End of road for analogue? [Digital radio switchover]

Norway has announced the end of analogue radio, and plans to be the first country to turn off one of five FM transmitters on 11 January 2017; this will save £35m as FM costs eight times more to run than DAB. Although a number of countries are in the analogue-to-digital transition period, Norway will be the first to fully scrap traditional terrestrial radio and turn to DAB, providing 22 national channels, and potentially a further 20 more. Despite a successful switchover for terrestrial television in 2012, it is highly unlikely that radio stations will follow suit as the UK government has proposed a new deadline ?f 2020 or abandoning the idea altogether. Ed Vaizey, the UK minister of state for culture and the digital economy, has acknowledged that the public's acceptance of DAB radios has been limited, with a lack of investment in DAB technologies in the UK.