Denmark's government is to drop its plans to re-work the FM network, and instead concentrate on DAB as the future of broadcast radio, including a plan to make the transition from DAB to DAB+.
Yesterday, the government and the other parties agreed on a supplementary agreement to the media political agreement for 2007-2010 – this agreement states that the future of radio is digital. The government will drop the re-planning of the FM network, and instead rely completely on DAB.
A long term digitization plan for radio in Denmark will be worked out, and will include the transition plan from DAB to DAB+.
The agreement also states that the network will be upgraded to allow for local and regional stations to broadcasting digitally as well.
Denmark's Culture Minister Carina Christensen says: "I am very pleased that we managed to create a broad consensus in the media agreement group to develop the Danish radio market in order to improve the framework for a more versatile and diverse radio offering for the Danish listeners. We have particularly emphasized the need to strengthen the commercial radio industry by providing better business environment, including securing more commercial broadcasters on DAB."
DAB+ has already launched in Switzerland, Malta, Italy and Australia, and offers the AAC+ audio codec and stronger error correction coding than DAB.
