Is there life in the old DAB yet?

 In the UK, for example, culture secretary Ed Vaizey announced a year ago that the government was not in a position to announce a firm date for digital switchover. There have been no indications since then that anything has changed.

Although half of the world’s digital radio consumer sales are in the UK, DAB (digital audio broadcast) is simply not growing as fast as expected. It has also been severely criticised for being little better than FM – even though digital radios are much more expensive – and for patchy, unreliable coverage.

One sometimes gets the impression that regulators are simply waiting for DAB to die out, so that internet radios and smartphones can take over and they won’t have to bother organising all that tedious switchover nonsense.

The BBC, meanwhile, the UK’s public broadcaster, is working on a new generation of “hybrid” radio. The aim is to combine the robust, free-to-air reception of broadcast radio with the digital enhancements and interactivity of the internet.

But elsewhere in Europe, things are very different. German public broadcaster ARD has committed itself to a transition to the more advanced DAB+, while Norway has announced that all criteria have been met for FM switch off in 2017. In Switzerland, a digital migration working group has just proposed that all Swiss radio stations should be broadcast via DAB+ by 2024 at the latest.

And at the start of this week, a Swedish government-sponsored commission proposed a “roadmap” to a digital-only future. If the country’s parliament approves the plan in autumn 2015 and the proposed compulsory procurement of the distribution service proceeds smoothly, then FM could be switched off in 2022. If the criteria are not met by 2020, then this could be delayed until 2024.

“The announcements from Sweden and Switzerland send a clear statement that the future of radio is digital,” claims Patrick Hannon, president of standards body WorldDMB.

There may be life in the old DAB yet.

Jonathan Watson, PolicyTracker