NORWAY TO BE FIRST COUNTRY TO SWITCH OFF FM RADIO

Apr 21, 2015 Victor Okech Kisumu, National, News, Regional, Technology, World 0

In what will likely be the first of a global transition to digital radio. Norway has announces it will switch of its FM radio, becoming the first country to do so. Norway will start turning off FM radio on January 11th 2017, and plans to stop the last transmission of the last FM signal to the country’s northernmost regions by December of that year. The move is intended to save money and allow a full transition to digital radio which Norway argues will give listeners “access to more diverse and pluralistic radio content and enjoy better sound quality and new functionality”.

Ultimately the goal would be to move to digital since other technologies are moving to digital and you don’t want to, long term, be the only analogue player on the digital block, said Dennis Wharton the Executive Vice President of Communications for the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington D.C.

Norway has long been a digital radio pioneer. NRK launched the worlds first DAB channel on June 1st 1995. Other Scandinavian countries as well as the UK are thought to be considering an FM switch-off by 2022. The digital roll-out in other European countries has been slower, with old FM radio still proving more popular in several territories.

This comes as Kenya is plagued with a lot of controversy as it switches off analogue broadcast signals for TV stations.

The move by Norway to switch off FM radio will save the country more than $25 million in a year.

Story courtesy of Yahoo Aviate