Heavy Cuts For Irish Public Service Company RTÉ

200 employees are laid off. Closing the DAB radio network. 

Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), one of the world's oldest public broadcasters, must save an additional € 60 million in 2020-2023. RTÉ has ​​cut costs by 23 percent over the last ten years, but still has a poor economy due to reduced revenue from the TV fee. Five radio channels will be gone, but RTÉ is investing for a future on-line.

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

Parliament of Second Largest State in Germany Says Farewell to DAB+

Asking for a market-driven transition to a more modern technology

The Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) state parliament wants to end the promotion of the terrestrial transmission standard DAB+ for digital radios. A request from the liberal party FDP was unanimously adopted on June 19. The resolution recommendation calls on the state government jointly with the federal government to switch off DAB+ in favor of other standards such as 5G. Last year DAB was questioned by Auditors and business in Lower Saxony.

Problems For Commercial Radio Abandoning the FM Band

Head of Bauer commercial radio in Norway replaced. DAB still a flop.

The CEO of Bauer Media in Norway for six years, Lasse Kokvik, has promptly left his job, without having another one in the pipeline. The new boss Jim Receveur, is CEO of Bauer Media Danmark, will retain his role as CEO of the Danish part of the company. Bauer is one of two commercial radio networks in Norway. Main channel is Radio Norge but Bauer is also operating another seven channels in the DAB network. The rapid change of throne occurs as the economy for Bauer's Norwegian operation is deteriorating while many listeners reject DAB radio. At the same time, Bauer is profitable in the neighboring countries, where they still broadcast on FM.

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.