WGXC-90.7 FM

Radio News: British put brakes on digital radio switch

Mar 20, 2018 10:50 pm
Gizmodo reports that while the British switched their television signals from analog to digital in 2012, the BBC is keeping analog FM Radio around "for the foreseeable future." Previously, the government said once 50 percent of consumers had digital radios and 90 percent of the population could receive digital signals, they would switch to DAB. Now, though, the BBC's director of radio and music Bob Shennan thinks ending analog radio would be "premature." He recently said, "We need to do more in the UK before we consider a switchover and for that to be genuinely led by the audience. We are fully committed to digital and we believe we should review the landscape again in a few years' time." Norway is the only country to have gone completely digital, even with 66 percent of Norwegians opposed to the move when it began. In England, many new cars can receive digital signals, but most household FM radios cannot.