Creative Commons by Celesteh.
On May 19, 2011 the Norwegian government passed a bill that states that FM will be switched off in June 2017. Both myself and others believed that this would influence other countries. And it has.
Yesterday, Danish Minister of Culture, Mr. Uffe Elbæk stated that he wants to switch off FM in Denmark too. He wants to prioritize radio as a medium by speeding up digitalization, according to the radio oriented news site radionyt.com.
He writes: “The DAB technology and internet radio give new possibilities to secure an increased diversity of nationwide and local radio offerings. Local and regional radio will be digitalized through DAB, and as was done in Norway, a switch off date for FM will be set.”
It is not clear when the date will be determined or when switch off will occur.
Other countries such as United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia do also aim for a switch off date for FM. The UK may be the first to switch off. They will switch off FM two years after 50% of all radio listening occurs digitally. It is now at almost 30%. If that is achieved before 2015, they can beat Norway to it as being the first country to switch off. Can Denmark do it even faster?
The questions is now, which countries will follow suit?