Norway goes Digital, eliminates FM radio

[billohno@gmail.com]

Are Norway, the UK, and others on DAB+?

Was Hybrid Digital some sort of attempt to fend off DAB here in the states?

Bill O'Neill

> On Jan 11, 2017, at 10:12 PM, Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
> 
> <<On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 01:45:37 +0000, Michael Wilkins <wilkinsmg@hotmail.com> said:
> 
>> What is the future of FM here in the states?
> 
> There is nothing coming down the pike, regulatory-wise, to replace
> it.  The band will keep on getting packed with more and more stations
> (and more and more unlikely directional patterns) to get the maximum
> analog coverage until it becomes uneconomical.
> 
> If it's not gone completely by mid-century, it will have happened only
> because that spectrum just isn't that valuable for any of the possible
> competing uses.
> 
> In countries that have successfully transitioned radio to digital, a
> few factors apply:
> 
> 1) Stations licensed on a national basis with a universal-service
> obligation.
> 
> 2) A small number of broadcasters dominating the media landscape,
> including state-owned broadcasters.
> 
> 3) A sufficient amount of favorable spectrum available to allow a
> out-of-band digital service.
> 
> 4) A regulatory policy that favors signal parity over competitive
> advantage between broadcasters serving a particular area.
> 
> 5) A regulatory policy that separates transmitter ownership and
> operation from programming.
> 
> Canada tried to implement Eureka 147 a decade and a half ago, with
> little success: none of these factors weighed in favor.  They were
> closest on (4) and (5) but Canadian regulation is much more about
> preserving the economics of incumbent broadcasters, with whatever
> signal constraints they may have, rather than equality, and while they
> do have separate licensing bodies for transmitters (Industry Canada)
> and programming (the CRTC), the two licenses have to be held by the
> same operator.
> 
> In the UK, where all of those factors do pertain, the DAB
> implementation went much better -- although unlike Norway they haven't
> yet killed off analog broadcasting entirely.
> 
> -GAWollman
>