicians was decided that local radio would be allowed to continue on FM at least until 2031. However, with the exception of commercial local radio in the five largest cities where local radio is not allowed to broadcast advertising on FM in order to protect the national commercial broadcasters - Bauer and MTG (today Viaplay). The transition to DAB is seen by many in Norway as a political and technical fiasco.
Norway is still the only country in the world where DAB has replaced FM for national radio. Switzerland is about to follow suit. In the rest of the world, FM is being retained while the Internet and other more modern digital solutions than DAB have emerged. Many have the impression that DAB has not become the success that was promised more than a quarter of a century ago.
FM is a global technology several decades older than DAB. However, taking into account the slow implementation since the 1995 introduction DAB is becoming a twilight technology.
Read more
Færre hører lokalradio på DAB (lokalradio.no, in Norwegian)
Nordmenn hører markant mindre på radio (Radionytt, in Norwegian)
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