Norway ends its analogue radio, should we follow in its wake?

Norway is the second country in the world, after the United Kingdom, to formally set a date for the shutdown of analogue radio broadcasts. But what is the situation in the rest of the world?

A few days ago Norway set a date for the cessation of analog radio broadcasts, in favor of digital broadcasts. It was announced by the Minister of Culture of the Norwegian government: the shutdown process will begin on January 11, 2017 and will end on December 13 of the same year.

Norway is the second country in the world to formally set a date for the shutdown of analogue radio broadcasts. The first was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was decided in 2010 (The Digital Economy Act), to occur in 2015. At the end of the same year, the date of 2015 was modified to place it in 2017 at the earliest. Subsequently, in December 2013 the British Government decided that the transition would only occur when a series of objectives were met:

when the combined digital audience on all platforms reaches 50% of the population
when DAB coverage is comparable to FM coverage
when local DAB coverage reaches 90% of the population and main roads.

At the same time, it renounced the 2017 date until the previous objectives had been met. In any case, the transition would be without prejudice to the right of local stations to continue using FM indefinitely.

Returning to Norway, this country has also been a pioneer in the analogue switch-off of television, which it carried out in 2009.

As for the radio, the thing came before: the resolution had been adopted by the Norwegian Parliament in 2011, subjecting the transition to a series of conditions:

The digital coverage of all NRK public radio services must be equal to the analog coverage of the first program of that
The digital coverage of national commercial services must be 90% of the population
The digital radio offer must provide added value for listeners

All this with two other additional conditions:

Affordable and technically satisfactory solutions to enable vehicle radio reception
Digital audience of at least 50% of daily listeners using any type of platform

Norway ready for transition. And the rest of the world?

Apart from the United States of America where another digital radio standard (HDRadio) is being developed, there are currently 21 countries in the world with DAB/DMB service in operation (these 21 countries include Gibraltar, Malta, Monaco, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. They are not exactly large countries with large populations. Among the 21 countries is China... With DAB service coverage covering 4% of the population. Above 80% We only have 11 countries of coverage.

Regarding the fleet of DAB receivers, if we do not take into account South Korea, with a system like the DMB that cannot be considered strictly radio, only 9 of the 21 countries have data (the source is from the WORLD DMB Forum, and the data from September 2014): the United Kingdom in the lead, with 19 million receivers, another five countries above one million (Germany 2.7, Denmark 1.7, Australia 1.6, Switzerland 1.5, Norway 1,2) and three pause more with figures below one hundred thousand: Sweden, Hong Kong and... China!

Regarding DAB in vehicles, the countries that provide sales figures for the last year Percentage of vehicles sold equipped with a DAB receiver): Norway, 63%, United Kingdom, 61%, Switzerland, 45%, Germany, 10%, Italy 3% and Australia 5%.

Frankly, with these data it is not reasonable to think of a rapid transition to DAB technology in the short or medium term.

Does Norway's decision change the panorama at all?

In my opinion, practically nothing. Norway is a unique country in terms of its geography, topography and demography. It is the same in terms of the implementation of the radio, the programs in service and its public-private nature.

I am convinced that, today, in Spain we cannot afford to maintain, in addition to analog networks, a digital network with similar coverage for several years.

On the other hand, it does not seem that this responds to a need of society or spectrum users: unlike television, where digitization is followed by a process of releasing frequencies for occupation by other services, there is absolutely no plan for the occupation of the FM band after its hypothetical release. Furthermore, in both the United Kingdom and Norway, plans for analogue switch-off provide for continued use of the FM band by local and low-power stations.

In another part of the world like the United States of America, instead of the battle of the digital transition with a fixed date (there they are with the development of their HDRadio at the pace imposed by the market and the economic situation), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is focusing on a very different place: on requesting the authorization of the radio receiver that is already integrated into many smartphones and that have been “hidden” in the devices that are being sold in the United States (here too).

I totally agree with the NAB strategy; It is precisely what we should start doing in Spain.