Norway is discontinuing FM radio
This seems very premature. According to the article 70% of households in Norway listen to radio digitally; this leaves over 1.5 million people who don't, and will presumably have to fork out for a new radio if they want to carry on listening. Car radios are still mostly FM, apparently, and motorists will have to buy an expensive adapter.
Making people scrap perfectly functional radios doesn't really sit well with Norway's good reputation on environmental issues.
Other technical issues are covered by various commenters on the article. A muffled or degraded DAB signal is horrible to hear - a blaring, teeth-grinding BLAART - whereas a poor FM signal is generally listenable if you don't mind a little white noise around it.
From a UK perspective this is troubling - "In the UK more than 35% of radio listening is digital. The government has said the switch from FM to DAB will happen when the figure stands at 50% and the DAB signal can be received by 90% of the population." So at that juncture 7 million people will just be unable to listen to the radio?
As for internet radio, if you don't have decent internet then listening to it veers from frustrating to impossible.
Conclusion - this is more digital drawbridge stuff.
This seems very premature. According to the article 70% of households in Norway listen to radio digitally; this leaves over 1.5 million people who don't, and will presumably have to fork out for a new radio if they want to carry on listening. Car radios are still mostly FM, apparently, and motorists will have to buy an expensive adapter.
Making people scrap perfectly functional radios doesn't really sit well with Norway's good reputation on environmental issues.
Other technical issues are covered by various commenters on the article. A muffled or degraded DAB signal is horrible to hear - a blaring, teeth-grinding BLAART - whereas a poor FM signal is generally listenable if you don't mind a little white noise around it.
From a UK perspective this is troubling - "In the UK more than 35% of radio listening is digital. The government has said the switch from FM to DAB will happen when the figure stands at 50% and the DAB signal can be received by 90% of the population." So at that juncture 7 million people will just be unable to listen to the radio?
As for internet radio, if you don't have decent internet then listening to it veers from frustrating to impossible.
Conclusion - this is more digital drawbridge stuff.
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