Switch off analogue radio, says digital radio team

The Digital Radio Working Group - appointed by government to think deep thoughts about promoting digital radio in the UK - have called for analogue to be switched off altogether.

Well, yes, that's one way of persuading people to buy digital radios.

But they turn out to be in no great hurry - they're suggesting the switch-off of FM should be completed by 2020, or three full years after the robot ants make us our their slaves. This far-distant future vision is compounded by the belief that, along with some talk of trying to get European harmonisation, the main way radio will be listened to a decade or so hence will still be DAB:

"We believe that, at least for the foreseeable future, the UK market must adopt DAB as the main digital radio broadcast platform. The UK DAB market is well developed and we believe it is not sensible, at this stage, to switch to technologies which are not compatible with the more than 7m DAB sets already sold."

It would make far more sense, then, to hobble on with DAB for a few more years yet, and then realise that the smart money is on IP radio delivered through internet connections of one sort or another. Still, then we can convene a group to recommend DAB switch-off in 2045.