Norway has started the process of shutting down their national FM broadcasts in favour of digital broadcasts, a process that will conclude by the end of the year. Why is this significant from a loudness perspective? How does digital audio broadcasting (DAB) differ from FM? Does radio even matter going forward?
DAB vs. FM
Why switch to DAB in the first place?
Money. I mean, the press release cites “a greater diversity of radio stations,” “noise-free reception” and “a range of new features,” but the punchline is this:
“With the liquidation of FM broadcasts the national radio channels will save over 200 million a year, money that could be spent on radio content.”
Theoretically, DAB should be able to provide a higher quality signal; however, this largely depends on the bitrate used for the broadcast. A 128 kbps - 192 kbps MP2 signal seems to be the minimum for a decent quality music broadcast - one that is comparable to an FM broadcast. But as you add more channels, the available bandwidth for each channel decreases, so there is a quantity vs. quality tradeoff.
By the end of 2017, most broadcasters in Norway will be using DAB+, which uses the AAC+ codec and is about three times more efficient than DAB.
All this is well and good, but here’s the best part…
Biggest Benefit: Loudness Normalization
Norway’s national DAB broadcasters agreed to adopt loudness normalization back in February 2012, choosing a normalization level of -15 LUFS.
Maybe I’m slightly biased, but that’s great news! Sort of…
It’s great that they’re adopting loudness normalization, because that results in more consistent playback levels for listeners, but why choose -15 LUFS instead of -23 LUFS, the standard for TV broadcasts?
The broadcasters deemed -23 LUFS to be too low when compared to current FM levels, which might lead to large jumps in loudness when switching between DAB and FM. This is a frequent occurrence when driving through the country’s many tunnels, which the DAB signals don’t cover (or did not at the time that -15 LUFS was chosen). Perhaps this level will be decreased further when FM is fully retired…
Interestingly, Norway’s DAB level of -15 LUFS is close to that used by iTunes (-16 LUFS) and Tidal (-14 LUFS). So if you’re music sounds great there, it’ll sound great on Norwegian DAB 
Do We Even Need Radio?
I can’t remember the last time I listened to the radio, even while in a car.
For most Millennials that I know, the smartphone is their radio, and the first thing you do when you get into a car is hook-up your phone. Typically we’ll listen to downloaded music, but as cellular data becomes cheaper, faster and more widespread, you can imagine that streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, YouTube, etc., will be accessed in the car. In fact, Apple now has CarPlay which allows you to hook your iPhone up to your car’s display, giving you a larger screen to work with.
Plus, there’s the attention factor. Before the smart phone, there wasn’t much to do in the car other than listening to the radio. You were a captive audience. Now, with a smartphone, you have access to games, social media, video, etc., all potential alternatives to music and radio.
Besides richer content, the phone has a key advantage over radio: contextual advertising. Mobile phone advertisers know where you live, how old you are, who you’re friends with on Facebook, what your interests are and what you’ve been Googling. This allows them to (theoretically) deliver relevant ads that you might actually care to hear. Imagine that! I suspect that this will cause the price of radio ads to decline, leading to lower revenues for stations. Will they survive?
Closing Thoughts
Whether smartphones take over or radio experiences a renaissance, one thing is clear: loudness normalization is spreading. The streaming platforms have it, TV has it, and now it’s finding its way into DAB.
How does this affect you when you’re mixing and mastering? I think it means that loudness no longer matters, and that you should focus on dynamics.
But I want to hear from you. What do you think about radio’s future and FM vs. DAB? How often do you listen to the radio? Where do you typically “discover” new music? Leave a comment below!
