Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to pull plug on FM radio

Swiss here: Pretty certain this is part of a pressure campaign by the SRF ("Swiss Radio and Television"). They are facing budget cuts nationally through an initiative that will be voted on probably later this year (https://srg-initiative.ch/). By preemptively cutting services on their own (that they are not forced to under the text of the initiative) they probably hope to sway voter's opinion.

20 years ago, Germany decided to stop FM broadcasting in 2015. Digital radio (DAB+) was heavily advertised. Despite a fear campaign ("your radio will stop working soon!"), almost nobody cared or replaced their working cheap kitchen or car radio. The plan to stop FM broadcasting was finally abandoned in 2011, because radio stations would've lost 80% of their listeners. My parents bought a DAB+ kitchen radio in 2009, but never liked it and it stopped working after a few years. They replaced it with a new FM radio.

I have a genuine question, what's to gain from this? I could half-understand it if they were going to re-allocate the 88-108 MHz block, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I could also understand why such an action would be taken if that meant that they could pack more stations in the same spectrum, but considering that Switzerland is a relatively small country, so is there really a market? Even if considering multiple languages per niche.

I guess a case could be made for power savings by virtue of (assuming local topography allows) lower power transmitters or by multiplexing various stations on the same transmitter.

On a personal level, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about all forms of analog broadcasting being slowly phased out. The tinkerer in me likes the idea of being capable of constructing an information receiving device in an almost "survivalist" manner, but if this trend continues and analog FM really goes the way of the dodo, then I surmise that DAB (or whichever local flavor is chosen) will become easily and cheaply available, which makes my gut feeling a moot point anyway.

I don't know, I just don't like the idea of needing a processor to receive broadcast audio, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

DAB has worse behavior with marginal signal quality. When a FM signal may be slightly degraded with static, DAB just gives up entirely.

I really hate that engineers, regulators, and businesspeople managed to work together to make something simple and reliable less reliable but more "modern".

FM is so simple and robust. It should never be turned off.

Switzerland has a national siren network, tested annually, and regularly reminds its citizens "if the sirens sound, turn on the radio to DRS/SRF 1". They've added the swissalert mobile app more recently, but I guess everyone is going to have to buy new radio sets who doesn't have a DAB+ one already.

The reverse scenario happened here in Singapore. It was the first in Asia to introduce DAB in 1999. The national broadcaster MediaCorp then decided to cease DAB transmission in 2011, forcing those who've invested in new DAB equipment to throw them out the window (while many are dual-FM/DAB sets, some more affordable ones are exclusively DAB-only). Interesting that the decision was made to go backwards in technology, likely motivated by economics.

Does DAB really offer better quality? From what I know, stations opt for puny 64kbps streams which sound nowhere near as good as FM can.

My fav ... part of di radio ... is tha you only he ... ha of the broadc ... whe sign i poor...

It's useless in the car, in my experience on-and-off the last 10 years or so. Too many blackspots (in the UK)

Nobody wants this especially since there are still quite a lot of cars that have old radios.

I thought there was an agreement that we would wait a little longer but for what ever reason the SRG thinks they know better.

An FM receiver is pretty basic, cheap, and easily understood/home-built technology. Does DAB+ require an encryption key, license, or otherwise limited-access component that would prevent people from rolling their own receiver?

I understand why the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRF) wants to pull the plug on FM radio. But I think there are still some good reasons to keep it around. FM radio is simple and strong, and it can be heard by a lot of people even in areas with bad internet access. FM radio also comes in handy in emergencies, like when natural disasters knock out other ways to communicate.

This is the analog (pun) in radio technology of abandoning physical cash and switching exclusively to digital money.

Optimisation, efficiency and monoculture versus redundancy, resilience and diversity.

Oddly, in Ireland we did the opposite; the last DAB transmitter was switched off a year or so ago (digital radio, oddly, is still available bugs DVB-T2, bundled with the terrestrial digital tv signals, though I’m not sure anyone really listens to it that way).

Interesting. I live near Switzerland and the only time I listen to radio is using FM in my car. I hope this same idea doesn't make it to the country where I live.

It made me sad when I got into amateur radio to learn that SRI had shut down their famous HF (shortwave) transmissions just a few years prior.

But I still listen to podcasts and streaming from RTS/SRF. They do great world news coverage from a kind of detached perspective. Gotta know French or German, for next 6mo until it becomes commonplace to have live transvocalized podcasts.

Might be an anti-anti-fragile move…

Does it mean the 88Mhz -> 108Mhz frequency band will go to back the auction block ?

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is pulling the plug on FM radio. How quaint.

I'm not a fan of DAB+. The range is less than FM, and the compression artifacts are a real treat. Why not just go back to good ol' analog AM, then? Oh wait, it's been deemed too "rustic" and "unmodern".

FM was a great way to listen to the radio, don't you think? You could actually hear the music without it sounding like a tin can on a string. And don't even get me started on the so-called "HD Radio" nonsense in the States. It's just a way to cram more commercials down our throats and make our radios more expensive.

What's with this obsession with "spectrum efficiency" and "bandwidth management"? Can't we just have a simple, reliable way to listen to the radio without it sounding like it's coming from a broken tape deck?

I still remember when LW was around. That was real broadcasting. None of this fancy-schmancy digital stuff. Just pure, raw signal strength. You could pick it up with a pair of cans and a piece of twine, no problem.

So, yeah, Switzerland, go ahead and pull the plug on FM. See if I care. I'll just use my trusty AM radio and enjoy the beautiful, analog sound of static.