Setback for the DAB lobby:
FM shutdown plan again removed from coalition agreement
Today CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on a government coalition agreement. In the meantime, a very strongly polarizing media topic - digital radio - has been removed from the treaty: the stipulation for an FM shutdown during the coming mandate period. Instead, a non-committing wording is included in the agreement. (as follows below)
Neigbouring Sweden continues to expand FM networks.
The security situation will leave DAB out of the picture.
The increasingly tense security situation around the Baltic Sea has definitely killed all visions of replacing the current FM networks with any different technologies like DAB+ in Sweden. This according to our reliable sources in government authorities. Reports from Norway during the 2017 national FM switch-off also confirm many of the concerns expressed in referral reports from several Swedish authorities regarding the latest digital radio 2015 proposal to replace FM with DAB+. - Now, there are indications of an upcoming disaster for the radio emergency alert capacity in Norway unless there will be a change of course.
A protest storm by commercial radio organisations.
Bavaria poll: Overwhelming majority against FM shutdown.
Bavaria is the German state in which the digital radio DAB+ is most developed. But still almost next to none want a shutdown of the analogue FM radio (VHF) in favor of DAB according emerges from a survey of the private broadcaster Antenne Bayern . "Shall we force a shutdown on VHF?", the station asked. A staggering 91.6 percent of respondents say "No, they want to decide for themselves how to receive radio." Only 8.4 percent said they could do without FM.
 |
| Picture: VG |
Lobbyists are spreading a false picture of the digital OTA transition
During 2017 Norway switched-off its national FM network and replaced it with DAB+. Reports distributed by DAB promoters to international media depict the transition as ”successful”. However, the listeners do not agree. Last month the Oslo daily Dagbladet published a Ipsos poll indicating that 56% of the Norwegians are not satisfied with DAB, 31% satisfied and 12% do not know.
Trying to force the listeners to scrap their FM receivers and invest in DAB+ receivers will come to a high cost for the three major broadcasters. Public radio NRK has lost a considerable part of its listeners – about a fifth during 2017.
Will the new Minister of Culture also be in the hands of lobbyists?
Prime Minister Erna Solberg has presented his new tripartite government. New Minister of Culture Trine Skei Grande (Venstre = Liberals), has previously shown that she has experience from radio and is skeptical about DAB. In the 2011 parliamentary debate on DAB radio report, she expressed skepticism before taking the decision. She hoped it was the last time the politicians in Stortinget decided on an information-sharing technology.
Upgrade to DAB+ decreased DAB listening by 40%
More than every third DAB listener lost digital radio right after the old DAB channels were shut down in October. But many have found new ways to receive radio such as FM and the Internet. When the network was upgraded to the newer technology DAB+ in October last year, between 200,000 and 400,000 Danish radio receivers became unusable. Shortly after the change, DAB listening fell by 40%, according to the public radio Danmarks Radio (DR).
