Norway to turn 1st nation to switch off FM radio

Norway is set to turn a initial republic to start switching off a FM radio network subsequent week, in a unsure and unpopular jump to digital record that will be closely watched by other countries deliberation either to follow suit.

Critics contend a supervision is rushing a pierce and many people might skip warnings on emergencies that have until now been promote around a radio. Of sold regard are a two million cars on Norway’s roads that are not versed with digital audio broadcasting (DAB) receivers, they say.

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Sixty-six per cent of Norwegians conflict switching off FM, with only 17 per cent in foster and a rest undecided, according to an opinion check published by a daily Dagbladet final month.

Nevertheless, council gave a final go-ahead for a pierce final month, convinced by a fact that digital networks can lift some-more radio channels.

‘Several countries going in a same direction’

Switzerland skeleton a identical change from 2020, and a U.K. and Denmark are among those also deliberation such a switch. A well-spoken transition to DAB, that is already beamed opposite Norway, could inspire these countries to pierce ahead.

The shutdown of a FM (frequency modulation) network, introduced in a 1950s, will start in a northern city of Bodo on Jan. 11.

An aged radio station, now a telegram museum, is seen in a mining city Ny-Alesund Svalbard in Norway. By a finish of 2017, all inhabitant FM broadcasts will be sealed in foster of digital. (Anna Filipova/Reuters)

By a finish of a year, all inhabitant FM broadcasts will be sealed in foster of DAB, that backers contend carries reduction hiss and clearer sound via a vast republic of five million people cut by fjords and mountains.

“We’re a initial nation to switch off FM though there are several countries going in a same direction,” pronounced Ole Joergen Torvmark, conduct of Digital Radio Norway, that is owned by inhabitant broadcasters NRK and P4 to assistance a transition.

Torvmark pronounced cars were a “biggest challenge” — a good digital adapter for an FM automobile radio costs 1,500 Norwegian crowns ($235 Cdn), he said.

‘We are simply not prepared for this yet’

One member of a statute bloc was scathing, however, voicing concerns identical to those voiced by thousands of aged and drivers in surveys and elsewhere.

“We are simply not prepared for this yet,” Ib Thomsen, an MP from a Progress Party, a partner in a Conservative-led government, told Reuters.

“There are two million cars on Norwegian roads that don’t have DAB receivers, and millions of radios in Norwegian homes will stop operative when a FM net is switched off. So there is really a reserve concern,” he said.

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For a same cost, digital radio in Norway allows 8 times some-more radio stations than FM. The stream complement of together FM and digital networks, any of that cost about 250 million crowns ($39 million Cdn), saps investments in programs.

Among other nations, a U.K. skeleton to examination a need for a switchover once digital listening reaches 50 per cent. That could be reached by a finish of 2017 on stream trends, Digital Radio U.K. mouthpiece Yvette Dore said.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/norway-fm-radio-switch-off-digital-1.3923612?cmp=rss