Norway shutting down all FM radio stations by 2017

[Borgholio]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/19/84531 ... radio-2017

Norway will shut down FM radio in the country beginning in 2017, Radio.no reports. The Norwegian Ministry of Culture finalized a shift date this week, making it the first country to do away with FM radio entirely. The country plans to transition to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) as a national standard.

A statement released this week by the Ministry of Culture confirms a switch-off date that was proposed by the Norwegian government back in 2011. The government has concluded that the country is capable of meeting all the requirements necessary for a smooth transition to digital.

"Listeners will have access to more diverse and pluralistic radio-content, and enjoy better sound quality and new functionality," Minister of Culture Thorhild Widvey said in a statement. "Digitization will also greatly improve the emergency preparedness system, facilitate increased competition and offer new opportunities for innovation and development."

DAB currently offers 22 national channels as opposed to FM's five, and has the capacity to host almost 20 more. The cost of transmitting radio channels through FM is also eight times higher than the cost of DAB transmission, the ministry reports.

DAB has been available in Norway since 1995. DAB+, an updated form of DAB, was made available in 2007. According to the Ministry of Culture, it will be up to radio broadcasters to choose between DAB and DAB+ transmissions, although it is likely that by 2017, most broadcasting in the country will be in DAB+.

Several other countries in Europe and Southeast Asia are also considering a national move to DAB, but no other country has confirmed a timeline, Radio.no reports.

Norway's FM shutdown will begin on January 11th, 2017.

First thought that popped into my head...what about all those car radios?

[Purple]

People still use those? I always thought that they had been fatally shot by the car cassette player, buried by the car CD player and had extra nails driven in by modern internet phones.

[Borgholio]

An AM / FM radio has been standard equipment on pretty much every single car sold in the US for the last 40 years. People DO use the radio, despite the other options available. In addition to local music while traveling, there are plenty of news and talk programs out there.

[Purple]

An AM / FM radio has been standard equipment on pretty much every single car sold in the US for the last 40 years. People DO use the radio, despite the other options available. In addition to local music while traveling, there are plenty of news and talk programs out there.

Yea, but you can just tune on to those online for the most part.

[salm]

Yea, but you can just tune on to those online for the most part.

Most mobile phone contracts don´t give you unlimited internet data, so I guess not everybody wants to spend valuable MBs on music you can get for free via an antenna. And then there are plenty of people who don´t have a smart phone at all.
Then there are people like me whose car only has a radio and a tape player and good luck finding tapes today.

[Zaune]

Besides, DAB's standard equipment in most new cars in Europe these days and it's not all that expensive to get as an after-market option.

I'm not convinced it's a good idea, though. Unless the technology's come on an awfully long way since I last tried to use a DAB radio during a power outage some time in 2012, they go through batteries extremely fast. That's a bit of a problem given that radio is the go-to medium for emergency messages in the event of natural disasters.

[Borgholio]

Yea, but you can just tune on to those online for the most part.

You might not always be able to. Radio has the advantages of being cheap and everywhere. You can buy a 10 dollar radio anywhere and listen to music and information from a hundred miles away. You don't need an expensive smartphone or a data plan. Plus even if you do have a phone and data plan, there are dead zones where cell service simply doesn't exist, but radio can still get through. Plus, certain local news, weather and events may not be updated online.

[Purple]

That's a good point. Both of you. I had not thought of that. I my self do not own a smart telephone, nor have I ever wanted one. And I don't even use my mobile phone for music. It's a phone. But I know other people do and I do follow some radio stations through their online portals so I figured that's what people would do. What you say does make sense.

Overall, I just find it strange that anyone would even notice radio dying. It's just that in this day and age, really, a radio sounds like something that belongs right along side a steam locomotive and a horse and buggy.

[Borgholio]

Overall, I just find it strange that anyone would even notice radio dying. It's just that in this day and age, really, a radio sounds like something that belongs right along side a steam locomotive and a horse and buggy.

Radio is everywhere in this day and age. While it's not as popular as it was back in the 40's before the age of TV and the Internet, radio is still found everywhere and most people I know (even the younger generations) listen to it...at least while driving.

[Purple]

Overall, I just find it strange that anyone would even notice radio dying. It's just that in this day and age, really, a radio sounds like something that belongs right along side a steam locomotive and a horse and buggy.

Radio is everywhere in this day and age. While it's not as popular as it was back in the 40's before the age of TV and the Internet, radio is still found everywhere and most people I know (even the younger generations) listen to it...at least while driving.

I am not familiar with anyone who listens to it when not driving. That much I can tell you. Well, there is this one person who I know, but he is 80 and even he listens to it online via a laptop. As for driving I am willing to take your word for it as personally I tend to sleep through any trip that is longer than ~15 minutes. I even sleep in public transit whilst standing. And I am almost impossible to wake up through noise. So for all I know the radio might be blasting in the car without me ever finding out.

[General Zod]

Radio is everywhere in this day and age.

Except the subway.

[Borgholio]

Except the subway.

Yeah the subway system here in Los Angeles is...barely worth mentioning.

[salm]

I am not familiar with anyone who listens to it when not driving. That much I can tell you. Well, there is this one person who I know, but he is 80 and even he listens to it online via a laptop. As for driving I am willing to take your word for it as personally I tend to sleep through any trip that is longer than ~15 minutes. I even sleep in public transit whilst standing. And I am almost impossible to wake up through noise. So for all I know the radio might be blasting in the car without me ever finding out.

The radio is generally on in a lot of offices because they broadcast the least common denominator. That is why after a day at the office either your ears hurt from your headphones overriding the crap music or your ears bleed from the crap music you have to listen to.

[Elheru Aran]

Don't forget that in the US at least-- I'm not familiar with other countries-- radio is also a part of the Emergency Broadcast System. So in the event of natural (or other) disaster, the emergency agencies can take over the airwaves to tell civilians what to do. It's quick and easy and a good way to catch people who might be, for example, sitting in their old car in a traffic jam--hardly the place to be watching television or on the Internet.

[His Divine Shadow]

People still use those? I always thought that they had been fatally shot by the car cassette player, buried by the car CD player and had extra nails driven in by modern internet phones.

No way. I've bought maybe half a dozen records in my life, all of them in the 90s, I listen to radio all the time and I don't consume any bought music whatsoever. The talk radio (the public one anyway) is also quite good and makes me angry multiple times a day so they must be doing something right.

[Titan Uranus]

Yea, but you can just tune on to those online for the most part.

Most mobile phone contracts don´t give you unlimited internet data, so I guess not everybody wants to spend valuable MBs on music you can get for free via an antenna. And then there are plenty of people who don´t have a smart phone at all.
Then there are people like me whose car only has a radio and a tape player and good luck finding tapes today.

There are relatively cheap (~$15 if I recall correctly) headphone jack to cassette adapters for just such a situation.


Can adapters be made for older model radios or is an entirely new radio required?

[Enigma]

I haven't listened to radio since around 2007 when my hearing tanked badly but until then, I listened to the car radio daily, mainly talk radio. But if my hearing didn't suck, I'd still listen to the radio but I wouldn't bother to pay for digital radio for my car. If I had it free before, why would I want to pay for it now?

[Zaune]

There are relatively cheap (~$15 if I recall correctly) headphone jack to cassette adapters for just such a situation.


Can adapters be made for older model radios or is an entirely new radio required?

You can't convert an FM radio to DAB if that's what you're asking, but judging from a brief skim of the eBay listings you can get a DAB receiver with one of those low-power FM transmitters for about US$90 and a proper DAB car radio for $150. (I've never tried it myself, but I'm told that swapping them out is fiddly but not too technically challenging.) Inconvenient for a lot of people, but not bank-breaking.

[LaCroix]

Not having and listening to the radio in a car seems almost comically absurd to me. Where else would you get your traffic announcements while driving? That'a almost universal rule for driving - the radio is on. And if you listen to CD or MP3, you still have them on TA interruption mode, so you don't miss that.

Also, why do you think there are a gazillion radio broadcasters competing if nobody would listen to 'real' radio? You don't need a huge expensive antenna to stream your programm online - the main customer for radio stations is still the car driver.

Listening to radio and cars go together like horse and carriage, and will for a long time.

[Gaidin]

Radio is everywhere in this day and age.

Except the subway.

My metro has repeaters. It is smart. In some ways.

[Zaune]

Not having and listening to the radio in a car seems almost comically absurd to me. Where else would you get your traffic announcements while driving? That'a almost universal rule for driving - the radio is on. And if you listen to CD or MP3, you still have them on TA interruption mode, so you don't miss that.

There's almost certainly a plethora of smartphone apps for traffic bulletins. And I don't know about your part of the world, but round here FM is kind of on its way out; besides the BBC stations we're down to one formerly-local outfit that got bought out by some huge corporation and is now a soulless voice-tracked shell of its former self (not that it was very good in the first place), a couple of 'community radio' stations with such a tiny coverage area that I don't think I can pick either of them up from this apartment, and Classic FM.

Compare that to the hundred-plus stations I can get on DAB, never mind the infinite possibilities of Spotify or Pandora.

[Borgholio]

Might be that FM radio is just much bigger in the US than in Europe. I know that even in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, I can get close to a dozen music stations. In a metro area like Los Angeles, there is almost literally one station every .2 - .4 MHz on the dial. So many in fact that there is often overlap with another station.

[LaCroix]

Generally speaking, in Europe, radio stations are still going strong. Most countries do have a lot of stations competing, local and national. Also, for the sake of my argument, it doesn't matter if you use FM or DAB, both is still "radio" in the car. I never talked about anything else but that. Radio. In cars.

(But if you're interested - in Austria, DAB died a silent death and went off air in 2008 due to lacking interest from broadcasters, though they do want to try again with DAB+ sometime this year. So we're still FM all over, and a shitton of private broadcasters on top of ORF.)

Smartphone use while driving is a quite grey area here - you're not allowed to use it while driving, unless it's a navigation device. Depending on how the app looks, police might fine you. Also, if you use the phone app, you can't listen to music with the phone right now, right? Seems awkward to me to have different devices for a purpose that is perfectly well serviced by an appliance built into the car by default.

[Simon_Jester]

Norway may be an unusual case for some reason; their broadcast industry may focus on AM bands, or they may only have a very limited number of FM stations in each metropolitan area.

[Batman]

Mom's always got the radio going for company even at home, and I know a lot of people who do rely on CDs/MP3s for their musical wants still rely on the radio for traffic information while driving.