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Singapore got it wrong with digital radio

Norway has become the first country to start shutting down FM radio (“Norway to switch off FM radio in risky, unpopular shift to digital”; Jan 6, Channel NewsAsia).

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Wong Boon Hong

Norway has become the first country to start shutting down FM radio (“Norway to switch off FM radio in risky, unpopular shift to digital”; Jan 6, Channel NewsAsia).

And I am disappointed that Singapore, which has prided itself on being a leader in technology adoption, had moved backwards and shut down digital radio instead. The justification was that digital audio broadcasting (DAB) had insufficient listeners.

The authority, however, did not realise and address the cause of the low listenership. From 1999, when DAB was launched here, to 2011, when it was shut down, DAB receivers were not only rare but overpriced.

Who would pay S$600 for a dedicated radio receiver? Many of these were also low-tech, with a single speaker and therefore incapable of stereo output.

In Europe, many sound systems that have radio receivers come with DAB instead of FM radio. So listeners switch over unknowingly, even when they had no intention of buying a DAB receiver.

But in Singapore, the same models that came with DAB radio in Europe came with FM radio instead. So how could we have gained high listenership in such an environment?

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